First Visitors

Our first visitors arrived about a week and a half after we moved in, and boy were we happy to have them, especially the girls, because as much as I'd like to think they were here to visit me, they really were here to visit the girls. Savanna and Autumn, our dear friends from Arizona, braved an air plane ride all by their lonesomes to come and spend a whole week with us. What fun it was to have a little piece of our Arizona home with us while we were getting settled into our Illinois one. We sure love these girls and wish they could have spent the whole summer with us, or moved in forever. I would've taken them.

 

 

We had a great time showing them around here a bit and sure missed them when they left. Hopefully they'll come back every summer!

 

Welcome Party

  We drove into Chicago to welcoming arms. The same time we drove in there was a Reunion going on. Now known as Gearhart Fest. We were greeted by 6 of Thomas' siblings, their siblings and children.

 

What ensued thereafter was a week of craziness, which included unloading and unpacking into our new home, all serviced by the Gearhart Moving Coalition, two fun days up at Wisconsin Dels, Mt. Olympus, a water and amusement park themed hotel, Fourth of July fun, bounce houses, swimming, movies, and all other sorts of great fun.

 

I think we unloaded our truck and spent maybe a total of 24 to 36 hours (incl. sleeping) in our new place that first week. It was a lot of fun, and man, was I so thankful to have so many people present to help us unpack. It was probably the easiest move I've ever had!

 

 

Well its true...we moved.

The last few weeks in Pittsburgh were a bit cramped. With boxes every where in our tall and skinny town home it was a bit hard to move around, live, pack, and boy that last week was HOT! Thomas and I decided we would pack up all the boxes in the truck the day before the ward came to help us load up the heavy furniture...oh my, I think Thomas lost 20lbs in sweat and I thought we might die! Moving is just plain hard work, and I'm glad its over for now.

 

We're on to greener pastures for now in a great rental while we do a bit of saving and house hunting.  I really can't express my gratitude to our Heavenly Father for helping us make it this long with out a paycheck, with a huge move and all. I am so impressed by Thomas and his excellent budgeting skills and just feel so great about the whole situation. We really were blessed. Not to mention how blessed we are with this house/location we are in right now. For not ever looking at the house or the area around it we really did luck out. Ainsley and Claire will be able to walk to school, every day, its just around the block and Alli's bus stop is right across the street from us, the train station that Thomas takes to work is a mere 5 minutes away and we have nice neighbors. It's been so nice because there's a 10 year old girl across the street and a 11 year old girl next door, so the girls have instant friends, have had sleep overs already and it just makes me happy to be able to have kids in and out of my house and not feel like I'm going to scream because there is no room for anyone to move. WE even have a few unwanted neighbors who stop by on a daily basis to jump on our trampoline, Rainier doesn't mind at all, nor do I, but the girls aren't to crazy about some of the younger ones that invite themselves over. :) I'm just happy if someone is willing to jump with Rainier, who I think if allowed would jump all day long.

Birthday Sweets

Sweet Ainsley has turned Nine.

Her birthday party was quite sublime.

Candy, aprons, glitz galore,

Lots of which landed on the floor.

Friends and squeals and treats delight.

Made her birthday oh so right.

 



In A Far Away Land

 

 

Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Claire. Now Claire wasn't any ordinary girl, she was a girl with many talents. She had a smile that could melt a heart, a mind that could test any intellect, and a laugh that could ring through an entire neighborhood. Her hair was golden, her eyes were a blue frost, and immense charm radiated from her personage. On the day of May 30th, 2012 this young maiden turned to a ripe old age of 10. A request of royal pampering was made for the birthday maiden, her dearest friends were beckoned to attend. So it was, the lip glosses were made, perfumed body scrubs were assembled, manicures of many colors were given and facials made all refreshed. And Claire lived happily ever after.

Graduation Congratulations.

For as long as I have known Thomas, 14 years to be exact, he has always wanted a graduate degree. I watched, and whined, and cheered and supported as we raised three young daughters, struggled through being quite poor, and having Thomas work full time and go to school to receive his bachelor degree.

He got his dream this time around, to be a full time student, but all the work that he had to do to make it happen is pretty amazing. It's no small feat to support a family of 6 and also be a full time graduate student and keep up a suitable standard of living. We truly feel blessed to have been able to have survived fiscally, physically, and emotionally, and we are all SO proud to have had him graduate from one of his dream schools Carnegie Mellon, and receive his MBA

His grandparents flew in from Oregon, his parents from Chicago, and his brother and sister from  Colorado. We were so glad to have them all here to support him and show how proud they were of him. Plus it was great to play with them all weekend and be Pittsburgh tourists.

This was the Tepper mormon crew, we had an unusually large class of mormon students with 5 LDS families attending the MBA program, I honestly wouldn't have survived without these ladies, they really were our family here, and I am so thankful to have had them as part of our lives.

Master Gearhart, man what a STUD!

All of his hard work paid off and he was offered 3 different jobs, we whittled them down and are so happy to be moving to a suburb of Chicago so Thomas can work down town to be a consultant in Price Waterhouse Coopers Capital Markets division.

Here's to another adventure.

Surprise

This would be 7 out of the 8 Rentz Children.

 

This would be my 70 year old father.

I think he's one proud poppa.

This past March I had the opportunity to meet up with all of my siblings, and surprise him for his 70th Birthday. We literally showed up on his doorstep and Utah, sang Happy Birthday and moved in for the weekend.

I believe there is a reason why none of the spouses were too embarrassed they weren't along for the festivities. While we all are a little rowdy as it is, when we all get together, it just might get a bit out of hand. The weekend was full of candy cigarettes, wigs, shooting guns (I may have shot my first AK47)) bowling, and lots of laughs, all of my dads favorite things. I'm so happy that my older siblings set up this amazing weekend and that I have so many fun memories of it. It will be a weekend I will never forget but probably should.