The Beautiful Pacific Northwest

It's really, really beautiful here.

We've had two visits with Jon (or "Uncle Higgins" as Lauren will only call him) and three visits with Ema since we've been here. On our last trip to visit her in Sequim, we went to Railroad Bridge Park and I got the awesome photo of Lauren above. I'm going to do a bit of editing on it and then order it as an 8x10 print for the house. Which is just about done. As soon as it looks good and clean I'll take pictures to post. I'll do it. This week. Maybe.

This weekend was gorgeous, about 85 degrees. Jon and his girlfriend Maya came to visit. We walked down to the lake. It's a short walk from our house, less than half a mile. We found out there are beach areas and a playground and we can rent canoes. We rented one and took turns paddling around the lake. It was a gorgeous day. We came home hungry and tired and had a brisket Ben had started that morning with mashed potatoes and green beans and it was great.

Last night after dinner we took the girls on a walk around the neighborhood. It was a chilly night, but perfect sweater weather and clear.

Ben has started back at work, but the rest of the unit is off doing training, so his normal routine won't start for a few more weeks. I've been making appointments for Natalie and getting everything set up with referrals and different specialties. She has an MRI next week and her consultation with a physical therapist. The following week we go back to see what the neurosurgeon sees when he compares the new MRI with her previous one. She's set to see Opthamology in November. We're waiting for a call about her new multi-disciplinary clinic - whatever they call it here - and when it will be scheduled. All of her appointments are already keeping me busy. I want to get Lauren enrolled in the base daycare system so I can take advantage of having that so close pretty soon. She sees the kids and wants to go play, so it may be worth it for me to take her there once a week even when Natalie doesn't have other appointments.

There's not too much else that I'm up to around here. I am keeping busy with the day to day stuff and just enjoying being home with the girls and settling into the new house. We haven't done too much exploring, but I'm hoping we'll be able to take a little weekend vacation to Seattle and see the sights and maybe after we get our passports, take a weekend vacation to Victoria.

It doesn't sound like a lot, but we have been busy. Looking forward to having visitors soon whenever anyone wants to schedule a trip!

Home

We are in our new place. The unpacking has been slow, we need to put a lot of things away still. The rooms are functional but not yet pretty or decorated. Our neighborhood is super cute and I have a nice loop for running that is just under 1 1/4 miles. We have a park just a short walk away. Ben ordered two computer armoires that we will hopefully get next week. That will help things feel finished.

Tomorrow we are driving to Ema's house to spend the night. My mom and Rachelle are flying in this evening and driving out there. I am very excited to see everyone and have them meet Natalie.

We're Here!

Three days in the car and just shy of 1500 miles later, we are here. I'm sitting in a La Quinta Inn right now. We have the keys to our new house, but we'll be staying here tonight since our furniture isn't coming until tomorrow. Ben and I are eating lunch while Lauren is napping and we'll head to the house to unload most of the stuff from the cars before we hit up Target and a grocery store.

The drive was beautiful. I think Utah is gorgeous! I wish I had my camera out, but I wouldn't have been able to take pictures while I was driving anyway, I guess. The girls did really well on the drive. I drove with Natalie, who slept a lot, and Ben had Lauren, who watched movies and sang. Way too much fast food. I'm looking forward to some vegetables. LOL.

Jon is coming down tomorrow to spend the weekend. He needs Ben to do some work on his car. I think Jon is most excited about having us here just because Ben can work on his car. Lauren has been talking about Uncle Higgins a lot. I told her we could go pick apples when we got here, and she said she'd pick two, one for her, and one for him.

Hopefully we'll get internet at the house soon and I'll get pics up.

One Week (more or less)

This morning we decided to take a house on base in Fort Lewis.  We have one of the new construction homes, which will be really nice.  It's two stories and has a detached garage.  It's between 200 and 300 square feet less than what we had in Texas, but we will make do.  We're moving closer to our end in Albuquerque.  I feel like I should be packing already.

Tomorrow Abby and I have an appointment to get pedicures, and on Saturday morning Abby and Sarah are taking me out for my late birthday gift of a morning at the spa at the Sandia Resort and Casino.  On Sunday, both girls are getting baptized.  Monday morning, we're loading up in the cars and heading out on our drive to Washington.  We hope to get there by Wednesday evening and we'll spend one night in a hotel before we get the keys to our house on Thursday and get our household goods delivered on Friday.  (As long as everything goes as planned, which we all know is subject to a lot of things.)  Jon is supposed to come down that weekend and hang out with us.

I have been trying to get out my camera more and take more pictures on manual settings.  I've gotten some really cute photos of the kids.

And I love this one of Abby and Mia.  The colors, the joy, it just makes me smile whenever I see it.

I think this one captures Luke.  Lauren says he's "bad to the bone".  :)

This last one is from Mia's early birthday party.  The girls were sad that Lauren wouldn't be there to celebrate, so she got to have her birthday party about 3 weeks early.  The kids had a little bounce house to jump in and then spent time running in the sprinkler before cake and ice cream.  I think water has to be Lauren's favorite thing.

We have a packed schedule over the next few days, but it will be really exciting to get up to Washington and start getting settled in.  Hopefully Jon won't help Ben throw out any of my things as we unpack.  

 (When Ben and I were moving out of our apartment in San Diego, headed for Great Lakes, Illinois, Jon came to help us pack and get our truck loaded.  Jon gave our boogie boards and beach stuff to a girl in the apartment building who he was hitting on.  And I've never gotten the straight story on who threw out my pink chair (which Ben still insists was purple).  Ben says it was Jon, but Jon says it was Ben.  All I know is that when we got to Great Lakes and were unloading our truck, I noticed it was gone immediately.)  

He shouldn't have the opportunity this time since the movers will be delivering things and unloading the truck.  :)  But it will be good to see him, and have Lauren get to see Uncle Higgins again and Natalie meet him for the first time.

Chunky Monkey 5K & Kids K

Sunday evening was my second 5K.  I also signed Lauren up to do the kids' K, and she was so excited about it.  I got her a running outfit and we pulled her hair back so it "looked fast" and she wanted to stretch and then practice running in the back yard.  She did so many laps back there.  I wouldn't have been able to race afterwards, but I guess I don't have the energy of a three year old.

Sarah and I left for the race first so we could go get the time keeping chips on our shoes and get lined up and ready before Lauren, Lissa, Skipper and Natalie got there.  We didn't want them to have to wait around while we did the boring stuff.  Like stretching.  I always feel so stupid doing it, but it is important.  My calves will ache so badly if I don't.   Sarah and I are stretching it out and Skipper is taking our picture.

Then the race began.  Last time, Sarah ran the whole thing with me to keep me motivated and on pace.  This time she left me in her dust.  Here's Sarah taking an early lead:

And here I am behind her, apparently breaking through a brown shirt gang.  (The race t-shirts were nice enough, but I did not want to run in a cotton shirt since it was well over 90 degrees.  Wicking tanks are awesome, thankyouverymuch.)

For the next half hour, Lauren had fun playing at the park.  She was up and down this rock wall and looking forward to her race.

About 26 minutes after she started, Sarah crossed the finish line.  The girl just in front of her was using a strange scissor hands run technique.  I don't know what that was about.  But there was a group of like 10-15 girls that were sprinting before the race doing that.  Weird.

Another 12 minutes later, I crossed the finish line.  My time was 38:40, a full 1 minute, 4 seconds faster than the last run.  Not bad considering how much hotter it was this race.

As soon as I crossed the finish line, Lauren came up and asked if it was time for her race.  She was ready to go, had Sarah pin her number on, and would talk about nothing else until start time.  I asked if she wanted me to run with her, and she said, no, she was going to do it all herself.  I told her just to follow the other runners, let me know if she wanted me to come run with her at any time, and if she fell, just to get up and keep running.  Most importantly, she should just have fun.  She lined up at the starting line with all the other kiddos.  They had a bike that lead the way of the course.  Skipper started off running behind her so that older, faster kids wouldn't trample her out of the gate.  

As soon as the crowd cleared, she turned to him and said, "No grandpa, I am doing this myself!"

She did let Sarah run just inside the course with her.  She did trip and fall at one point, but she got up and when a man asked her if she was ok, she said, "My mommy said to just get up and keep on running!" and that's what she did.  She ran the whole kilometer and crossed the finish line.

She got her very own medal.  This picture just makes me so proud!

Her race was not timed.  She did great.  There were older kids who were crying or being carried, but she not only finished, but ran the entire thing.  As they were running, she kept telling Sarah that she was so fast and that everybody was clapping just for her.

After the race we got Ben & Jerry's ice cream (Chunky Monkey, of course) and pizza.

The next morning Lauren woke up and told me she wanted to go run another Kids' J.  I guess she's working her way backwards through the alphabet to the A race or something.

Picture Perfect

A few weeks ago, Lissa bought a red, white and blue quilt for her new picnic blanket. She had mentioned that she didn't like that the back was white. I suggested tracing the kids on the back with fabric markers. She suggested that might look like a crime scene, so I said we could just trace their hands. This Sunday we had a BBQ and while everyone was there, that's what we did. We took one corner and traced everyone's right hand (Ben will add his when he gets back in a few weeks) and put the month and year. The plan is to retrace the kids every year when we're all together to make a cool keepsake.

When I bought the fabric markers, I also bought t-shirts for the girls to decorate for themselves. Mia drew pancakes on hers, and traced her own hand, as well as Sarah's. Lauren said she drew a parking lot. She also drew our cat, Bear, in the parking lot, Daddy's car, although she made it purple, and a train. They came out pretty cute.

Abby and I made Luke and Natalie's t-shirts. Although not as imaginative, I think they still came out pretty cute.

This week the new WalMart opened in Albuquerque. It's between Lissa and Abby's houses, so it's the perfect place to stop to pick something up on the way home. We went twice on opening day. They had a mariachi band playing in the produce section.

I also went to Aveda this week to get my hair cut. It's a pretty nice cut, I'm happy with it. While I was in the waiting area, I picked up a magazine and found an article about 'summer camps for adults'. There was one in Santa Fe that does photography workshops, from day classes to week-long workshops. The idea of going is just so exciting. Unfortunately, I can't afford any of the classes. But it does make me want to pull out my camera and take as many pictures as I can and try out new things. I figured out how to change the ISO setting on my camera to be able to use different aperture and shutter speed combinations. I turned on all the lights and lamps in my bedroom one evening and got some cute shots of the girls. I really like this one of Natalie because you can see her bottom teeth:

That one may end up being printed out and framed.

Today I made two little toys for Natalie from 6 different fabric fat quarters I picked up at JoAnn. I got different black and white prints and two with some red in them. I got batting and bells to stuff them with. They came out pretty cute. One is 5"x5"x5", and the other is 3"x3"x3". I have so much of the fabric left over I could make her a bunch more, so I'm going to see what else I can come up with to make for her.

Tomorrow is my last day to train for the next 5K. I can pick up my race packet tomorrow, and Lauren's stuff, too. She's going to be so cute! I can't wait for Sunday evening!

For Now

Maybe I'm doing this the hard way and should just combine my two blogs, but I feel like they're separate things. Ladies and GentleBen is about the family and what we are doing and covers more stuff, while Quilt Sew Bake Craft is just about that. It's been sorely neglected for a good long while, but I have some posts coming to that site soon about the things I've been doing. I had a long stretch -with the pregnancy and Ben's deployment and having two kids and moving- where I wasn't really doing anything creative or crafty and so there wasn't much to post there. I've been doing a lot of sewing while I've been here in Albuquerque and I have more projects to do. Or that I'd like to at least attempt to do.

The internet has been spotty over the last two days here. Pretty annoying. But the good news is, Skipper has made the call to switch over to cable internet and they'll be here next week to get the house set up. Should be much faster and more reliable.

This morning Lauren was coloring and she said, "Mommy, look!" I said, "What is that?" and she said, "A picture." Like, duh. Reminds me of my friend Jen and her "This is not a pipe" shirt, and the meaning behind it, which I believe she explains in her post.

I've been regularly running 20 minutes on the treadmill at the pace of a 12 minute mile. This week I need to go running outside more so that I can get ready for the next 5K which is just a week from tomorrow! All I want to do is improve on my time and I'll be happy. I bought Lauren her own little running outfit for the kids' K and I think she's starting to get excited about going.