We are now in St Louis

We moved. And we survived. And in truth, it wasn't too bad. The drive was uneventful, with both boys sleeping part of the time, the cat only crying quietly for a couple hours (and more or less silent the rest of the time), and only 2 relatively stops along the way. We definitely made it within 10 hours. I was a little worried because Andrew was acting pretty sick and so we took him to the doctor the day before and he had an ear infection, so he had medication for that. But he was good.

Unpacking has gone pretty well so far. A friend from Ann Arbor who lives in St Louis now helped unpack the truck, along with my dad. We got it all done by around noon on Sunday. And since then, we have been unpacking (well, and building our new entertainment center we bought from Ikea right before moving).

And running errands of course. Today was pretty productive. This afternoon, we walked and 1) got drivers licenses, 2) got library cards, and 3) opened a bank account. I LOVE being able to walk places. We also can walk to the park, the Galleria mall, and are within 5 minutes drive to almost every chain restaurant and store you can think of. Kind of crazy. We can walk to the Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Changs. You can also see the Metrolink train from our house (which Katsu will take to work).

Our ward seems nice, even though we haven't been. Both the bishop and the elders quorum president called, a member who lives in the neighborhood came over and brought us advice and cookies, and the missionaries dropped by today to get to know us and also to see if we need any help. I think we'll like the ward. And get this - the temple is also in our ward boundaries ... we sure live in a conveinent place. I think the temple must be closer than I suspected.

Our apartment is nice. It's been fun trying to figure out how to fit all our stuff in. Moving to a smaller apartment can be kind of a challenge, but I think we are figuring it out. The location makes it all worth it. We really like it though. I'll post pictures soon. We are also experimenting with the boys together in one room. We'll keep you posted on that.

Other news ... hmmm, Seth is either teething, sick, or going totally ballistic from all the changes. Most of the time he is fine and normal; the rest of the time, he just cries and cries. Andrew thinks he needs a nap everyday at 4 pm when he totally crashes. He slept sitting upright on a booster seat at the Olive Garden yesterday - for the entire dinner.

We bought plane tickets to the Netherlands today. I don't even want to look at how much it cost (YIKES!) or even think about jet lag (yikes!), but I think it will be fine.

Pictures soon. (And yes, we unpacked our books before our clothes ... sigh ... how did we get so many books!).