First Day of JK!

So here in CA PreK is called Junior Kindergarten. Semantics really. Regardless, Emma was soexcited about going to school. We knew this was one task on our list of things to complete when we arrived in California that could not be put on the back burner.

I began the search for the perfect school last week with calling pretty much every single preschool in the El Dorado Hills area looking for open spots. Here is California they do things a little bit different. They offer both morning and afternoon classes for Junior Kindergarten and they also have many in home preschools. I decided to keep an open mind as I visited many of them. After some careful thought and consideration Dave, Emma and I decided on Golden Hills School.

From the reaction from her first day, I know we made the right choice.

Emma has to wear a uniform. To her dislike, the school colors do not include purple. However, she is permitted to wear her signature dark purple bow!

When we arrived the Principal, Assistant Principal, a class mom and her 5 new friends were all waiting to welcome her. What a great way to start your first day!.Her teacher, Miss Perry, said she did great. She has only 6 kids in her class. ( again, something different here, small class sizes, the ratio is 6:1) They are already through the alphabet and starting to read. She and Miss Perry were having a nice discussion about how her daughter is also named Emma and how she thought Emma was an awesome name and how happy she was to have her in her class.. Emma's reply,"they do not call me Awesome Emma for nothin'."

Flying lessons after school

( the tissue are her wings)

Another first happened in the Losin house last night. Ellison slept on her tummy for the first time. Thanks to the video monitor, I was able to tell you about it. With Emma the only way we used to know about these things was when we would go in 100 times a night to make sure she was still breathing.

Santa Did Not Forget

Waiting for us in our mailbox a few days ago was a package from the North Pole. Santa kept his promise and Blackberry Bird arrived! Dave was listening on the phone and I wish I had flip videoed Emma hyperventilating when she opened the box and realized what it was. Oh yes, We now have 2 angry birds at the Losin household and thanks to Nana's little magic all of Folsom's Costco knows it too. Nana made the perfect double stroller and "the birds" made their debut. Of course, old puppy was along for the ride, strapped in the backpack.

We are an angry bird family and some one loves bacon!!!!!

One more thing to add that has changed since we made the move to California. For almost a year and a half, basically since Emma's 3rd birthday, her Barbie Jeep has been at a stand still. She and old puppy would make their "trips to NYC", but the gas pedal was never engaged.

Well move the girl 2600 miles from GA and she will test out the foothills terrain. And who better to check it out with her? None other than Blackberry!!!!!

Just Can't Get Enough

We just can not believe how much our little Ellison has grown up in the past few weeks. She is about to start crawling any minute and has made the transition to finger foods. All she wants is finger foods. Her favorite peas and potatoes and of course Mum Mums.

It is fun to watch her grow up and figure things out for herself but it makes my heart a little sad to see that infant phase start to fade away.

Mum Mums

Ellison Arrives

Welcome Ellison Sue Losin!

As any mother knows, or parent I should say, leaving your 8 month old for an entire week is heartbreaking. That is exactly how we felt leaving Ellison when we pulled out of Mimi and Gramps' driveway to make the cross country hike. We knew she was int he best care ever and that there was no way we would ever live up to the amount of fun she would have with her grandparents and how much smoother the trip was for all of us, including Ellison. Still we missed her like crazy.

But the day had arrived that she and Nana were making their arrival. I was panicked to be at the airport in time to see them come down the gateway. I did not take as many pictures as I would have liked because while I was standing there and when I saw that BOB stroller make the turn the tears were flowing. ( As I am writing this, I am realizing that I have a lot of emotions these days and that crying seems to come up a a lot. Rest assured that they are tears of joy.)

She got squeezed the whole rest of the day and settled in much easier than I had thought. I originally was thinking that the transition to the Pacific time zone would take a week, but that little angel fell right into her routine by Day 2.

The Losins are back together and now Californians! Never thought I would say that. Time to unpack and settle in.

Sunny California?

Today the Losinwalds move in! I hope California is ready for us! Our day started early because much to our surprise our mover, Bobby, called and said he could deliver our furniture a day early. We were all thrilled because that meant no more Best Western and this morning was our last time to load up our car.

So at 5 AM the roads were extremely foggy and also at 6,7,8,9 and 9:45 AM. Where is the sun?When I say foggy, I mean can not see more than 100 feet in front of you fog. Needless to say, it made us a little nervous driving butDave did a great job in the pilot seat and I was the co-pilot with Emma and Gretta.

We found that this arrangement worked best after Dave had a melt down on the way to the Grand Canyon because it was " Dad, I need a snacky" "Dad, I need a drink." "Dad, I want to watch a movie." "Dad, can you build old puppy a nest?" After about 3 miles of that he could not find his sunglasses, in all of the CRAP we had loaded down with us, and we had to pull over on the side of the road while he had a little melt down. From that point on we assumed the pilot co-pilot positions for the rest of the trip. He did a great job of getting us home and it was probably best that I was the co-pilot because there were some tears that were shed silently as we passed over into and through California and driving to our new house that morning.

My tears dried up and I got butterflies in my stomach when we were about 20 miles from home and all of the sudden the fog disappeared and what I thought was a cloud in the sky happened to be the top of the Sierra mountain range.

Gretta settling in

From that point on I have not been able to wipe a smile off my face when I think this is what I get to look at every sunny day AND for the first time in 8 months my family will all be under the same roof and we will get to eat dinner together, hang out together, talk face to face with one another, my husband will be able to kiss his daughters good night and I can have a glass of wine and look out my balcony to a beautiful sunset.

View from our balcony

We can't wait for visitors!

Grand Canyon

We could not make the trip across the country without making time to stop and see the Grand Canyon. It was a very icy road into the park and the cloud cover was a little thick when we arrived. We were concerned that we would not be able to see anything. We were wrong. In a matter of 20 minutes the clouds were gone and we were able to observe this magnificent wonder.If you have never considered visiting Grand Canyon National Park, you really should. Words can not describe what we saw. I will let the pictures do the talking for us. Enjoy!

Of course, we could not go through a day without some sort of Emma scientific journey. She proudly became a Junior Ranger today. She had to complete 4 raven activities and write in her "field journal". She now has an official badge and patch . We played Junior Ranger Bingo and we were able to cross off the Mule Deer square. Our Emma quote of the day is " every time I see it I take a big gulp." Also, there is not a gift shop at any theme park we have visited that has not gotten an imprint of our credit card. This time we left, or should I say Dave bought, another snake ( now known forever as Grand Canyon Rattlesnake) and this cool 3D Viewfinder.

We spent about 4 hours at the park, not even close to as much time as we would like to, then it was time to head to our new home state. Another picturesque drive. We made it to California and drove through the Mojave Dessert. We spent the night in Bakersfield , CA at our final Best Western on the trip.

Are we there yet?

It is Day 3 and we are still speaking to one another. Emma still not really into us taking her picture as she gives me the hand at breakfast.

Today is our shortest travel day, which means we have plenty of time to stop and see the Continiental Divide and the World's largest Meteor Crater. Just what every 4 year old wants to experience. Thankfully, it is a quick 6 miles off of I 40 and in the middle of Nowhere, Arizona, just west of Winslow. Along the way Emma pointed out the "Cloud Factories", also known as, power plants

To my amazement it was a really cool stop. To think that a meteor crashed into the Earth 50,000 years ago and left this mark is pretty amazing. As Emma told us, "Actually, a comet broke the meteor in half in space and the part that broke off came crashing down and made this humongous hole in the ground." WHAT????? We asked, "Where did you learn that?". Her reply, "the video outside silly, you really should pay attention!"

Dave and Emma hit the gift shop and we left with a bag of rocks, a magic egg and a purple koozie. Note to self, Dave needs to be monitored in the gift shops!

From there we made it to our Best Western #3 in Williams, AZ. This quaint little town reminded Emma and I of Radiator Springs. We made it an early night to get plenty of rest for the Grand Canyon tomorrow.

Russ, Russ your feet

Day 2- The Losinwalds are on the move with our longest travel day on our journey. We are traveling through Oklahoma and Texas to our stopping point in Albuquerque, NM. Thankfully, we found a great 80's station in Oklahoma that helped ease our travels. We did manage to find out that Emma likes "you spin me round round baby round round". She asked for a replay. As for Dave, he had his eye on the BIG TEXAN, a 72 oz steak that is yours free of charge if you can consume it in less than an hour. For mine and Emma's sake, we did not stop to test his skills.

We did find New Mexico to be breathtaking with its scenery. We have run into quite a bit of snow on the ground the farther West we go. We ended up at 7000 feet above sea level at one point today, no wonder my ears were popping. Who knew New Mexico had such high terrain?

All in all we made it through the day and to our Best Western #2, Rio Grande.

1.1.11

Happy New Year! The Losins are on their way to California and I am now officially a blogger! Anyone reading this knows what we as a family have gone through to begin this journey across country and we owe you a big thank you! Without our family we could have never accomplished all that we did and survived the past 8 months. We love you all!

As for our new life in sunny California, it began this morning at 8:52 AM. We rolled out of Mimi and Gramps' house with tears of joy and sadness. We waved goodbye to Ellison, Mimi, Gramps and the wonderful life we had made in Georgia to begin the 2641.9 mile journey to El Dorado Hills, CA.

Our travels have already started completely different than any I have ever experienced. We are loaded up with 2 iPhones, an iPad, one laptop, a WiFi system, built in DVD player, a Garmin, a Leapster Explorer and Tag Reader. If we have a hard time keeping entertained then w have a serious problem. I remember the days of an 8 track player ( which was a luxury item) and a window. Mimi did offer us the cassette player for us to listen to Bill Cosby but Emma thought that would interfere with her Dinosaur Train under the Sea.

It was a rainy start to our trip. It rained all the way through Alabama and stopped when we hit Mississippi. As most of you know, Emma collects snow globes, so we are on a quest to get one from each state we travel through. FYI for anyone else traveling and looking for a truck stop with tacky souvenirs..... There is not one to be found on US 78 in Alabama. Thankfully we have one from our trip to see the Sassers in Huntsville last year.

Day 1- We drove through Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas. Emma and Gretta are off to a great start. We stopped at McDonald's in Hamilton, AL for lunch. It was conveniently located right next to a prison, so our first sightseeing was of men making their daily laps around the track for exercise wearing the ever so popular white jumpsuit. We ended our travels in Van Buren, Arkansas at our Best western #1. We ended up traveling for about 11 hours. Emma and Gretta both did awesome and we managed to get a snow globe in Mississippi and Arkansas.