Happy New Year!

Ok...so we have had lots of things going on since the last post! We drove across country with the boys, my in-laws, and the dogs. It was SO much easier being that Mark and Jan helped us with the journey. It would have been PaInFuL w/o their help. Thank you again Mark and Jan!! So we drove to OKC and stayed with Aunt JJ (loved visiting with you Aunt JJ and seeing you and Henry Katie!), drove to NM where we visited friends and stayed the night, drove to Las Vegas where we stayed for 3 nights and Uncle Matt graduated from Weapon's School (yey Matt for graduating and yey Amy for single-parenting-it for 6 months!), and that is where we had an abrupt change of travel plans due to the weather. We were going to drive up through northern Nevada to OR but there was too much snow so we re-routed and went through CA. We stayed the night in San Fran and the boys got to add a new state to their list. I think they have now visited 15 states. Pretty good for just being three!

Anyway, before we crossed into OR the boys enjoyed their first full-fledged snowball fight at a rest stop. It was hilarious and J boldly invited a random big man to join by slamming him with a snowball in his chest. But he showed he was a good sport and laughed heartily.

We checked into our hotel and hit the ground running to begin our house-hunt. It has been much more trying than we thought. We found several houses that we love...but they are either out of our price range, in the wrong school district or have ridiculously high "fees" to live there. We have tried and lost out on three homes so far. So now we are pulling back and will have to look for a rental. We were trying so hard to avoid that route but I think it might be for the best to just wait.

So we stayed in a hotel for a week...and moved out on Christmas Eve Day to stay at a friend's house for another week...it worked out great because they have 2 boys and loads of fun toys...and just moved into another friend's house yesterday (hmmm Michelle and Jason may have to kick us out-can't get over the views!). Everyone has been so helpful and generous. We went over to our friends house on Christmas Eve and had so much fun visiting with friends, eating yummy food and the boys were running around wild with everyone and had quite a late night. They didn't get to bed until 10:30 p.m.! I think that is a first for that. We enjoyed a nice Christmas - the boys got some new trucks and cars that have been keeping them somewhat occupied. We believe they are going through a phase of being very short-patience right now (praying it is a phase anyway) so some of the toys caused them more frustration than enjoyment. Some other friends of ours (we first met them in Japan back in 2003~) invited us over for Christmas dinner. They were quite the hosts...and their girls entertained J and W the whole time. They even had a huge bouncy castle the boys loved.

Our realtor has been so patient with us and her son Shane has even entertained the boys during some of our lengthy discussions in her office. Geoff joined Shane, J and W for an indoor snowball fight (just paper balls) in the lobby of the real estate building yesterday.

We woke up a few days before Christmas to a full view of snow everywhere! It was so fun! And the last few days it has snowed buckets here and it is always magical to wake up and see snow blanketing everything. We let the dogs out this morning and saw Bear gallop through it and dive her face in the snow and take a big bite!

We haven't been able to adventure out too far yet with all the house-hunting. But we did manage to go to Train Mountain before Christmas with Phil, Heather and their boys. It was quite the set-up and I couldn't believe we could ride on mini-trains, have cocoa, and see more trains inside for a mere $5. I have pictures from all of the above activities (of course) but don't really have the means to upload them right now. Will have to work on that. I still have Christmas cards to mail out (I have had them Thanksgiving so I have no excuse) and trying to enjoy the holidays even though we aren't feeling quite "settled" yet. Happy New Year everyone!

"I was shot by VUE and lived to tell about it..."

Oh how we are going to miss Genya and VUE Photography. I wish I had a teeny tiny itty bitty bit of her talent! Here are some of the images from an afternoon with her at Watercolor.

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

We went to Disney World with my family last week. We stayed at the Bay Lake Tower...the new Contemporary Hotel and it was amazing. I don't think you could call our room a "room"...because it had 2 bedrooms, 3 full bathrooms, several closets, a full kitchen and a laundry room! They even provided single packs of detergent! Our view:

The kitchen (there is even a spice rack pull out cabinet next to the stove and the tall cabinet to the left of the stove pulls all the way out and can be used as a pantry-who is going to bring their spices to Walt Disney World?) Impressive nonetheless:

My parents and brother stayed in a "room" across from us and a view of the Magic Kingdom so we could watch fireworks from the balcony at night. We had SO much FUN. Watching the boys react to the characters, laugh through their first rollercoaster ride, dance while watching a parade, and eat their first Mickey Mouse shaped treat...it was all awesome.

My brother and I with the boys at Magic Kingdom:

W for some reason became obsessed with Minnie Mouse by day #2 and here he is just before meeting her:

W busted up laughing for the entire duration of his first ever rollercoaster ride (Goofy's Barnstormer) and rode in the very first car. J laughed after he got over the shock of the first few seconds and they both said "let's do it again!" when it ended. They were not fans of all of the rides in the dark....which there are a LOT of at Disney...or of any loud rides (most of them are really loud)and that frightened them a little.

But they still LOVED the monorail:

Before meeting Winnie the Pooh and Tigger:

As for the characters, they didn't run away from them this time...but they weren't hugging them either. They were very happy though and just couldn't stop laughing and looking at them.

I think they were less impressed with Lightning McQueen and Mater since they didn't move like the other characters:

Group shot at Magic Kingdom:

I just love how you can only see W's eyes in this picture:

J with Uncle PJ on the Magic Carpet Ride:

The boys being silly with Geoff after riding the Viking boat ride (scary) in Norway:

Navigating us through Animal Kingdom:

And through Disney Studios:

And finally, on the last day J wasn't feeling well...so I stayed in the hotel with him in the afternoon doing breathing treatments and letting him rest. I didn't mind at all bc I was feeling tired myself. Geoff and W had a blast doing a last run-through at the Magic Kingdom...I am glad they got to do that together. J and I had fun too..it is always a special treat to spend one-on-one time with them. Here is J on the couch with his giraffe blanket and his Pin Pin (the Penguin):

Geoff and I got to go on a date night for our 9th anniversary on the first night. He surprised me with tickets to a Cirque de Soleil show La NouBA! It was SO good! Grandma, Papap, and Uncle PJ took the boys via boat to the Animal Kingdom Lodge for dinner. The food was fantastic the whole trip--Disney is amazing with food allergies. In fact, at the sit-down restaurants, no one can bring you food unless the chef personally comes out and talks to you first. And they never make you feel like you are putting them out. We had such a good time. It was a nice way to end our time living here in FL.

Little Brave One

So we had our allergy appointment today to skin test the boys for the flu vaccines. J caught a cold at Disney so they wouldn't test him since he was wheezing. But W got the green light. The poor kid had to endure 15 needle pricks in about a 2-hour period. With lots of breaks in between. They had to skin test him on one forearm for egg white, whole egg, H1N1, and the seasonal flu vaccine. He is still very allergic to eggs, showed no reaction to H1N1 vaccine and a reaction to the seasonal flu vaccine (at least that batch). The kicker is that they are just testing him to one batch of the vaccine and every one is different. So he can have a reaction to this batch, but not to another. So then the doctor had to do an intradermal skin test (under the skin like the TB test) four times on the other forearm for the same items. Then the doc could administer the full 1st dose of H1N1 since W had no reaction to that batch. But for the seasonal flu shot he had to administer a small doseage every 15 minutes. So W would get a shot...calm down...we would read a book until the timer ticked 15 minutes later...the doctor would return, check his arm, do another shot...and repeat. I think he is going to be forever terrified of needles! He was very brave though. Especially on the 3rd to last shot where he started bleeding a little. And then the second to last shot where he started gushing blood and got a hematoma on his arm. The whole process took 3 1/2 hours. We will have to delay our leaving one day to get J done before we leave. And since this is the first time they have had the seasonal flu shot, they will have to have another dose of that AND the H1N1 in 30 days. And with that, a whole other round of skin testing...

November-Already?!

Not only is it November--we are a full week into it! Is it just me, or does the time between Halloween and Christmas just go by faster every year? I feel like we miss enjoying the build-up time to Christmas...I know in college I really enjoyed December because it was always a big de-stress time for me. I would go.go.go.go every minute up until final exams...then just pass out of exhaustion...and could thouroughly enjoy the 3-weeks of nothingness until Christmas.

When I last looked at my calendar it hit me that the boys and I will be leaving FL in about 18 days...and we have a small trip planned where we will be gone six days of that which = 12 days before moving! What?! We have so much to do before now and then that I don't even want to think about it.

Since Geoff and I got married in 2000 we have moved six times; five of those moves were over the holidays. We arrived to Japan at the end of November and spent Christmas with my new squadron commander's family. We moved three years later and flew through Hawaii and spent Christmas exploring Hawaii and taking a submarine ride on our way to Alabama for 6 weeks before moving to Idaho. We spent a year and a half at Idaho and moved during the summer to Vegas until Christmas (our only summertime move)....where we stopped at Texas to spend Christmas with family before driving to Florida the week after Christmas. Then we moved from our house in Florida to our current house immediately after Christmas and moved into our new home on 2 January. So moving during the holidays definitely adds to the busyiness. And makes it seem faster than ever. There are lots of benefits to this though. Everything we own is packed up and it is just us to worry about. Geoff has signed out of a squadron and in a sense can fully relax without worrying about work. So we are about to begin our next adventure in just 12 days...driving across the country and stopping to spend Thanksgiving in Texas, to visit Aunt JJ in OK, to visit friends in NM, and to celebrate with Matt and Amy in Las Vegas, and then continue on to our new home. We should arrive to OR mid-December and we may actually see snow! It will be a shock for sure. We have lived in a sub-tropical climate for 7 of the last 9 years! I may have blue lips and fingernails for awhile. We are so excited to move back to the northwest.

I think it is even harder to believe it is November when it is supposed to be almost 80 degrees today. We took advantage of the warm weather at a birthday party yesterday at a park by the water. Here are some pictures:

Happy November!

All Things October

October was a fun month...I just wish the weather would make up its mind. Is it 85 degrees - is it 40 degrees? We have been alternating between summer weather and winter weather but experiencing no fall weather for October. But Halloween night was perfect...cloudy with a full moon and COLD....I am sure all the kiddos out there wearing the thick fluffy winter-weather costumes were grateful. We added some mittens and scarves to our trains and we thought they looked even better. Really, don't scarves and mittens make everything better? =)

Here is the crew eating some dinner before trick-or-treating:

Costumes on...

And all ready to go:

Crew with Geoff and Jason:

It was fun to go trick or treating with them. J and W followed their almost 4-year-old twin friends (Gator and Kitty) to the houses and sometimes forgot to hold out their bag...they were so intrigued by the person at the door and what they were holding and/or dogs running around. W shed his costume about 3/4 of the way through but J made it almost the whole way. After he would leave a house he would say "next house".

Our little tricksters:

They were very excited about their full load of candy. They each had a bag of skittles and some dots when they were sorting through their loot. We just pulled out all the "nut" items this morning...J is still organizing his bag right now...and saying "what is this?" "what is this one?" "bubblegum?" "another bubblegum-2 BUBBLE GUMS!" And they are really into the family units. He just pointed out "a daddy, mama, and baby lollipop." If we read a book that shows a mama animal with her baby they are asking "where is the daddy elephant?" "where is the daddy whale?"

We made lots of pumpkin bread this month with an egg-replacer that worked fabulously (thanks again Jan-we have been baking up a storm)...I will post the recipe for this new pumpkin bread because it is healthy-(er) option and even with whole wheat, wheat germ, buttermilk, and an egg substitition it is moist and delicious. Now that is a good recipe! We made pumpkin bread trains twice as well. That pan works great.

We visited the pumpkin patch with our MOPS group and they set up four stations for the kids to rotate through. A story station, a pumpkin floating station, a build a pumpkin station, and a snack station.

This is J raising his arms when anything "floated" in the water:

We had a fun squadron Halloween party complete with a trick-or-treat table, a sugar decorating table, a coloring table, a craft table, a parade and a pinata.

W taking a whack at the pinata:

J trying one-hand and with tootsie roll pop in his mouth:

W at the trick-or-treat table:

Squadron kid group-shot:

And of course, trick-or-treating last night.

I need to learn how to use my night-time setting and no-flash settings on our camera for night shots...because the sky was so amazing last night but I was having some trouble getting any clear shots. Here is the only one I could get with a bit of the sky:

J still holding out as Thomas.

W and I were behind getting to this door. So the owner had went back in but left the door open. So there is W just standing there. He stood awhile just looking in and waiting. Then said "trick or treat?" Then waited and waited. Finally the man came back and said "oh! You're back for seconds huh?" I had to explain that this was his twin brother and he just got to the door late!

And we are thankful for the extra hour today to start November...we need it!