A new way of life

A lot has happened since the last time I updated the blog.  For starters, we moved hundreds of miles away from our home in Rowlett, Texas to start a new chapter of our life in the Pacific Northwest.  But, let me back up and give a brief review of some of the other things that have happened.

Joel had a birthday!  He turned 6 this year, and for this birthday he wanted to invite his 2 best buds to Chuck E. Cheese.  We were hoping it would be lower-key than normal, but that place is a zoo on weekend afternoons!  His buds were able to come, along with Grandma and Grandpa, and he had a great time.  He got lots of Lego goodies, but more importantly, he had a lot of fun with his "posse".  Hopefully this link will take you to some of the pictures from his party.  And this link will take you to some more pics from his actual birthday, including a trip to Chick-fil-a to celebrate it's birthday, too.  (They opened in Rowlett on his first birthday.)

After Joel's birthday, Steve left to begin work at his new job in Seattle.  I joined him for the first couple of days to househunt, while the boys stayed home with Grandma.  Then I had to come home and the boys and I were alone for a few weeks.  During that time we went to the Rowlett Holiday Parade.  This is an annual trip for us and I will miss it!

We also celebrated Thanksgiving.  Joel's class did a special program and had a huge feast.  Evan's class had a feast, but I didn't get as many pics from it, and I think the ones I did get were deleted from the computer.

At the first of December Steve came back and we got ready to move.  It was hard saying goodbye to everyone, but it was also exciting to be setting out on this adventure.  We were living in an apartment in Seattle for the first few weeks.  At that point, we weren't sure if the house we were trying to get would work out.  While we were waiting and Steve was working, the boys and I played around Seattle.  It was a lot of fun and felt more like a vacation than a move.  One of the most exciting nights for Evan and me was our attendance at a Seattle Seahawks Monday Night Football game.  We also visited the Seattle Aquarium and the Space Needle.  Steve went with us one week to see Santa and his reindeer at the Issaquah Reindeer Festival.

We moved into the house after Christmas and the boys started school after New Year's.  So far, they seem to be doing really well.  They are making friends and seem to be transitioning well with the curriculum, too.  They like their new school, but still talk about their old friends sometimes, too.

They did get about a week off from school last week thanks to the big snowstorm.  Thankfully we did not lose power at our house, and we were able to get out a few times and play in the snow.  This was the best sledding we had ever done.  It probably helped that we finally got real sleds.

So, that is a brief summary of the last few months.  I have to admit that a lot of it is what I remembered thanks to the facebook photo albums.  We are starting to develop our new routines.  The boys get to ride the bus to school  Joel only goes half a day to kindergarten.  After I pick him up we have some time together before we meet Evan at the bus stop.  Then it is home again for snacks, playtime, and homework.

We have been working on getting the house organized and put together.  We are down to the last bits that need to be unboxed or stored.  Since we weren't sure which house we would be in, we brought some things that we ended up not needing.  We also picked up a few new (to us) things for the house.  These last few things usually end up taking the longest, but I am hoping to get it all knocked out this week.  Then I will have some pics of the house to share, even though it may not be in its final decorated state.

We didn't get our Christmas cards out this year, but I am hoping to get some Valentine's cards out this year.  Hopefully I will be able to post on here before then.  I am going to try to keep up the blog better this year.  Wish me luck!

Howdy, folks!

And welcome to the Great Fair of Texas!

After living in the DFW area for over 8 years, I finally made it to the state fair.  Joel heard a lot about it at school, so he had been begging to go all week long.  (It just opened last week.)  I figured that the boys were old enough this year for me to take them while Steve was at work.  And it almost worked out well.


We started off with some of the famous Fletcher's corny dogs for lunch. 

Then we walked around and found Big Tex, but he wasn't talking when we got to him.  Joel really wanted to see his mouth move, but that didn't happen.  We could hear him at times, but by the time we got to him he had stopped again.

Then we walked around checking out all of the sights and sounds until it was time to meet some friends at the Birds of the World show.  That was a really cool show with birds flying right over our heads!  There were even some ravens trained to take money from your hand and put it in the collection box.

After the show we walked around some more and found ourselves near the rides.  I had told the boys they could each ride one ride.  Evan picked the log flume, but Joel wanted a faster, spinnier ride.  Unfortunately he wasn't tall enough to ride the one he picked out.  He decided to do the log flume, too, and it seemed to be the right choice.  They had a great time!

Can you see Evan?

How about now?

Is this better?  I'll give you a hint - he's in front of Joel.  

He was ducked down so he wouldn't get wet.  Silly boy!

We had spent about all of the money I cared to spend by that time so we went to the petting zoo.  There were lots of cool animals, but not many of them were interested in eating by the time we got there.  The boys still seemed to have fun and got to pet some cool animals.

I was hoping to find the entries for things like biggest produce and photography, but I was not successful.  Evan had been having a rough day with intermittent stomach cramps (and lots of bathroom trips).  I finally decided to just get him home. 

All in all they declared the day a success - and I agree!

Football Frenzy

College football season has started.

The NFL regular season has started.

Football frenzy has taken hold of our house.  Evan and I are enjoying it, and Steve and Joel are tolerating the ride.  But, what does that have to do with what we did this morning.  

Any guesses?  

Here are a couple of visual clues:

 

 This is a punt

This is a kick off of a tee

So, where were we and what were we doing?

 

I didn't get a picture of the pass, but he did that, too.

We went to an NFL Punt, Pass, and Kick Competition.  I had been wondering how to get involved in this and our city sponsored a local competition this year.  Evan was pretty pumped when I told him about it, and he had a good time.

Joel was old enough to participate, but he didn't want to.  He just sat in the (dead/hibernating) grass and ate his snacks.

After Evan was finished we played on the playground.  It was a nice morning and nice to enjoy together!

Another Vintage Pearl Giveaway

I just can't get over how much I love this store's jewelry.  And they have been churning out quite a few new products lately, too.  The one that they are spotlighting now is a fortune cookie that can be personalized with your own saying.  I love their inspirational take on the necklace, too.  You can check out the blog for more info on this piece and for the chance to enter to win a free necklace of your own!

http://www.thevintagepearl.com/blog/2011/08/faith-and-fortune-cookies-a-giveaway

I heart faces ... and beautiful eyes!

I love looking at the entries each week for the I Heart Faces photo challenges.  I have entered a time or two, but when I saw the theme for this week, I knew I wanted to enter.  I love taking pictures that show off my boys' eyes!  The hard part of this challenge is picking just one to share.  While I enjoyed reminiscing through lots of photos of the boys, this is the one I decided to go with.  It was the one I originally thought of, and I just love the color combo in it and the whimsy that is still a part of his personality.  It is also a reminder of our wonderful time in northern Virginia.

Check out the other entries for the week and the I heart faces blog!

 

There and Back Again - A Saunders Tale

We "just" got back from a week-long trip to visit family in California.  Actually we got back on Friday.  I ended up sleeping most of the day yesterday, apparently suffering from jetlag, extreme heat, or coming off of the vacation high. It was a long trip and didn't go exactly like we initially thought, but it was a good trip.

It had been a few years since we had visited Steve's family out there, and we knew that some of them were having some health issues.  Joel was a baby the last time we went, so we wanted to go again so that he and Evan would hopefully be able to remember spending time with them.

I wasn't sure how Joel would do on this trip, but he was really good.  He was a little shy around some of the family, but having his Grandma Sherry there helped him quite a bit, I think.  He warmed up pretty quickly and had a lot of fun with everyone.  Evan had been bashful on previous trips, but he wasn't at all this time.  He even put aside his love for the Rangers to make a "Giants Rock!" sign for his great-grandma (which was all his own idea).  He even cheered for the Giants (for her) when we watched the games with her on TV.  He enjoyed getting to meet (again) the cousin who sends him baseball and football cards, and was overjoyed when he got more on this trip.  Joel decided he liked them, too, and now has quite a nice collection going.

We really enjoyed the time we spent with all of the family, and exploring a different area.  The land, the plants, the views, the weather, the architecture, the food, the cultures - we could find differences to explore in all of these areas.  It would have been nice if we had more time to do that, but the boys probably had enough of it as it was.  I did want to make a list of observations that we collected while on this trip of some of the differences between California and other areas we have visited:
1.  The summer-time brown mountains are beautiful, but different from most other mountains we have seen.
2.  There's a lot of fog/smog in this area which can sometimes make it hard to see the mountains!  We weren't sure how much was fog and how much was smog.
3. There's a lot of locally grown produce in the stores.
4. Some of the groceries are the same price, and some are twice as much.
5. Locally grown, but free, oranges are abundant and taste really good. 
6. It's hard to find plain sandwich bread - even whole wheat sandwich bread.
7. Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way in parking lots.
8. The speed limit may be 35, but the lights can be short in neighborhood streets, so you better be ready to go when the light turns green.  (And expect to get honked at if you aren't that fast.)
9. While we were enjoying wearing shorts and short sleeves without sweating, others were wearing jackets.
10. Mountain hikes are great exercise, but be careful in your choice of shoes.  Loose sneakers will hurt your toes going downhill.  Tevas will give you blisters (if you don't wear them frequently) if you try to hike quickly for an hour or so.
11. I can exercise without getting dizzy there!
12. The waves of the Pacific are bigger than others we have seen, and they are COLD!
13. People come from all over the world to see San Francisco.  I don't even know what all of the languages that we heard in Muir Woods were.
14.  If you want to enjoy the peace and quiet in Muir Woods, it's probably better to not go during the summer.
15.  If you are going to go off the main trail in Muir Woods, get a map.  We used ours frequently.  We also met a couple who had been wandering around for over 3 hours after getting lost on the aptly named "Lost Trail".
16. Don't expect to find tourist shops and seafood places all along the beach in Santa Cruz.  I know there are some there, but they aren't super easy to find.
17. Surf shops are quite easy to find in Santa Cruz, but they are for real surfers and don't sell cheap souvenirs (or beach towels for people who forgot to bring them).
18. There were not as many shells on the beach at Santa Cruz as I expected.  Most of the ones we found were in the loose, dry sand instead of the wet sand closer to the waves.
19.  Be prepared to pay for parking in the Santa Cruz.  One little town looked especially cute to walk around and had a nice beach, but all of the parking spots (along the beach, in front of stores, and in the big public lot) were metered - and took coins only.
20. Older people love little kids.  Okay, I already knew this, but it was neat to see how Aunt Helen and Great-Grandma Vine both perked up around the boys.  It was even neat to see the other residents and workers at the nursing home enjoying the boys.

Well, that's a lot more than I thought I would write, but once I got started, it just kept flowing.  As you can tell, we had a great time.  The boys didn't even ask about when we were coming home, even though we didn't take many toys with us.  I think they would say that they would have rather played at Aunt Judy's house with all of the family around than go on the day trips we took, too.  But I know that they had fun on the day trips.  They did ask frequently about going to the beach, so that might be the exception.  They were determined to get in the water at the beach, too.  We told them they could if they wanted to, but tried to warn them it was cold.  They didn't care.  They both got soaked head to toe at least once, and they kept on playing.  After about an hour and a half, they did decide that they were cold and it was time to leave.

Our other day trip was to Muir Woods and a (very hilly!) driving tour of San Francisco.  That day I got tickled every time I said "Francisco".  The way I said it one time reminded me of the movie Elf, and it was all over from there.  I can still make myself laugh just saying it in my head.  It's nice to be so easily entertained.  ;-)

I was excited to be able to get in some workouts while we were there, too.  I was able to eat pretty well, too, so my attempts to "get healthy" weren't too de-railed by our vacation.  And while I do think that I am getting healthier, I still don't like the pictures of myself.  So you won't see many of them from this trip.

Anyway, we had a great time, and I took lots of pictures.  I uploaded a bunch to facebook, but it would be too many to try to post here.  I will just post the link to those instead.  (Some of them have descriptive captions, too.)

Our summer seems to coming to a close, but hopefully we will have a few more adventures before school starts up again.  Until then!

A Super Cool Giveaway from a Super Cool Jewelry Store!

The Vintage Pearl is having a great giveaway and coupon code right now!  I drool over so many of their designs and products.  And they seem to be coming out with new stuff pretty frequently these days.  Their products range from vintage to classic to new and modern to chunky and funky!  They have things for ears, fingers, wrists, and mostly necks.  They even have stuff for men.  If you want to check out the giveaway and the site, just click here.