A Flashback and Six Months Old!

Ok, Flashback to our month of leave in June. We had a great day trip to visit the Golbys! What fun! It was great to see them again. The girls got to play together, we got to meet Indy, and the grown ups all got to visit! They have a cute house with a really great backyard. I'm envious because our backyard here is no where near as nice as theirs. But I'm not going to covet the Golby's backyard. Maybe I can work hard enough on our small piece of dirt and rocks and make it as pretty as theirs. They grilled out for us and we had a delicious lunch together. It was fun to talk about old times and about the future when we all meet up at West Point again. Here is proof that we actually met up and hung out because last time in the fall, neither of us had a camera! And here are the girls enjoying a snack in the backyard. They had a great time playing in the Golby's little swimming pool. Sammie loved it because it had a super fun slide! Sorry it took me so long to get this up on my blog!

On July 7th, our little Reese turned six months old!


Hard to believe, but it's true. And each day she is getting cuter. Well, some days she has been super cranky, but now that we are finally getting a good routine down in our new house, things seem to be getting better. She can stay in a sitting position on her own now, and she prefers this method of seeing the world to all others. But beware when she tips over because then she can wiggle and reach her way over to Sammie's dollhouse toys. And boy is Sam protective of her dollhouse stuff. I think Beth can attest to that. We always had to hide the dollhouse in my room when "the boys" (Zeke and Deacon) came over in Oklahoma.

Sam and Reese have been sharing a room since we moved in and so far so good.
They both take an afternoon nap at about the same time which I think is a small miracle. And they both go down for bedtime at 8 together. Usually I get Reese in there first so that she can fall asleep before Sam gets tucked in. And unlike Beth's boys, they actually fall asleep pretty fast. I think it has to do with the age difference though. Reese can't really play with Sam like Deacon can play with Zeke. Although Sam does like to climb into the crib and hang out with Reese after she wakes up from her naps during the day. I'm sure this isn't the safest thing to do, but she knows she needs to get permission before she does it.

Now, the next thing to conquer is Reese sleeping through the night. She started sleeping through the night at about 3 months, but then her schedule got all out of whack with various out of town trips and then an entire month of living in different places with different sounds and different cribs. Anytime she woke up I would feed her so that she wouldn't wake up my parents or Jim's parents. But now we are in our own house, and it's the weekend so I think I'm going to try and let her cry it out tonight and see what happens. It's going to be really sad, I think, and Sam will probably end up on the floor in our room to get away from the screaming...but we'll see. I'm tired of getting up at night, even if its only for 5 or 10 minutes.

Running

Place: Ft.Ord beach with rough, scary waves

Situation: Walking to the beach via a windy, sandy, beach access trail through coastal bluffs. The trail was windy and we couldn't see around the curves, also, the wind was strong and hard to hear over.

Freak Out Moment: Sammie running full force ahead of us around the curves in the trail (we couldn't see her and she's quick), all the way out to the beach, and stopping only about 10 feet from where the waves reached and me frantically chasing behind her and screaming at her to stop. (She probably couldn't hear me, but if she did I don't think she cared).

Me: (after giving her a swat) "Sammie do not run away from me! You need to stop when I say stop!"

Sammie: "But I'm a good runner, mommy!"

Yes you are Sammie, yes you are.

A Side Note to the House Story

After thinking about it, I felt I needed to clarify a few things about my House Story. Not everyone at the Housing Office was uncaring. The lady that we worked with was awesome and felt terrible about the entire mishap. She made sure things got done for us. Also, this is a private company, not a military housing office, so I'm not trying to diss on military housing.

That's all!

The House Story

Ta-Dah! Here's our home for the next two years! Isn't it cute? We thought it was too when we picked it out and signed for it on May 28th. Fast forward to July 1st, the glorious day that we get to sign the real lease and pick up the keys! We were excited to get into our own home again.

So there we were, sitting in the waiting area of the housing office, waiting to be called in for our appointment. There was another family there and Sammie played on the floor with two of their three children. A lady peeked her head out the door and asked us what address we were signing for. "1155 Remagen" we replied. But then the family sitting across from us with the three children said, "That's the house that we are here to sign the lease for." A-w-e-s-o-m-e. I had actually predicted this situation when we signed up for the house on May 28th. The guy (we'll call him T) did not seem to know what he was doing when he was helping us. He kept asking the other people that worked there what he needed to do next. Obviously he didn't do something right. Jim even called and stopped by the housing office a few times to make sure that things were still good for us to move into our house and to see if we could get in a few days earlier if it was ready. Apparently the other family also called and checked on "their house". The funny thing is, is that no one in the housing office seemed to catch that two families were signed up to get the same house. How does that happen? This is their job!

So we sit there twiddling our thumbs while the lady in the back frantically tried to figure out how this had happened and what could be done about it. Long story short, we signed for the house on May28th and it was accidentally left on the Available Housing List. The other family signed for it on June 4th. We ended up with the house because we signed for it first. But this poor family, we felt so badly for them. They had been living in Army Lodging for a month with their three kids waiting to move into this house. We, on the other hand, were able to live comfortably with family for the last month. They probably drove by all the time to check it out, just like we had been doing. The other family did get another new house, it was just a duplex while ours is a single family. They were really bummed out. But we found out a few days later that God miraculously opened up a single family home for them late one evening when someone else backed out of it. God is good!

Okay, back to us. I go with my brand new keys to look at the house. And it is a mess! It had not been cleaned at all. Dirty carpets, dirty bathrooms, dirty fridge, it was just gross. And here I was with movers coming the next morning. Since Jim is doing in-processing, it was up to me with my two sleeping daughters in the car to get this fixed. I managed to find "T" (remember, the nitwit who can't cross a house off the list?) and told him of the predicament I was in. "Oh" he replied "They didn't turn over the house yet." No concern, no Oh my gosh this should not have happend, Nothing! So I stand there while he calls the head of the Cleaning Up the Empty Houses crew and they rush to start patching up nail holes and painting a little in our house that afternoon. At least they cared. And did everything they could to clean our house right away. We did try to have the movers show up a day later, but the next time they could make it out wasn't until July 13th.

We tried not to be stressed that evening although the house still needed to be cleaned from top to bottom and the carpets needed to be cleaned all before we could move into our house. And the movers were coming the next morning between 8 and 9. Okay, so I've rambled on long enough and it has all worked out just fine. The super cleaning ladies started at the crack of dawn and finished up while the movers started unpacking. We had the heavy furniture all moved into the house and everything else put in the garage all before the carpet guy came and steam cleaned the floors. We had to wait until that evening to do anymore unpacking or furniture moving in, but at least the house was all cleaned and all our stuff got delivered! God worked it out for us.

We had our parents come at different times to help us watch the kids and move/unpack our stuff. They were all a big help! Thanks parents! We still have plenty of unpacking/organizing to do, but at least we are in our own house again. :) And here is a sweet pic of my little Reesie-piecie. She's happy to finally have an exersaucer to hang out in again.

We Made It!

I know, I know, I've got a lot of updating to do about our last month on leave. Including Jim's brother's wedding and a fun trip to see the Golby's in Palo Alto! On July 1st we got our keys and our household goods were delivered the next day. Of course, these two simple acts were not without a few irritating glitches, but that story will have to wait until the next post. I just wanted to let everyone know that we made it to our new home and we are in the process of unpacking and settling in. It sure takes a lot longer with two kiddos around (this is our first big move with kids) but it is getting done. Jim set the computer up yesterday, so I'm catching up a little on emails and such. Both of our parents have been here to help watch the girls so we can unpack, and unpack a few things themselves. I don't know how we could do it without their help! Thanks mom and dad! Thanks Bob and Sue! We love and appreciate you guys very much! (There Dad, are you happy to get a shout out in my blog now? Hehe).