Our Adventure to TX

Not sure how many pictures this program will let me upload, but we'll see.... I should have done this along the way, but never got around to it.

One last light saber fight between Matt and Caroline... :(

We started our adventure on Thursday, May 22nd and left GH around 2:30. We made it to Portland and visited with our friends Jen and Roger. The next morning Joe and Roger rearranged the trailor (i think all in all we rearranged it about 6 times!) and we finally left Portland around 1. We hoped to make it to Sacramento but ended up stopping about 2 hours away. When we stopped for dinner we found this great kids play place that had all kinds of tubes and slides for the kids to go through. Joe even got to go in the tubes and play with the kids. After dinner the kids finally went to sleep and around midnight we found a hotel room and stopped. We got up early the next morning and headed to Palm Springs.

The kids were so excited to get there! Finally a place to get out of the car and swim for a couple days.

Nicholas got a set of Spiderman swim stuff and this little hand thing squirts water... he loved it!

I have some family that lives in Palm Springs. One night we went over to my Uncle's house and had dinner. We didn't bring anything for the kids to swim in so they swam in their underwear. The pool was freezing, but they didn't care.

At one point my uncle even jumped in and swam with them!

At our hotel there was a "lazy river" or the round pool as Caroline called it. It had a current that just swept you around the river... it was fun.. Caroline especially enjoyed it with her floatie and water wings.

We stopped for a picnic at a rest stop and when I got back to take pictures the kids were on their way to the car.

We didn't make it very far the day we left Palm Springs. We only go to Tucson. We did get there in time for the kids to jump in the pool with Daddy before bed.

Originally we had the big kids in the 3rd row of the car, but when stopped in Palm Springs we picked up some furniture from my aunt and it took up a lot more room then we expected it too. The big kids ended up in the middle row with all their stuff. They are both zoning out a little watching a movie (best thing ever for long car rides... DVD players!)

When we left Tucson we drove from 7:30am and arrived in Fort Worth at 3:30am. It was a LONG day to say the least. We stopped quite a few times to let the rugrats free and once they finally fell asleep it made things a little bit easier. It was nice to finally get here.....

Seattle

We all piled in our cars after the race and headed up to Issaquah to check out the Laybourn's new house. Chris got a new job and his territory is North Seattle and the commute has been torture. So they have rented out their house and rented a house for themselves up North. The kids had fun running around the empty house and deciding who got which room. It was really cute. After that we headed to Alki beach and had a picnic dinner. It got to 95 that day, rare for Washington, but wonderful!! Perfect day for the beach!

We took one last ferry ride home....

The Race...

The day after all our stuff disappeared we hungout with our friends, the Laybourn's. We started the morning off by doing the Race for Micah's Miracle. It was a short little kids dash. The morning was absolutely perfect! A great start to the day...

Matt and Caroline getting ready for the race...

Matt, Taylor and Caroline...

Nicholas, Brady, and Tyler getting ready too for the race...

The three boys came across the finish line one right after the other. I think it was Tyler, Brady then Nicholas or something like that...

Mattie running strong...

Caroline being pulled along by Daddy. She was not enthusiastic when it came to her time to run. She didn't start the race and we finally convinced her to run across the field and catch up to the pack. She came in second to last..... nice!

The Move

About 10 days ago the big truck pulled up to our house and took all our stuff to San Antonio. It was VERY strange, and VERY sad to see them come and take all our stuff away.......



The kids were quite suprised to see such a big truck in front of our house. They got to go in and check the truck out. This is the driver of our truck. Hopefully it has all arrived safely. We won't get into our house until the 4th or 5th.

The Wedding

On May 3rd, Joe's brother Mike got married. We had his mom and stepdad, and sister Katie and her husband with us at our house for a few days. The kids loved having them around! We got to see Joe's dad over this time too....

Aunt Katie and Uncle Lee


Caroline learning from Grandma Susu how to make hamburgers... she really likes anything that has to do with cooking!


Uncle Lee hanging out with Molly at the wedding :)


Mr Nicholas all dressed up and ready to carry the rings down the isle


The newlyweds..... Mike and Jamie Karhan

Cute

A couple weeks ago Caroline went to bed in our room. She wanted to read a few books and when Joe went to go check on her, this is what we found..... They looked quite comfortable together :)

Dresses

When we went to San Antonio Grandma sent home a new dress she made for Caroline. Caroline love's it! She is constantly changing her clothes and loving to wear dresses. We see this one quite often on her.




Later the same day, Caroline and Nicholas came upstairs and informed me that the were going to the beach. (outside it was about 32 degrees). Not sure what the were thinking... maybe dreaming a little!

San Antonio

In April (yes, that's how far behind I am on this blog!) we went to San Antonio to look for a place to live. Nana and Papa kept Caroline and Nicholas for us, and we brought Molly. This was not her first airplane ride, like I thought for a moment, but never the less, she was a champ. We had the first flight out in the morning and it was EARLY for all of us..


We were able to stay in Dallas and Joe's mom's house the first night we got there and we borrowed their car to go to San Antonio. Grandpa Bob hadn't met little miss Molly yet..


There is a restaraunt in San Antonio on the Riverwalk called Dicks... it's quite an interesting place.... anyway, Molly got a hat for it being her first time there... It says "Princess Poopie Pants"


Daddy and Molly relaxing after a long day of house hunting.


The night before we left we went out to dinner with Grandma.

Kids.....

So, one night, Joe and I had gone downstairs to watch some tv and around 9:30 or so, Joe went up stairs to get something, and this is what he found.... Nicholas under Molly's crib playing with a box of shoes and anything else he could find. He had the full lights on in the bedroom too....



This is how we found Caroline during the whole ordeal..... SOUND ASLEEP!



Caroline and Molly having a bath! Caroline LOVES being the big sis and tries to love on Molly as much as Molly will allow...


Molly and her little friend Benjamin

siblings

Molly just loves her big brother and big sister....

(some of these posts are out of order so I'm just going to put dates on them so I don't forget when they were..... 4/20 and 4/25)

Star Wars

Mattie (aka Princess Leia.... notice the buns on his ears...) and Nicholas were showing Molly how the light-saber worked...


didn't take long for her to figure it out :)

Miss Molly

Will somebody please tell Molly to slow down. I can't handle her growing up! I know she really is still little, but time is flying by too quickly! We move in less than 50 days and I'm having a tough time will all of this! It's going to be really hard to say goodbye to all our friends and family!

She's figured out how to climb the first couple of steps.....

Caroline's future job

She managed to get a hold of my camera while the Gore's and Laybourn's were over. Taylor was dressed up like Batman, and Nicholas is Superman (i can't get the darn costume off him!!!)

And we're off again....

Most of you know by this point that we are off to San Antonio in less than 8 weeks. Yikes! But for those of you who don't know, I have somehow managed to forget to announce the big changes in our life and the adventure Joe is about to start.

He has been itching for a career change of some sort for quite a while. He started taking some classes about a year and half ago to get him self ready for some sort of school - med school, pa school, nurse anesthesia, nurse practioner, if it's in the medical/nursing field, he's thought about it. Anyway, he passed the GRE earlier this year and a few weeks later we found out he had been accepted in to the US Army Nurse Anesthesia program down in San Antonio at Fort Sam Houston and Brooke Army Medical Center. So, for 13 months starting in June we will be living down in SA while Joe goes to school. At the end of the 13 months we will be assigned a new post for 18 months while Joe completes Phase II of CRNA School. Then off to another army post for 4 years. It will be the army life for the kids and I, but Joe will be well taken care of and therefore so will we. He is getting excited to get the next phase of life started and get into a new career that will hopefully hold his interest for a little while. The kids have their moments of being excited to get a "new house" and sad that Nana and Papa have to come on an airplane to visit us. It will be very difficult for all of us to leave our friends and family. (I try not to think about it too much these days cause I know that the end of May is coming way too quickly). We will be renting our house out in GH so if any of you locals know anyone, please give them our number. And, if anyone is ever in the San Antonio area, PLEASE come visit us!!!!!!!