The Evertsen's

I have been such a slacker with this blog and I’m really bummed about it. I wish I would have kept it up. I’ve missed almost a full year. Things have changed dramatically for us so I plan to keep it updated at least monthly again. 2013 I was really good at it because we lived so far away from our families and then we moved back to UT and I slacked off. But now that we are in Oklahoma I want to keep everyone (that wants to know) updated on our lives. So lets start at the beginning.

Back in October Jon was contacted by a company called TriMedex. They have many locations and they had a position opening up at a hospital in Tulsa. We knew Oklahoma wasn’t our ideal location, but figured he should apply and just see where it goes. He interviewed and they really liked him. They were willing to work with his Army schedule (he was scheduled to go to WLC, Warrior Leadership Course, for 3 weeks). They were willing to wait until after the first of the year for him to start. We prayed about it and both felt really good about the decision to relocate our family to Tulsa Oklahoma. We packed up half of our house and Jon took it out with him January 19, with me, the kids and the dog staying behind until we could find a house. We had decided to buy a house and knew that Jon would need to be on his new job for at least 30 days. Jon spent a lot of time going to look at houses, taking pictures and videos/skype and sending them to me. Since the plane tickets were so expensive, it didn’t make sense for me to fly out there to look at houses. So we ended up buying a house that I had never seen in person. It was a little scary, but Jon knew what I wanted and between the pictures/videos I felt comfortable going ahead with it. We closed on the house on March 10 and Jon drove back out to help us move the rest of our stuff on the 12^th. He had drill the 13^th and 14^th, so we drove down to stg for him to attend that while me and the kids played with family on last time. We headed out for OK Monday morning and made it to Albuquerque NM by that night. I knew with me being pregnant and having the kids in my car, we needed to stop for the night. Jon wasn’t tired so he continued on and made it all the way there that night. Me and the kids drove the rest of the trip Tuesday and arrived at our new home that evening. It was a long 20+ hour drive! The kids were restless but overall did relatively ok. I prepped them a lot before hand and told them we would be driving for 2 days, so I think that helped.

The house we bought is in a town called Claremore. It is about 30 mins NE of Tulsa. We really like it. It is a 3 bed 2 bath + office 1900 sq ft on 1.1 acres. The backyard is awesome. It has lot of trees and space for the kids and dog to run around. Half of the yard is fenced, the other half isn’t and we have decided to use some of that space for our first garden. I’m hoping it turns out good. I have never had much of a green thumb, so I’m doing lot so research and hope I’m doing it all right.

On top of moving, we are expecting baby number 3, a girl in just 5 (or 6 J ) weeks. This move was a lot harder on me physically than any other due to being so far along. Plus this pregnancy has been the worst out of all 3 of them. I am way more swollen and experience a lot more pain in general. I have sciatic nerve pain (which I didn’t have with the other 3) and pretty bad pelvic pain/pressure, to the point that I can’t walk. Today I tried on Jon’s wedding ring, which normally hangs off my fingers and it fit 3 out of 5 fingers L I am pretty swollen. I have my first doctors appointment with my new doctor tomorrow and I’m really hoping I like her. I had to choose a doctor that I had never met (just done research on), so I really don’t know what she’s going to be like. As for names, we have a list of names we like, but won’t choose one until after she is born. We don’t have a middle name picked yet. I like middle names to be after someone but I’m having a hard time coming up with a combination that we both like.

The kids are both doing well. Taegen was really sad to leave all of his friends, so we had a going away/early birthday party for him before we left. He has a friend that shares his birthday, so we did a combined party for the two of them. It was a lot of fun for them. I’m not sure if there are any kids in our neighborhood, but he has made a few friends in church. He is super excited to start Kindergarten in the fall. I’m just hoping we can find friends for him to play with before then. The ward out here doesn’t have a play group or anything, so that makes things a little harder. Ellie is so cute but yet also acting out quite a bit lately. I know it’s because of the move and also the big change of baby sister coming soon. I remember Taegen acting out a little bit while I was pregnant with Ellie. I’m hoping her tantrums will end soon. She is definitely testing my patience. I’m just glad that we are back together as a family (it was almost a full 2 months of Jon being in OK with us still in UT). It was hard being a “single mom” and it is so nice having Jon around again to help out.

Jon really likes his new job. His boss and coworkers are great. The hospital is huge (over 500 beds) and there are only 10 technicians, so he is super busy. The job will lead to him taking over the imaging equipment, which is his ideal job. He was also just promoted to Sergeant in the Army! This is a huge deal and I am so proud of him! He will have his pinning ceremony next month and I am so sad that we won’t be able to be there. We were hoping that Taegen would be able to pin him (there was a chance the promotion was going to take effect in March while we were down in stg), but that just isn’t going to happen since the plane tickets are so expensive. We are all so excited and he deserves this. He has worked really hard to get where he’s at. I’m so proud of him!

Pictures to follow in my next post. I will also put up pictures of the house once it is all put together.

This year for Christmas we went down to stg to see our families. We spent christmas eve with my family enjoying the yummy danish food, then Christmas morning we opened presents and then went down to see Jons family. The remainder of the weekend we spent visiting all our siblings and good friends. It was a good trip.

Playing musical chairs to get their white elephant gift