The chaos has settled...

We are now back into our routine after getting home from Chicago. The kids and I had a wonderful time! We remained busy every day, and somehow, the kids kept up and were on their best behavior. I was amazed.

We began our trip with a stop at the Morton Arboretum where we had lunch and let the kids run around for a while. A well deserved outing after getting up WAY to early and spending 3.5 hours on a plane...

On Tuesday, Bonnie (my dad's cousin) took us to a little community zoo near her home. It amazes me the amount of things that there are for kids to do throughout Chicagoland! Again the kids had a blast. They saw ducks, sheep, llamas, horses, cows, many different reptiles, a beautiful peacock, racoons, foxes, rabbits, and a bunch of birds of prey.

Then we headed off to meet up with Grandpa after a stop to visit my Great Aunt Mary.

(Doesn't she look GREAT for 94??)

We finally were able to see Grandma Millie on Wednesday - her 99th birthday. She too looks pretty good for her age. She did spend a few days in the hospital over the weekend, but was back to normal by the time we got there. The kids enjoyed playing with her walker (aka a jungle gym for a 2 & 3 year old) and cane. Grandma said that she was worried that she didn't have anything to entertain the children... Little did she know that there was plenty to keep the kids occupied right there in her apartment.

We took her out to Glenwood Oaks (her favorite restaurant) for supper, and she just loved it! She thought it was wonderful to get out, and it sure didn't hurt that we let everyone know that it was her birthday! We had a delicious meal, and topped it off with cake - but not before the entire restaurant sang Happy Birthday. They had live entertainment in the bar area, and our waitress told him about Gram's birthday, so he made the announcement, sang her a song, then broke into Happy Birthday, at which time everyone chimed in. It was really neat, and I know it sure made Gram feel special.
Thursday was spent with Grandpa and Bonnie at the Brookfield Zoo. We saw elephants, hippos, dolphins, monkeys, lemurs, and a hundred other things... The kids even got to pet a stingray, a shark, a snake, and a geko! Again, we had another great day.

(our tour guide)

Finally on Friday it was time to head home. We stopped in and visited with Grandma Millie again, and even took her to Wal-Mart... She loved being able to shop for her own things - it's the little things in life...

We had a wonderful visit with everyone, and look forward to returning for Grandma's 100th.

How time flies...

Well, another two weeks has flashed right before my eyes. It doesn't seem that we do much, but we must or I'd feel like I'd have more time on my hands!


We took a drive up into the mountains a few weekends past and were in awe of all of God's creation around us. We never even left post, yet it felt like we were in another world! When we lived in El Paso, we had to drive hours to get these vistas! We saw pine trees (one even had a cactus growing on one of it's branches), waterfalls, pictographs, and deer like you would not believe (upwards of 40). Here are some pictures:

Grace received a box of new clothes that my mom had made for her, enclosed with all of them was my old chima-jeogori, which she calls her "Cinderella dress".

I also had my first experience "cutting" my son's hair. What a riot! I followed the directions to a tee, and boy did I screw up! He went from a cute, innocent boy, to looking like the troublemaker he really is! At least we don't have any formal pictures scheduled until October so his hair will have time to grow out again.

David is building a headboard for Grace in the shape of a doll house. He had a great time working in his "shop" (or my garage) over the weekend. He got it all put together and now just has to get it painted (her favorite colors of course - pink and purple). He's already talking about building something for Tristan, and he is still in a toddler bed!

And finally, yesterday morning Tristan woke up really early and I couldn't get him to go back to sleep. So, knowing he couldn't get into much trouble, I fell back to sleep - and apparently he did too at some point...

The kids and I will be heading up to Chicago next week for my Grandma's 99th birthday. I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures after that trip... How I love Chicago!

Holiday, Anniversary, and Weather

The last few weeks I've remained busy with the day to day tasks of being a wife and a mother, and all the additional things required to get settled into a new home. Things are coming together and I am hoping to get a good number of our pictures hung this weekend. Then it should really feel like home...

(for those of you who don't know - this is the Oryx David shot 2 years ago)

To update on the fun things that have happened since my last entry:

We celebrated the 4th at Veteran's Memorial Park in Sierra Vista. It is a beautiful park with lots of things for the kids to play on (the good ol' stuff like METAL slides, merry go rounds, monkey bars...). I imagine that at least half of the town was there, but the park is big enough that you didn't feel it was that crowded. The kids had a great time playing, and loved the fireworks display (David and I were impressed too).

David and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary last Saturday. We had a wonderful dinner (the kids were angels), but had to forego the candlelight because Tristan kept wanting to see the "fire". We then went shopping at Lowes, Wal Mart, and Target - how's that for romance???

Here are some pictures of our new home, and the views we have from it. It is gorgeous! The weather here is just amazing - of course in other areas of the country you'd look at some of the clouds and say "get to shelter NOW!"

Views from: our backyard (left and center) and our front yard

Pictures of one of the storms that rolled through... it's monsoon season.

The "dry" creek bed that runs behind our house

Tristan standing out in the rain and saying "Mommy, rain!"

Grace has been all about helping these days...


Our little golfer

Helping Mommy in the kitchen Helping Daddy paint her bookshelf

Now that things are getting settled, I will make a more vigilant effort to get back to my weekly posts so I don't get so long winded...

Arizona

We arrived in our new home state on Thursday and finally got our things delivered on Monday. It's a good thing that David had brought some essentials (like cookware and and air mattress) when he came out earlier!

Prior to leaving El Paso, we celebrated Tristan's 2nd birthday at the Incredible Pizza Company. The kids loved it - all the pizza and pasta you can eat, games, and just a kid friendly atmosphere where they could do as they pleased and not get in trouble for it.

The next day the movers came and packed up all our things and loaded them onto the truck. The kids had gone to daycare that day and had a little party with their friends to say goodbye. They did surprisingly well when they came home to a nearly empty house. David and I had set some things aside to take with us, and explained to them that the movers would bring the rest of their things on the truck.

We then spent 2 nights with friends while we packed up the rest of our things and got the house cleaned.

The kids did well on the trip here and David and I got to unload their mattresses in a major downpour when we arrived (it's monsoon season). We are busy unpacking boxes and trying to find a place for everything. We all really like our new home and are anxious to get all of our personal touches into it. I'll post pictures as soon as everything comes together (as together as it can get...).

Saying goodbye to El Paso

Well, the time has finally come for us to say goodbye to El Paso - at least temproarily. With as big as Ft. Bliss is getting, we may very well be back some day...

David returned home yesterday morning and thankfully will be able to stay until we are all ready to go. The movers will be here to pack on Tuesday, and then load everything up Wednesday. Hopefully we will be able to get all the last minute things done on Wednesday afternoon and be on our way to our new home by Thursday morning.

(Tristan playing peek-a-boo with Daddy)

Unfortunately, the offer we received on our house fell through, so we are still trying to lease or sell it. We've had quite a bit of interest, and everybody LOVES it, but there's always a "but". So we put our trust in God and know that He will provide - even if it is in His time and not ours. He has done well by us so far!

I finished up working on Thursday, and even though it was a really long day, I hated having to leave and say goodbye. I have had such a great time working in the Recovery Room this last year and made some wonderful friends. I hope I can find another job that I enjoy as much as I did here.


On to some more smile-worthy things...


We had pancakes with blueberries for breakfast this morning - Tristan really enjoyed them!



Thankfully I had the foresight to have both the kids take off their shirts before we started eating.


I was washing Grace's sheets yesterday and didn't have them done before nap time, so she just snuggled up with all of her animals and pillows - right where I had thrown them when I took them off her bed...



What a joy they are! They always provide entertainment and laughter, even if it is amid frustration sometimes...

We may be out of touch for a few weeks, but will get back on as soon as we can.

My new toy

I should be getting things ready for moving - you know, setting things aside that I want to take with us, but I just can't seem to get motivated to do that. So, I thought I'd share some pictures that I took with my new camera...

Our old camera's telephoto went out, so it sounded like a pretty good excuse to upgrade. So, Tuesday I went and purchased a Nikon D60, complete with zoom lens - and I LOVE it!! Now, if I can just figure out what all those pretty little buttons will do for me I'll be way ahead of the game. But, until then, I'll continue using the auto mode and still get fabulous pics.

Here's a few of them...

The kids got into the water last night after I cleaned up the spilled bubbles...

In other news... David went to Ft. Huachuca, AZ on Sunday and secured a house for us on Monday. We will be joining him on or about the 26th of June. We decided that with the price of gas these days that the kids and I really didn't need to go with him. After all, it's not like we had to go house hunting - he saw 2 models and chose one of them. Now if we can just get this house sold or rented...

Party Time

I have had a HUGE case of the lazies lately, and have been working quite a bit - which explains why I haven't been keeping up our blog.

David has been busy doing all of his out processing stuff these last two weeks, and in preparation for movers coming this week, we decided to have a farewell BBQ and a little party for Tristan's upcoming 2nd birthday. So, I printed invitations and made sure they all got out in a timely fashion since this was really last minute - and then I got a call from David saying that we can't get any movers to come out until at least the 24th of June! UGH!! Since David is still going to Arizona on the 10th, we went ahead with the party and had a great time. We have made some wonderful friends here who we will dearly miss.

Friday I made cakes for Tristan and David. Tristan's is the John Deere, and David's is the International - he even directed me on how to decorate them so they would be more accurate than the cake instructions depicted...

Tristan had a great time, and was really into opening his presents this year. He got stage fright when it was time to blow out the candles though...

Monday, David took the kids out in the back yard and had some batting practice