The Matusek Family: Lets hear it for Illinois!

**Disclaimer: For this post, you will just have to bear with me. I put a lot of pictures in this post!

I flew to Illinois on February 3rd to help my parents with their big move. Big is an understatement, it was a massive job, which is why I was so glad that I went! Mike and I decided to ask my brother Corey and his wife Daymi to take care of Kimball while we were gone, so we could save on his plane ticket. I took Brandon with me and Mike stayed in Pocatello during the week and on weekends made the trip to Rexburg to be with Kimball. The plane ride with Brandon was, well not very fun but we survived. We got to work as soon as we got home with plans for our 3 weeks. When we got to work, we dug in and didn't stop until the job was done. Brandon did well, and made two good friends, specifically Rowdy and Browny, my mom's dogs. Rowdy thought that I was hurting Brandon, every time I would play with him. So he would come and nip at Brandon, trying to make sure he was ok. Brandon didn't like this, and soon found a hiding place, amidst all the boxes...

My brother and his girlfriend Kayla came up from Missouri for a visit, and I just love this picture of my Brandino with his uncle Brandon, so cute! We had a great time with Brandon, even if it was a short visit.

I created a moving blog to start selling larger items on craigslist.com. We kept working and we soon had half of the house packed and we were ready to host a LARGE moving sale. We set up my parent's living room for the moving sale, as well as the kitchen and garage. We sold over $1000, and still had a large pile of items that we donated to St. Vincents Thrift store.

After the sale, we were visited again by family. Melissa, Wes, and their 4 kiddos came up for Presidents Day Weekend. We enjoyed lots of Wackee 6, Dirty Rummy, and Monopoly card game, not to mention ALL the wonderful food we ate that weekend.

Megan LOVES Mor-Mor's Dogs

Weston and Jenna enjoying a flic

Wes watching the gals play games

After our long weekend, I followed the Newcombes back to their house in Aurora, Illinois and spent the night. My sis and wes taught me the ins and outs of couponing... I don't know if I will ever be as good at it as they are though:)

Kyla is so talented, that she needs 2 microphones!

Weston was having a great time eating his gummy worms

Sisters!

Megan, Tiff, Jenna, Weston and Kyla

After my drive home from Aurora, I had a poignant moment as I pulled into my parents cul-de-sac. I stopped the car, turned off the radio, and took this view in...

... and thought of the many wonderful memories I have here, many on the front porch, in the driveway, on the grass, in the garage, and hundreds more inside.

My trip was winding down at this point. We had only 4 days until we were to travel out west. On Thursday the 18th of February Corey Flew in from Idaho to help us. Melissa, my mom, and I went to the Chicago temple before we picked him up. This is my fave picture, it tells a funny story. We got home to Melissa's house after the airport and her keys wouldn't work for the front door. So we knocked, and rang the bell. After a minute or so, one of us said "I wonder if he had to go to the store?" And then someone else "I wonder if there was an emergency?" At this point we weren't panicked, we were all laughing pretty hard, and it just got worse as the scenarios we put out there got more outlandish. "What is he is unconscious?" "Or in a Diabetic coma?" I seriously know that these conditions are not funny, but goodness, we had a serious case of the giggles.

I snapped this pic of us standing waiting for Wes to answer the door.