Friday, June 29, 2006

This was Troy's week of working M-F from 5-4. Since we only have one car here, and it has been pouring rain most of the week, me and the kids have had a boring week! Highlights of the week:

Monday: We bought a laptop...Hurray for internet! (How did we live without it, anyways?)

Tuesday: Kristin smeared chocolate syrup into the brand new VERY light colored carpet - AND since we have a maid here, I have NO cleaning supplies! You'd be amazed at what hot water takes out!

Wednesday: Troy found out we may have to be here through December, but won't find out final details until this week sometime!

Thursday: I found out I'm headed to Chicago to a CHA Convention for my business! I am meeting Erin there and we are going to go see Wicked (The Musical)! After being stuck in the house all week, I can't wait!

Friday: IT STOPPED RAINING! I took the kids swimming this morning. Since it has been raining for quite awhile, the pool wasn't so warm. I am not fond of cold pools, but I decided I was going to be a good mom, I knew I wouldn't get hypothermia from going into a pool for 30 minutes, so I sucked it up. Afterwards we came home and the kids drew pictures for all of their friends that they dearly miss and constantly talk about. Wish they had friends here. When Troy got home, they told him "We had a fun day today, daddy!" Troy took them on a walk to get mail, and they found a little playground on the property. Troy said it wasn't great, but I'll have to go check it out tomorrow! Troy doesn't have to work again until Wednesday! WOO HOO!!!!

Well, that summarizes the week! Hope everyone has a super 4th!

June 26, 2006

We're home...Kinda!
We finally are in our home for the next 5 months. It's kinda crazy to realize what you can live without when you have no other options. It's also crazy to realize what you CAN'T live without...examples: 9x13 pan, hand mixer, crockpot, rice cooker. Our apartment, or technically, townhome, is really nice. It has brand new carpet which is really nice. We have a garage, with a door from the garage into an entry way, then there are carpeted stairs (17 to be exact) that lead to the second level, which is kind of a great room. It is much bigger than our living space in Oregon. The kitchen is huge with a nice island. There are tons of cabinets, which are mostly empty, which has actually been nice. You then head up another set of 17 stairs to get to the third level which has the laundry, 2 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms. In the kids room, they managed to get 3 twin beds in it. We had requested a queen for the kids to share, but oh well. Krisin has fallen off the bed the first 2 nights, so we're trying a new arrangement tonight, we'll see how it goes. On every level, we have really high ceilings. Well, high to us, I think they are about 9 foot ceilings. The pool here is really nice for the kids. I had this marvelous plan to take the kids swimming every day before lunch, and then after lunch have them all take a nap. We went swimming for 15 minutes on Saturday before it started raining, so my plans have been thwarted for the time being. Rain is in the forcast everyday for the next 7 days. Hopefully it will let up soon. It is flooding here, we won't have a problem, (we're 17 steps up!) but the Metro (DC Subway) is even flooded. You might hear about us on the news. I think we are Fairfax County. Troy is enjoying work, this first week has been boring orientations and stuff, but he likes the people he works with. We went to church, but I am wanting to stay detached a bit, cause it will make it easier to leave in 5 months. I'm sure you all know me, so staying detached might be difficult, but we only have 1 car, so it's making it kind of easy. Anyways, that's about all that's happening here. We went and bought some toys tonight for the kids. They had nothing to do. I told Troy we could just sell them in a big lot on ebay before we go back, so hopefully they will keep them occupied...I'll send pics as soon as Troy can get my camera working on this thing! BYE~!

June 22, 2006

Hello All.
Today we entered the great world of IKEA. It was my first experience! Of course, I LOVED IT! Troy was really happy that we couldn't buy anything to send back to Utah! Then I reminded him there is one being built in Bluffdale. YEA! Oh yeah, and they have catalogs! Sorry Troy! We move into our place tomorrow! THANK HEAVENS! I will be so excited to not be living out of suit cases. We have been in suitcases since we left our home in Oregon, which is coming on 3 weeks now! AND, I'm starting to need maternity clothes which are packed up in the boxes we brought, which I will be able to unpack tomorrow! We have done no site-seeing! But, we don't know what we would do without mapquest! More when we're settled!

June 21, 2006

Hello Everyone! We finally made it!
Yesterday at 8:00 am we found out we were flying out at 3:54pm that day. So, we got everything ready, and headed to the airport, with kids and baggage in tow. Which included: 4 boxes size 22x22x18, 6 suitcases, and 7 carry on bags. We did curbside checking which costs us $25.00 - well worth it - then headed off for security. Lucky us...we were ALL selected for an extra security check! Thanks to IM Flash for purchasing our tickets last minute! We then headed to the gate and had just enough time to take the kids to the bathroom before we got on the plane. The second the planes wheels lifted off the ground, Jake and Kristin were asleep. They both slept the entire 4 hours to Chicago. A flight attendant came up and told us our kids were wonderful. Troy told her it was just cause they slept the whole time, she said, "oh, no, I saw them when they got on, it's excellent parenting". Troy and I laughed our butts off. Little does she know... The Chicago airport was a crazy madhouse. The lines for the restroom were at least 10 people long. And, in the restrooms, they have these crazy toilets I've never seen before that have plastic covering the toilet seat, and you push a button and it automatically changes to a clean plastic thing...wierd...nice and clean though. The 1 hour and 40 minute flight to DC was painless. The kids watched a movie. We arrived and got our luggage - ALL of it, had no idea what to do with it, since we got a mid-size rental car. We asked a United agent if we could leave it at the airport until we got our rental car, he told us no. I had to be with Troy to get the rental car so that I could be an authorized driver. There was this crazy man - literally, I don't know that we understood half of what he said due to his grammar and lisp - that the United guy said we might want to have watch our stuff (not the kids though) while we got the rental car. We really had no other choice...so we hoped our stuff would be there when we got back. We didn't really think he could take it all somewhere, we just hoped he wouldn't go through it all - even though we didn't leave wallets/cameras/expensive stuff. So, off to the rental car. At this time it was 12:30 am eastern time. On the Hertz bus to get the car, I almost puked my guts out. Luckily we got to the Hertz building just in time. Once at the rental car place, we had no choice but to rent and extra car - a minivan - just to get our stuff from the airport. So, I drove the mini van back to baggage claim, and lucky us, there was our crazy man! We gave him a $15 tip, told him thanks for being honest, and headed to the hotel. The mini van cost us $92 for one day. So, after the curbside checking $25.00, the crazy man's tip $15.00, just getting our luggage to the hotel cost us $132.00. Needless to say, Troy was probably cursing my business. Oh well...Anyways, we made it to the hotel at 2:00am eastern time. Lucky us, since we were the last people to check-in, they gave us a smoking room. AUGHH!!! Of course, I immediately called, and they're suppossed to change us into a non-smoking one for the next 2 nights. Our kids only slept until 8:30. Not so good for Troy and me. We ate breakfast, and then I saw this handy dandy computer in the corner. Thought I'd keep you all posted. We're happy to finally be here, we'll be extatic on Friday night when we can actually unpack into our home for the next 5 months! Anyways...we miss you all! Come to Virginia! We'll pick you up from the airport! :) LOVE YA!!!

June 13, 2006

Whew! We moved! The kids are still adjusting. Mostly Kristin, she keeps asking to go to her house, and sleep in her bed. She is telling everyone she has a house...hmmm...little does she know. I keep telling her that our home is basically the car. Not that we're sleeping in it, we're lucky enough to have family to stay with, but it's not the same. We found out our address for Virginia yesterday! WHEW HOO! It's about time! We found out we will be in Herndon, VA. Aprroximately 9 miles from Jeff and Kari Bennion (aka Eggenberger). We are really excited to see them. It's been 3 1/2 years since we have! If you want my address, email me, and I can get it to you. They sent us a photo of the pool at the place we are staying. Kyle and Jake had the biggest eyes ever (well, for Jake, not the biggest as they've ever been...if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'll have to post a baby pic of Jake sometime) as Kyle exclaimed: That's the biggest pool I've ever seen!

After being in Utah for a week, we are anxious to be back from Utah and find a house. Troy told me he can't wait for January for all of this to be over! I concur! I told him in January there will be a new set of obstacles...we'll have 4 kids!

We fly to VA next Tuesday! We are really excited to see the East Coast! Hope all is well with everyone!