Washington trip!!!

Our life is always an adventure! We move into our house on a Friday night, buy a puppy the next morning, that following Monday I finally start seriously unpacking, and then Tuesday morning I get a call from my dear husband that basically said I needed to start packing everything I could because he was on his way home and as soon as he got there we were leaving for Washington for two weeks. Umm…what?!?! Needless to say, because we JUST moved, I ended up having to pack a lot of dirty clothes, and seriously felt like I was just throwing random clothes in a bag praying that I got all the necessities. Then it hits me, we got a puppy like 3 days ago! What are we supposed to do with her?! I called a couple people to see if they could watch her, but nothing was panning out, which started a slight panic attack on my part. Could I really leave a 10 week old puppy locked in a bathroom all day with my mom dropping by 2 times a day to let her out for a little bit? That just seemed SO CRUEL…but I didn’t want to stay JUST because of the dog! Rob came home, and even though we were packed, I was still a wreck. We loaded all of our stuff up, and then all of a sudden he puts Athena in the back of the truck and I was going ‘…umm, what?’ he responded with ‘oh I didn’t tell you? My amazing sister Lanae is going to watch her.’ YAY!!! SO excited! So we hit the road after getting Nate to promise to watch over Bors while he house sits. The trip actually went REALLY well. Between me and Athena we had to stop like every two hours for potty breaks, but Rob was very patient with us, and we still managed to make the trip in around 10 hours. However, surprise to me, we ended up keeping Athena in the hotel with us for the rest of the week. With Rob’s work schedule he was just way too tired to make a 4 hour trip just to drop her off, so Athena and I got a LOT of bonding time VERY quickly. Although a puppy is definitely not meant to live in a hotel room, for the most part we had a lot of fun. The first night she slept in the Bathroom, but after that she ended up on our bed...every single night...right next to my head...cuddling with my hair. Needless to say, it got kind of really interesting a few times.

 By Saturday we were MORE than ready to take her to Lanae’s : ).  Rob managed to get off work on Saturday fairly early, and we were able to make the trip down to Enumclaw, drop the dog off, and then spend the weekend with Rob’s family, which was SO much fun. We got to go to church on Sunday (thanks to Twyla since she let me borrow church clothes :P)  and then had a really nice dinner with the family, grandparents, and an aunt and uncle : ). For Easter Rob got a remote controlled helicopter from the Easter Bunny, and he LOVES IT. His dad has one, and a few others in the family, so he really enjoyed getting to mess around with it while he was at his parents.

On Monday Rob left Enumclaw at the early hour of 3:30 to make it back in time for work at 6:30. I got to hang out with my dear mother-in-law for a few hours, and then Twyla swept me away to go shopping at the Super Mall.  I’ve been procrastinating going maternity shopping, but Twyla made it such a fun experience. I got a lot of stuff, and the best part is they really don’t look like maternity clothes. They can definitely be worn anytime, which I REALLY loved. And I FINALLY bought my first baby item!!! Twyla was talking about this amazing diaper bag she had when Ben was little, and how convenient it was…and then we found the exact same bag basically! It was a great deal, so I got it! The whole day was SO much fun, and I really enjoyed all the time I got to spend with everyone and hopefully we’ll be able to go back down this next weekend for a day or two as well, which would be SO perfect. The break has been a really nice distraction from all the craziness going on at home, needless to say I am not ecstatic about going back to a house still in boxes.

Oh, one more fun note, we find out what baby is in only a week and 3 days!!! Fingers crossed we get to find out the first time!

Here’s some pics of silly Athena, and the ride up to Washington :P

For the most part she just sprawled out and slept the whole way

But when she was awake, she didn't like feeling left out...

...so she kept licking dad hoping he'd let her in the front

haha she kind of loves him :P

Athenas silly sleeping position

She thought she was a parrot?

another cute Athena sleeping position on the ride

we bought her this dress thinking it would drive her nuts and it would be funny...she didn't mind it being on at all though

haha we know it's ridiculous...but she IS really kinda cute :P

Diaper Bag :)

So Many Changes, So Little Time

We are officially homeowners! We signed all the paperwork for our new home on March 27^th, and by the next afternoon we had the keys! I wasn’t really sure how the moving process would go, but my dad was willing to bring his trailer over and we did one big load and got EVERYTHING. It was so nice to do it this way, and would not have been possible without the amazing help of my poppi, Brady, and Mike. Thank you boys!  It probably took an hour to load up, and than an hour to unload, so not too bad over all…now I just have to UNPACK. Haha it is a lot more fun than packing was, so I can’t complain about it too much. We love the house and have NO real complaints about it yet! I can't figure out how to get the video I took on here, I think it's too long :/ So here are some pics I took before the house was completely covered in boxes...

Living Room

Second half of living room

Kitchen

Dining Room

Master Bedroom

Walk in closet :)

Soon to be nursery

Nates room

Future office/spare bedroom/storage room

The other office/spare bedroom/storage room

half the backyard

second half of back yard :)

Also…We got a puppy! First let me explain our thought process with this. We have both felt like Bors really needs a friend. He’s definitely an outdoor dog because of his sheer size and the fact that he loves to destroy…everything. Even though we make sure to play with him every day and spend time with him, he always has so much energy that we really thought anther dog would help him out. So once we woke up on Saturday, we decided to go look for a dog. Our original plan was to get an older dog, so that we could skip the puppy stage with a new dog and Bors would have someone his size to play with right off the bat. The plan was working, we found a few that we were interested in and talked about…and then we found a puppy. She was an ADORABLE ball of energy and she fell in love with us as fast as we fell for her. Even though I was a little leery about getting another puppy, there was no way we could walk away at that point. We adopted her, and Rob picked out the name Athena.

So we get this adorable dog, and I’m anxiously awaiting the meeting of our new family member to her big brother, thinking it will solve all of my Bors worries…and go figure, they don’t like each other at all. See, we REALLY didn’t think this through very well it turns out. Bors is a great dog, but first of all he’s HUGE, and second… he’s not fixed yet. We’ve been meaning to get this done, it just hasn’t happened yet. So we make the brilliant decision to get a GIRL dog…too young to have spaded yet. Yeah, bad plan. Bors is trying to make friends…and he’s just getting a bit too personal for her taste. So go figure, the dogs are now staying separated until I can get Bors into the vet. I am PRAYING once this happens he’ll mellow down a little bit, and they’ll warm up to each other some. So our plans didn’t really work out, Athena is, for the time being at least, an indoor dog, and Bors is still outside, by himself…in a new environment that he has no idea what to do with, and there is now a new puppy in the house with his mom and dad…something he was NEVER allowed to do. Poor Bors. He seems to love the new backyard, and is definitely enjoying having the freedom to run around, but he is a little more needy than before, so a lot more whiny. Sigh, I am really praying this works out well for both of them eventually.

Anyways…here are a few pics of Athena, any guesses on what type of dog she is??? They didn’t know when we adopted her, which means we have NO idea how big she’ll get (but I’m not sure it’s possible to get too much bigger than Bors, so I’m not too worried :P ). The top main guesses are; Blue Heeler, Akita, Chow, or Australian Shepherd. Rob even wondered about some Pomeranian? She has REALLY thick longer hair, and has little gray spots randomly on her coat. Lets here all your educated guesses!

Athena

Playing with Daddy :)

Ignore the conversation Brady and I were having, we were trying to remember what our neighbors dogs were names :P

Spring time!?! Maybe?!?

Woo-hoo!!! Two posts in one month! Pretty sure that’s a new record :P

Well the house continues to have more paperwork that needs to be in place. At the beginning of the week we were hoping to have it closed by Friday, but now the end of NEXT week looks more likely. Darn house buying process; it really can get annoying after awhile. The only plus side is now I have a little bit more time to pack, so that stress has been relieved just a little bit.

Last week Rob, Jaden, and I got to do something really cool. We got to go to a whole bunch of one-acts that the high school puts on every year. Danielle was performing in one of them, and Brady was directing another one. I’ve had the opportunity to do both of those, and I’ll tell ya, directing a play is one of the most stressful experiences I have ever had, even over planning a wedding. I loved the experience though, and both of them seemed to really enjoy it. Brady handled the stress a lot better than I did when I did mine, he didn’t keep bursting into tears randomly throughout the day. And Danielle honestly made her entire play amazing. She was by far the best actor in hers, and she shined like you wouldn’t believe. It was so cute :P

I registered for school for next semester! …yay? Not so much. I’m only taking two classes, but I’m still pretty stressed about them. Advanced English and a Business class. Not a huge fan of Business classes at all (funny that I’m majoring in business then hu?), and I REALLY hate English classes, especially online. I already told Rob to start praying that I pass that class..so maybe there’s hope :P

So baby is an orange this week and is going to be considered an avocado in two days, but my husband informed me that I’m not really allowed to compare it to fruit anymore since Washington fruit is bigger than most average fruit so he keeps thinking that baby is bigger than it really is. So right now the baby is somewhere between 4 to 4.5 inches long. You can pick whichever fruit you want that fits within that size range.

Baby Bump?!

Rob and I got to partake in our first spring-ish thing this last weekend. We got to go shooting with puppy! Bors desperately needed to get out and run, and we’ve both been itching for it to be warm enough to go, so even though it was sporadically raining and hailing we went and had a REALLY good time. I’m still amazed at how well Bors handles the guns, and all the rules he knows he has to follow when we get them out. Rob recently sold his grenade launcher SKS and so he was allowed to buy a new gun. Which gun did he choose? A Ruger Mini 14 Rancher. He’ll probably give me a hard time because that’s not “technically” the name, but it’s really close. It’s a fun gun, it’s got a short barrel so it’s REALLY loud, but it doesn’t kick too bad, so I’m not too scared to shoot it :P Here are some pics of our adventure : )

Bors is just as focused as his dad :)

The ONLY time puppy likes to cuddle is when we go shooting...it's kinda funny

Cute Puppy :)

The best pic I could get with the spaz :P

This would be the shaving cream cans we shot...it was cool :)

My babe and his new toy :)

February and Pregnancy

Where to start?!?!?!

Well first off, if you thought I complained about Rob’s work hours in January, they were NOTHING compared to some of the hours he worked in February. In a two week period he worked over 160 hours.  That’s 30 MORE hours than the craziness of January. You’d think at some point I’d get used to the whole thing, but thus far, it has not happened yet. I miss him like crazy and it’s really hard when our relationship for two weeks consists of not much more than getting into bed together at night, and getting out of bed the next morning. But luckily things seem to have mellowed down a little bit, so I will count my blessings : )

More good news on his job, they finally got a new guy hired up there working with them and they have two guys from a different site over here helping them keep up on all their stuff until they get one other guy hired.  The new guys name is Nate, and he seems really cool, Rob really likes him, which makes his job a lot more fun. For the time being, Nate is living with us in our spare bedroom on an air mattress until he gets an apartment in the middle of April. It’s definitely been a change having someone else live with us, but Nate is really cool, and a very easy roommate to have. His family is still in Washington and will be up there until they get this apartment, so I’m sure it has been quite an adjustment for him too.

Now for more surprising news…we put an offer in on a house! The house is on the other side of town, has 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and sits on over an acre of land. We are REALLY praying that this comes through for SO many reasons. We love the house that we are in right now, and it has SO MANY memories literally built into it, but it is a really small house. With a baby on the way it will be completely full, and with this new house Bors will have a huge fenced in back yard to play in so we won’t have to keep him on a chain, baby will get a nice nursery, we will have a garage, room to put all our extra stuff, and it will cut Rob’s commute gas down by over half!  Nice extra bonus to the new house… Nate will get his very own bathroom and the three of us won’t be trying to work around each other’s bathroom schedules.   I’ve been working my butt off trying to get everything ready for the closing, and I’ve tried really hard to do as much of it by myself as I can because of Rob’s crazy work schedule, but it seems to love to throw curve balls at me. The most current surprise we’ve just found out is supposedly we have to buy flood insurance. Bleh. That will be later today’s project to figure out. BUT…if all goes well and everything works out the way it’s looking like it should, we could close in just a matter of a few weeks. The closing date is set at March 28…but we’re thinking it will be sooner.  I guess I should think about starting to pack pretty soon. :/

Hopefully our house in less than a month!

 The SAD SAD news…. The colts decided to drop Peyton Manning. I know this is silly of me to be so upset over, but I really am devastated. The colts were the first time that I really loved, and a big part of that was because of what an amazing quarterback Peyton was. I watched the press conference on the whole thing…and cried the entire time through. I’m pretty sure baby was mourning with me, because there was A LOT of emotion involved. It was one of the rare days that I was grateful Rob was at work and didn’t have to see me such a mess about something I’m sure he thinks is ridiculous.

Baby, baby, baby

 I’ve decided that being pregnant is QUITE the adventure. I think I am finally starting to get over the morning sickness which I am SO grateful for and yesterday I even smelled the restaurants around town cooking breakfast and it smelled GOOD! SO glad to have somewhat of an appetite back, I have really missed ENJOYING food. We got to hear baby’s heartbeat last Friday again, and it is still definitely going strong and sounding good! The wives tale is if the heart beat is over 140, it’s going to be a girl. The doctor said it was in the 150’s…good thing we started preparing for a girl as soon as we found out! Anyways, I decided to write down some other likes and dislikes to this crazy adventure so that I can remember them for next time and for the future.

Likes

• Using the term “baby said so” for almost everything. I admit, I have definitely been milking this. If Rob starts tickling me my comment is “baby said don’t do that, it doesn’t like it.” Or getting Danielle and Jaden to do favors for me that otherwise they would NEVER consider doing. Haha I think everyone has pretty much caught on and is starting to just ignore me…but it worked for a few weeks : )
• The dreams. I know that’s kind of weird, but I love analyzing dreams and trying to remember what I dreamed about the last night. Now it seems like every morning I can wake up and remember at least 2 dreams I had that night. There are definitely some weird dreams, and the occasional ones that I wish I didn’t remember, but for the most part it’s been really fun.
• My cute new clothes. This is a con for me too. It SUCKS not comfortably fitting into my jeans anymore, and looking goofy in all my regular shirts. But my mom finally took pity on me, and helped me go clothes shopping. It was fun, and not nearly as dreadful as I was expecting it to be.
• Robs patience with me. This has been a crazy adventure for me, I can’t even imagine what he’s going through. When I have days where I’m just feeling sick and emotional and tired and cranky…he’s the one that has to put up with me. He’s been SO patient, he definitely deserves a vacation or something after all this is over.
• Watching Robs love for this baby grow faster than my tummy is. He is ridiculously adorable when it comes to this kid. He definitely has his moments of anticipation and maybe even fear, and I’m pretty sure he’s going to have me and my mom buy ALL the baby furniture and whatnot, because he gets overwhelmed pretty quick thinking about how much stuff we’re going to have to buy, but when it comes to the baby itself, it already has it’s dad wrapped around it’s finger. He’ll come cuddle me on the couch and say “Hi, I love you” I’ll respond with “I love you too” and he’ll go “ooh…I love you too. Sorry, I was talking to baby, can you wait a sec?”  Haha, it was pretty much the cutest thing EVER, even if I was slightly jealous for like half a second. :P

Dislikes

• The randomly mad stomach. For the most part the morning sickness is over, but it still definitely finds a way to squirm it’s way in on occasion. Meat is still not my best friend, and I have to be really careful when I eat it to stop when my tummy says so. And I’m REALLY disappointed that I haven’t had any crazy cravings yet :/ For whatever reason I was really excited for that :P
• Not fitting into my jeans. I can still wear them, I just have to tie a rubber band around the button and wrap it through the button hole so I have some room to move. But overall it’s still not very comfortable and baby gets irritated because of how squished it gets, resulting in more mad stomach.
• Getting slowly bigger. You’d think I would have already accepted this fact, but when we found out I was pregnant my mind instantly went to like… a 7 month pregnant lady who REALLY looks pregnant. This very slow process has been harder because of that I think. I’m ready to really LOOK pregnant, not just bloated and…awkwardly a bit larger than I was before.
• The emotions. I think they’re starting to calm down a bit, and they weren’t as bad as I was expecting them to be, but they were still definitely there. The first time I got the pleasure of experiencing this was watching Just Go With It. Don’t know how many of you have seen it, but it’s an Adam Sandler comedy/chick flick. We saw it in theaters forever ago, and it was a cute movie (not one for younger kids though…definitely a married person movie) so we bought it when it came out…well I bawled through the entire ending…and it doesn’t even end sad! Rob didn’t really know what to do with me. Haha he was very patient though. The other big example was how upset I was over Peyton leaving the Colts. Once again, I know it’s stupid, but it still brings tears to my eyes :’(

 Well, I think that about sums up all the craziness going on over here. We find out if baby really is a girl in 5 weeks and 3 days! So we need everyone praying that baby will behave so we can find out on the first attempt!!!

Oh! One more fun bonus for this week, we just got news that we have another nephew!!! Congrats Twyla and Aaron, we can't wait to meet little Caleb!!!