June Top Ten

My cute friend Brooke does a top ten on her blog every week. So since, I've kind of been slacking the last couple months in the whole blog post department I thought I'd steal her idea and give you (da da da dum) my

Top Ten Best Parts of June

10. The Little Guy lost another tooth.
The count is now up to four now...do you think he's hit his awkward stage yet?

9. Bubbles, Bubbles everywhere, but not a drop to drink.

On a not so sunny day the kids wanted to go swimming. We compromised by filling up the big tub....then we added some bubbles and turned on the jets. Consequently, this is a very good choice if you desire mass amounts of bubbles.

8. Moving
Our move went really well. The rain stayed away just long enough to get everything moved over to the new house. I really hate being unorganized (which sometimes is not a good thing, by the way) so we had the entire house, minus one box, unpacked by the end of the next day. I have yet to unpack that one last box.

7. goin' fishin' and catchin' somethin'
My cousin invited us to spend the day with him and his 5 kids at Vivian Park up Provo Canyon. I readily agreed and continued my successful avoidance of housework. The Little Guy reeled in two fish, and the day yielded 7.

6. ARUP, the company Jon works for, held their annual summer party. This year it was a fun carnival in their parking lot. Complete with games, toys and a ferris wheel.

5.Swimming pool
I haven't taken any pictures of the kids in the pool since we moved in, so here's one of the little guy a few years ago during swimming lessons.

4. New Friends
The best, and worst part about moving around is that you both make and lose good friends regularly. I've made some great friends over the years who have either left me behind, or I've had to leave them. The good thing is that with each new place I meet more great, amazing people that inspire me to be a better person. We moved right next to a really great girl (who's name is Melody...a little weird...) who has two kids almost the same ages as mine. Our kids are getting along great and it's been great to have someone so friendly so close.

3. Signing our lives away
On June 9 we signed the papers for our new house. It was somewhat more anti-climatic than I had pictured but we got it and life is good.

2. D.C. Vacation and Feeding Squirrels on the National Mall

Our Vacation was a blast and we apparently picked a really "safe" time to go. Just days after we left the Holocaust Museum was attacked by some guy and a security officer was killed. The next week two Metro trains crashed into each other. Our stay was nice and quiet, and not too hot.

1. And the number one best things about June is that we are the proud new owners of an actual detached housing unit. No more sharing walls, conversations, or smells with our neighbors!!
One day (hopefully soon) it will have grass, and a fence, and a dog. (We're getting a rock wall today. It's exciting.) Until then we are just so happy and blessed to be here and we are so thankful that the right set of circumstances fell into place for us when they did.

Home...at Last

So here it is. I know it took me a little while longer to post these pictures than I thought it would. But it also took a little longer to get internet than I thought it would. Anyway, here is our cute little house. Try to look past the dead weeds and see the potential. We are going to be bring in some rocks to create two tiers and leveling out the top so it's not so slope-y. We now have a rototiller here and Saturday we'll be digging up the yard. I'm just saying...you know...in case any of you want to come and help. I'm also planning on painting the door this great green color. It's called Antique Moss (if you care) and I think it will look really nice, I'm also planning on new shutters in the same color. It'll be way cute.

I took a few pictures of the inside. Totally forgot to take a picture of the master bed and bathroom. The completely empty room is our "dining room", but for now it's our basketball court, boxing ring, and bunny bedroom. I have a feeling it will be a while before we actually get a dining room table for the dining room. Our little crappy table is doing just fine in the "breakfast nook". Our toy room is now over the garage and is over 200 square feet! Nice. I love it! We've always had a toy room, which may have been a mistake because we kept buying toys to fill it! Oh well, it keeps the kids (and the neighbor kids) occupied. Notice how I unpack and two seconds later it's a mess. I should have just dumped all the boxes out and said, "Have fun kids!"
We're really excited to start making little improvements. I'm sure I'll post them as we complete each project. First is crown moulding in the bedrooms, then paint in our bedroom, then a tile backsplash in the kitchen. Oh, and I guess I should mention the on-going yard thing. That's Jon's...I just watch. OK, so I help...a little. I'm also super exciting about the possibilities in the basement. I like to talk about it like we'll be starting any day now. That probably isn't going to happen, but it's nice to pretend.

We love our new neighborhood. All the neighbors have been really friendly and the Little Guy has a LOT of boys to play with. Most of the people around us don't have a fence so they've been kind enough to allow my kiddo-s to play on their grass. At least until we have some of our own. Our new neighborhood swimming pool is nice and always warm. The kids love it, and I'm hoping they'll actually learn to swim. Maybe I will too!

One last thing. We actually had some occupants living here when we moved in. Today they decided to fly the coop.

There's just one who's a little nervous to leave the nest. He made it to the fence. Then bit it. He's still chilling in the back yard, but I'm hoping he'll get those little wings pumping before long.... I'm not really sure, but I think dead baby birds might be a bad omen.

Love Note

I found this on the Little Guy's door about a week ago, and couldn't resist taking a picture. For those of you who don't read 6-year-old fluently it reads: No mean girls in here. I love you.

There and Back Again

We had such a fun trip to DC last week! We had an absolutely terribly delayed departure (think 7 extra hours at the airport) but once we arrived everything was fantastic. I took over 100 pictures in the 4 days we were there, so I will try to spare you. The one picture I should have taken and didn't was of the Little Guy on the Metrorail. He absolutely loved it! He told me he wants to visit every city that has a subway system. Something tells me if he gets to NY he'll quit there. The metro in DC was so clean. I was very impressed, and not at all sicked out. The only metro-ish pictures I did take were these:

Pictures of quite possibly the longest escalator in the world. The Dupont Circle Metro station is apparently way underground. Jon walked up it once, but I opted for the free ride.

Our hotel was right on Dupont Circle, about two miles away from the White House, etc. It was nice and newly remodeled, so no cooties. Always a good thing.

The first day we toured the White House. It's cool to be able to say we've been inside, but the tour left something to be desired. No pictures, stay in the line, no facts (unless you ask questions), and DO NOT walk on the rugs. Apparently my feet aren't worthy enough to step on the floor coverings. They roll them up and put the ropes between you and the carpets. Anyway, since we weren't allowed to document our journey through the White House we had to settle for taking a picture on the outside. The day we went through it was rainy so we snapped this one on our last day in DC:

Later, after we went back to the hotel and collected our things, (Did I mention you can't bring anything with you? Just your ID, your cell phone [but don't even think about snapping a pic], and luckily an umbrella in case of inclement weather.) we went to the International Spy Museum. We weren't supposed to take pictures, but with my mad spy stealth I managed this:
It was a very kid friendly museum, and Jon had a lot of fun too. They even had an authentic shoe phone (yes, they really had those during the cold war), and a lipstick gun. Oh, so clever.

We also ate at the Spy cafe. I had a salad with green olives, so of course I dared the Little Guy to eat one. (I won't touch them, unless it's to pick them off my salad.) Here's his face after giving it a try:

We were also able to walk into Ford's Theater and the house across the street where Lincoln died.

It's kind of weird to be in these places where such horrible things took place. I wanted to have the pictures but was thinking, Should we be smiling. The Little Guy really seems to have taken a liking to Honest Abe. He asked so many questions. He told me that Lincoln was brave because he stood up for what was right, even though he knew people wouldn't want to be his friend.

We rounded out the first day by heading to the Natural History Museum:

Super gross giant squid, that's shrunk considerably in it's lovely preservative bath.

AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! Oh wait, they don't look scared at all.

Jon was going to buy this for me, but apparently it's not for sale. Whatev.

The second day was Air and Space Museum day. Did you know that the Air and Space Museum is HUGE!! We spent forEVER there. I could have been good after about an hour, but we were there for over four. I took a lot of pictures, for the Little Guy's benefit. It sufficeth me to say, airplanes are great, space is amazing, and I'm thankful for smart people.

Then it was off to the National Archives. I was a little disappointed to find out that the Declaration of Independence is so faded that you can barely make out any of the words. It was still really cool to be in the same room with such an old and important document. We also got to see the Magna Carta (the first written document limiting the power of a king) which was written in 1215. Amazing that it's still here. And the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution written and used by the colonies during the Revolutionary War. Written on one continuous (and very long) piece of parchment. Seeing as you all know what they look like I'll spare you the pictures. Here's one of my cute family though infront of the National Archive Building:
We also went to the Museum of American History. It was really cool to see the Star Spangled Banner. You can't take pictures of it though so I am without. There were also so many more artifacts, much more well kept than the flag, that were really cool to look at. Of course, the little guy loved all the old guns, and on the first floor they had a ton of old trains. Heaven, for my six-year-old.

We walked around the Memorials and Monuments in the evening. I, of course, cried. I can't even tell you why, except for that I am so grateful that there are so many amazing men and women willing to give their lives for our country. I LOVE America and I recognize how truly lucky I am to be born in, and live in such an amazing country. I get choked up every time I think about people giving up their lives so that we can keep our freedoms, that we so often take for granted. I don't really care if you agree with war or not, those men and women deserve our respect and honor and I am touched by their service every time I think about it. Anyway, (sniff) God Bless America. Here are a few pictures of the memorials:

Sunday, and treat time at the National Zoo:

"Can somebody hold this? It's getting heavy."

By that day the Little Guy was pretty beat. We spent a lot of time resting and enjoying the animals at the zoo. The panda's were really cool. But for the life of me I can't figure out why they call them "giant". They're kind of smallish. Anyway, one of the gorillas had a baby, and we saw real pirannah's, and the largest lobster I've ever seen. It's a nice spread out zoo, but could really benefit with a couple extra bathrooms. When are people going to start catering to the small-bladdered people of this world?

So this is getting really long, and mostly boring so here's the cliff note version of the rest. We walked a lot, saw a lot of cool old stuff, had a lot of fun, fed squirrels about 20 bags of airline peanuts, smiled a lot, saw police with automatic weapons on the steps of the US capitol and smelled a lot of smelly bums (not pictured).

Thanks for sticking with my abnormally long post. It's not too often I actually have something to blog about!

Movin' On Up

So, graduating from Kindergarten apparently is a much bigger deal than I originally anticipated. Don't get me wrong, I was excited to see the Little Guy in his "ceremony" and he did a great job with his speaking part. But, I was unaware that moving from Kindergarten to the first grade required an actual ceremony. None the less, the Little Guy was adorable and funny. I gave him a little graduation card and present and instantly became the best mom in the whole world. Awww, there's nothing like buying your kids' love...(only kidding of course.)

Bringing along a two-year-old wasn't my finest idea. But she did fine. (If you don't count all 17 times she ran up to the front to give her brother a hug.) At least she wasn't screaming. I'm sure it annoyed some though. She kept running up to hug her brother and say, "I pwoud of you brudder." It took a lot of effort (and fruit snacks) to keep her in her chair during the actual presentation.

My Pip-squeak wants to be in school so, so badly! Hmmm...she doesn't quite fit in, does she?

The Little Guy had a lot of fun making new friends this year. He's going to miss his sweet teacher, and his new buddies, but he's excited to start another school. And this time I promised him we'll stick around for a while.
I can never get him to actually look at the camera. What's up with that?!

Last but not least here is the first day of school:

And the last: