The Romriell's: Darren's Graduation from BYU-I & Our New Home in Omaha!

Wow 3 weeks ago now seems like FOREVER ago! I can't believe how the time has past! I wish I would have wrote some things down the night of Darren's graduation but I didn't, so now all the details are a little foggy. I just remember being super tired, his graduation started at 7 pm and lasted until 10 pm! And the amazing guest speaker was Elder Ballard, Darren was pretty excited about him being there! I got pictures on Dena's camera that I need to upload on my computer, so I'll have to do that soon before I forget! I'm soooo SUPA PROUD of my amazing husband! He has worked SOOOO hard for his family! I'm so thankful he was in the military and that they have taken such great care of us financially throughout the 3.5 years Darren attended BYU-I! We were able to live really well, ALOT better than most college students, and Darren didn't have to worry about a job AND school. There are a FEW things I will miss about Rexburg, all of the doctors I had picked out were AMAZING (baby dr, pedi, family dr, optomestrist, etc.), ALL of the AMAZING and WONDERFUL friends I got to meet, the safe community, the free splash park, and a few local restaurants (mostly Sammy's and their Red Velvet Cupcake Shake!!)

Well a few days after graduation, we packed up our house, with the help of Darren's folks and his brother Dallen, and headed for "the big city!" Okay, its not THAT big, to be honest their sky line is super weak, maybe 4 tall buildings, lol, but it's MUCH better than Rexburg! We divided the 18 hr drive into 2 days, although I still think I would have preferred to drive straight through! haha. The boys did WAY better than I had expected them to, seriously they went FAR above my expectations! I guess it didn't hurt I made a fun new magnet board with lots of activities to do, or that I bought a ton of toys and movies and wrapped them up as gifts for when they started get antsy! I got Jaxton a rubbery ball that reminded me of a "taggy" and he held onto that ball and played with it the ENTIRE drive. He was sooo happy! Kaiden got to open all the presents and got sooooo excited for each one!
The trip seemed to go by SUPER FAST and before I knew it, we were in Omaha!!!
**Just 2 wild and crazy kids in love! Starting a new chapter of their lives in OMAHA!****

So, a little back story, Darren and I BOUGHT a townhome after only seeing pictures and a walk through video. We were recommended this place by several LDS families we personally knew. They said this was the place to be if you are LDS! And the price was defintiley GOOD and compared to renting it was a no brainer! So when we did our official "move in walk through", I was a little worried. Not only did the previous tenant leave the place dirty (hooray for deep cleaning our old house to come to our new house and wipe dog hair out of the fridge for an hour) BUT the carpet REAKED of dog pee and was stained, the paint colors didnt match our "style" and several other things scared me a tiny bit (or ALOT a bit). lol.

Seriously I was NERVOUS! But Darren told me to fear not we could have this place up to our standards, he is a construction management major after all, and we could make this house a place we would be proud to call our home! Well, it's taken us about 2.5 weeks but we are almost there! Darren had to do some back breaking paint jobs, some Mr. Fix It jobs, and we even ordered in some new carpet, but IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT!And he was right! I look around at our beautiful home and can't BELIEVE this is, technically, our first house! How LUCKY are we!?
(We even celebrated with sparkling cider and Darren surprised me with my FAVES, See's chocolates!)

These are some pictures from that night, this one was taken by Kaiden!!

And then Kaiden wanted in the pictures!

And our friends were right about this being an LDS community! I met SOOOOOO many people the first day who recognized me as a new face and invited me to all sorts of fun activities, they are sooo friendly! We have lots of fun places really close by, the Botanical Gardens, THE ZOO, and a Children's Museum are all within 2 miles! (And yes we've already gotten the Zoo pass and have used it about 3 times a week!) I've gotten really close to alot of people here and I just KNOW this is the place we need to be right now! And I'm sooo excited to be here for the 3 years while Darren goes to school! I've heard Law School is pretty hard the first year but that each year gets better, and I'm so thankful to be in a ward and community where the relief society really looks after there own! (It also doesn't hurt that Darren's parents are just 15 minutes away!)
*Did I mention all of the beautiful butterflies........ and moths, which is what this lil guy is!****

Jaxton wanted to eat him! lol

By the way, we live in the BEST location in these townhomes. We have a forest behind our house, so no one looking in and it feels suoer private, and in our front yard are lots of trees for shade, a picnic table and a little swing set, so naturally all the girls from my ward congregate there all day. So whenever I get bored I can just go out my front door and be with friends!
I'm just so thankful to be here and soo excited about our upcoming adventures in Omaha!
Me cooking our first meal in our new house!