The Pacific Northwest

As you know, our orders to Germany were pulled this January.  We had a few options about what we could do, like stay here or go to Virginia.  Earlier this week we got a new offer for Fort Lewis, Washington.  We debated it for a day or so, and then decided to take it.  Fort Lewis is between Olympia and Tacoma and we thought we'd like to get out of Texas and try out Washington.  We'll be about two and a half hours away from Jon and we'll be about the same distance from Ema.  Ben is scheduled to go to the same Instructor Pilot course in Fort Rucker in June, so we should be in Washington in late July/early August.  That's coming up pretty fast, so we called our realtor today to get the house on the market.  We're starting to get things cleaned up around the house and are looking for boxes to start packing away some clutter and knick-knacks that we can do without until we get to our new place.  Our plan is to clean out and give things away, too, so we don't end up moving stuff we don't want anymore.

I took Lauren to Hobby Lobby this week and let her pick out some fabric.  I made three dresses for her so far.  I took some pictures, but they didn't come out great, so I'll have to take new ones to post.  She picked out a purple fabric with the Disney princesses and glitter all over it, and she picked out a green fabric with Strawberry Shortcake on it.  Both dresses came out pretty cute.  The Princess dress is a little too long, but she won't let me shorten it.  She's been on quite a dress kick lately, it's all she wants to wear.  Thankfully the weather has been getting nicer, so she's been able to.  Last week she had to wear tights under and a jacket over her dresses if we went anywhere.  I do have one good picture of a dress that I made, but it's going to someone else and I don't want to post the picture until I give it to her.

Natalie and I met with her Physical Therapist on Thursday.  We're going to start meeting twice a month with her.  She showed me some new ways to do tummy time with Natalie that she might tolerate better that will help with her muscle development.  We called the Neurosurgeon's office and scheduled her surgery for March 19th.  On the 17th she has her pre-op appointment as well as her opthamology appointment and then we plan on being there for about a week.  Her surgery is Thursday morning and the doctor said she'll have a few days in the PICU afterwards.  So I'm guessing she'll be out on Monday.