From Texas to Maryland

We are finally online again and it feels great to be able to stay connected with everyone again. I'll try to stay more up to date from here on out, but here's a brief recap of our last month...

Our last weekend in Texas we went to Abby's 4th and final (at least for a while) Houston Astros baseball game. She loved all the excitement of the game and the fans around us. And we kept our winning streak alive. The Astros have yet to lose a game that we have been at. Goooooooo 'Stroooooooos!!!!!!

The next day we went to downtown Houston and rode the train around Hermann Park and visited the Children's Museum. We were really impressed with the museum and we all had a great time. It was probably more suited to kids a bit older than Abby, but that didn't stop her from enjoying herself. She especially liked the phones and milking the plastic cow!


A few days later we began our 1600 mile journey from Houston, Texas to Hagerstown, Maryland. Aside from a few mishaps in New Orleans, our trip was actually a very good one. Abby was a trooper through it all, although we were glad she was able to watch repeated episodes of Baby Einstein along the way. We traveled through 8 states, which means Abby has now been to 19 different states during her young life, not too bad considering she's only 17 months old! We arrived in Hagerstown on Friday, July 13th, moved into our new home the next day and then Jason flew to Jacksonville, Florida on Sunday for a two week training session. We missed him a lot, but it did give Abby and I a chance to explore the area on our own a little while he was gone. We had never even seen Hagerstown before we moved here so we weren't exactly sure what to expect. What we have found is almost like a bit of heaven on earth! It is beautiful here with a lot more amenities than we were expecting, but with the small-town feeling that we were hoping for. There are a lot of things to do here including lots of great parks, shopping, tourist attractions, historical sites and outdoor activities which we can actually do without melting, unlike Houston! We also love the ward and I have already made a few new friends including the bishop's wife who lives in our same subdivision. I have also been excited to discover that there are some great country roads to run on which has been nice since I am now in full-marathon training mode. In fact, last Saturday I went on a 9-mile run into Pennsylvania and back. I never thought I would be able to run to another state and back home, but it's not too hard when we only live about 4 miles from the border!!

There is so much to see and do here. We have already made a few trips up to Pennsylvania and West Virginia and we can't wait to see more. We love the house that we are living in as well. We live on the outskirts of town and our backyard is pretty big and has a great view of some cornfields out back. I have put together a little video slideshow of our home so you can get a feel for what our home is like. Of course this doesn't substitute for an actual visit so we expect to see you all out here soon!!

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We really couldn't be happier here, unless of course we could have all of our family and friends as neighbors. At least blogging helps to keep us a bit closer and we will do our best to keep you all updated on all of our East Coast adventures!!