Our New Life

So I know I have put some tidbits up already, but I wanted to make sure we had one good post to officially ring in the new year, new decade, and our new life! We are officially settled into our apartment in VA, and loving it. We have already made some really fun friends, and have received our first bid list! We have essentially narrowed down our choices and have a personal top ten list. We won't find out for a couple more weeks where we are going, but if we get any of the places in our top 10, or even top 20 for that matter (which from what we've heard is reasonably likely) we will be THRILLED! There are tons of different places that cover the globe, so it is all much more exciting than I had even anticipated! Our air shipment arrived last week as well, and we have unpacked all of those boxes. Some of our stuff arrived in some really large boxes that we kept a couple of for the boys to play in. They have had a great time with them (also coupled with the "drop a piece of paper, and see if they can catch it game" that we learned from Greg T.) thanks again! It is amazing the fun some simple things can bring. We have been out a little bit to the city, and hopefully will be doing tons more here soon. So far though, we've been focused on the bid list and getting settled before we really hit all the monuments. There seems to be and ENDLESS supply of fun, free, activities here. We are in heaven! Missing you all, and waiting for any and all visitors!

Winter Family Pictures 2009

 

We had my SIL Aubrye take these fun pictures of us before we moved. Ronan was NOT in the mood for pics, Porter thought he had better poses than we could possibly come up with, and it was freezing because we waited until Noah could shave off his moustache for "Movember" (prostate cancer awareness) to take these....but we had a great time, and I thought they turned out great. We loved wearing our "Sparty" green colors and thought this was a good sum up of the photo shoot.

National Botanical Gardens Holiday Train Exhibit

My neighbor down the hall invited us along to the National Botanical Gardens the other day. Through last week they still had their holiday exhibit up with all of these gorgeous little houses, fairytale gardens, and all of the National Monuments! Everything was made out of natural things like leaves, beeswax, bark, acorns, etc. It was absolutely amazing, and a giant exhibit. The fun thing was that it was also a train exhibit with tons of awesome trains zooming in and around everything! The boys absolutely LOVED it! Now, for my part, I didn't even know we had National Botanical Gardens, so it was a great treat for me! Everything was so beautiful, and all the monuments were so detailed!! I especially loved that they put the new swing-set at the White House! It really was incredible. I am so grateful we were able to squeeze this in before it closed.



Still Working on being good for pictures. This is the best one we got of me and the boys.

Just for the journal...

Things I have learned and done recently:
one. Life is really exciting and awesome, and can at times be extremely sad. My life is quite fortunately exciting and awesome right now!! I want to remember this time when I have any hard times. two. I can drive a car somewhere all by myself in the Washington DC metro area!! woohoo for me:) We'll see how deep into the city I can get by the end, but at least I am trying, made it to Target and the Foreign Service Institute today driving myself. three. the pennsylvania turnpike tollroad does not take cards...better have cash, or you'll have to send it in later, silliness-this is 2010. four. having movers is amazing, I never thought it would be worth the money, but I sooooo think it is now. five. Washington DC is a beautiful city. six. got a darling polka dot rug for my kitchen .seven. filled out insurance forms and many other paperwork type stuff. strangely, it is a pain-but has made me feel extremely organized having to document so much of our life. eight. went to H&M just because I could, and had cheesesteaks with the fam...so close to philadelphia, better than we've had in a long time! nine. have started recycling again. ten. is appreciating the blessing of having friends wherever I have lived, thankful for them. I am definitely being watched over. eleven. got a cute picture of Noah on his first day of work, and the first "real" day of our new life. (although, I can't get it to upload for some weird reason) that's enough for now, I could go on and on, but I won't. I know, shocking!


Ronan doing "paperwork" like mommy. Apparently he thinks this is what we should do all day! It was pretty cute to watch him pretend though.

The Holidays

With everything that has been going on we did manage to squeeze in celebrating the heck out of Thanksgiving and Christmas. My sister had her baby right before Thanksgiving, so since my parents and sister were going to be in town we offered to host Turkey Day! We also were blessed with the company of our great pals Art and Steph+family:) It all turned out great, and we had a wonderful time. On a side note, Noah made enough mashed potatoes for 100 people...Then for the month of December we rocked it with some fabulous gingerbread creating (in a separate post) and two visits from Santa Clause! I also treated myself to some new ornaments/decorations for the tree that are good to take to our first onward post. Purple and brown-with some awesome glittery flowers that I found at Tai Pan Trading! I got several comments about why I even put up the tree this year, but one of my main objectives in deciding to move our family all around the world is that my kids never feel that they have missed out on anything as a result. I am determined to try and do the whole shebang wherever we are. This year I would say that my kids got more, not less-two Christmas mornings worked out pretty well for them:) So anyway, hope you enjoy a few pics of our holidays!

P.S. I realized while doing this post, that my pictures from my other camera are on a memory card that doesn't fit in this laptop and I can't find the cord...our desktop should arrive in a day or two-then I can add a couple of shots from Christmas #2 and the boys in their Christmas outfits. Sorry for the delay.




Turkey Day Festivities





Coming down the stairs for the first time


more excited than I thought he would be about new bedding! (Christmas #1)



Christmas Eve #1 with Grant, Aubrye, and Chasen-and their fabulous new Madagascar stuffed animals

Sea to shining Sea (almost)

So we made the long journey to Washington DC this last week, as most of you know. Overall the boys did amazing, and Ronan just started to have major meltdown about an hour from DC! Anyway, we are here and we love it! The State Department really is taking such good care of us, and we are definitely counting our blessings. We had essentially great weather the entire trip, with only a few snowy/wet spots that were really not too bad. We got to take the boys to the KU campus, which if you know us, was a highlight! We all got some new t-shirts, and some fun little jayhawk toys for the boys! Rock Chalk! We also chowed on some great grub, by eating at Jack Stack-a Kansas City top BBQ!!! It was DELICIOUS!!!! We were hoping to see some friends in the area too...but the holidays made things a little crazy for everyone...next time for sure guys:) After Kansas City we drove to ST. Louis and were thrilled to spend some fun time with our great friends the Tiltons!! Our kids are almost the same ages, and they all had a great time playing! We loved seeing our friends too, and have missed them since we left. They took us to the Arch, which was awesome, and we had a great time chatting and eating! Megan, as always you were a FABULOUS host! Thanks for taking such good care of us! We spent New Year's Eve with some Chinese food and Tim Horton's doughnuts in Zanesville, Ohio and fell asleep at 10! It was great:) We were pooped! We drove the last bit into town and loved the scenery, this area is so beautiful, and all the signs for historical sites are making me crazy to explore! It should be a great adventure to live here, and we are thrilled with it all so far. We'll keep you updated and hope you enjoy a few pictures from our 50 hour car trip:)

We're Here!!!

This will be a super short post, but just to let everyone know, we have arrived in Washington D.C. It was a long trip and we will post more about it in the coming days. We look forward to having visitors so let us know if you want to stay with us and see the sights. It is good to not be spending days on end in the car and we are really liking our new surroundings.