I have wanted a quilt made out of Tom’s old cammies for a long time now—a friend had one made and I thought it was the greatest idea. And I’m not kidding when I say a long time—I’m talking seven or so years ago (the last time we lived here) and it took me this long to get off my butt and actually find someone to do it (I posted a want ad on a local Craigslist-type site).
Tom picked it up today… He knew I was getting it done, but I think he was surprised at the results. 🙂
And lest you think it’s just a generic quilt…the name tapes are on there (including a few actual pockets)!
We decided to have a going away party before we left—but I called it an “Until We Meet Again” party because I HATE goodbyes. It was also a perfect excuse to rent a huge waterslide for Owen because he loves them and our new house has zero place for one.
As it was being set up, the kids were VERY excited watching out the window. Katie was saying “Slide! Katie slide! Katie slide please!” 🙂 I was busy getting the last few things ready for the party and Tom was running our last errands so I made the kids wait until he got home…but then it was game on! Owen had no issues with it, of course, but Katie was a poop. She loves climbing on things but put her on the slide where she HAS to climb (and can pretty much climb without much caution) and she wanted NONE of it. This is where she’d stop:
Even after Owen went down a few times, this is the farthest she’d go:
Finally I had enough of trying to verbally coerce her into climbing up, so I got on the slide with her and basically pushed her up each rung of the ladder. Once we got to the top, she didn’t want to go down…so I put my arm around her and we went down together—AND SHE LOVED IT! And immediately went to the ladder…and climbed up all on her own (the little shit!)! I did go up again behind her to make sure she didn’t slip backwards, but she did it just fine!
And then at the top of the slide…I realized my phone was still in my pocket!!! @$&#%! I obviously hadn’t planned on going on the slide (I was still wearing clothes, too) but got caught up in the moment of being frustrated with Katie. 🙁 I yelled at Tom to come get it and instead of coming up the ladder calmly, he was a bit upset and wasn’t being careful…and instead tried to come up over the side of the slide and pulled a leg muscle while getting back off. Like pulled it badly enough that he was limping. 🙁 But the slide was a blast and I knew I’d be on it more throughout the day…so I just gave in and put my suit on right then. And since Katie was still going up and down, I put her in her suit, too.
This is where she liked playing the most. And she was pretty good about moving out of the way when you said “Katie, watch out!” She’d go wait on the side until Owen came down, then she’d go back in the water. 🙂
Even though the slide was fun, I thought it might be out to kill me. After the kids had been playing for a bit (while I was working on party prep), Katie refused to come down (it was her naptime but she didn’t know that—she was just being stubborn). I told Owen this was his one chance to push his sister down the slide—and he tried but he said she was too strong and he couldn’t do it…so I had to go up the slide again to get her down. So I climbed up and we came down together—and I smashed right through the end buffer and landed on the ground with Katie on top of me! HOLY CRAP. I knew it was possible (other adults have done it before) but I had already gone down “successfully” a handful of times so definitely wasn’t expecting it. Katie wasn’t hurt (or crying) so that was good, and for the most part I was okay, but I had actually smacked my head on the ground. Ugh—instant headache. Then Katie was trying to get back onto the slide so I had to grab her…and I slipped on the wet tarp while carrying her! Thankfully she wasn’t hurt and I wasn’t really, either, though my butt and back hurt. Good times, right? I handed her off to Tom and took some pain pills. AND THEN…I was going down the slide with Owen and we were having a blast…and he was excited and wasn’t following the rules (waiting for the area to be clear before sliding down) and just rammed his feet straight into my side. Needless to say it was time for me to take a break.
Once the other kids arrived, things got a little more hectic. Pool toys came out and were part of the slide and kids were going down together (as you can see here)…and the “rules” kind of went out the window. 🙂
The girls loved Katie and basically thought she was their own little doll. 🙂
Ursula was the first adult to go down and she went tandem with Virginia! She agreed it was a blast!
Everyone had fun and the slide was (of course) a hit. There were a few minor bumps and bruises once all eight kids were on the slide at the same time and Owen ended up with a sure-to-be bruised eye. But it was super fun and it all went really well. The only minor bummer was the weather—in the middle of the party we had a downpour just long enough and with just enough thunder and lightning to send everyone inside…for 15 minutes! So then it was back outside! It started to threaten a storm again about 7:00 which sucked because all the adults were going to get on the slide (and I had planned on being able to use the slide most of the evening)…so we just sent the kids inside and a few of us went down a few times in the rain. There’s even video of me catapulting over the end (which may get posted privately) but I’ll gladly post the one of Tom! 🙂
Once it started storming and we were all inside, the kids were watching a movie and the adults were visiting and snacking…and Jacqueline was doing my dishes. There was plenty of room in the dishwasher but she actually LIKES doing dishes so who am I to stop her? 🙂
It was a really great time and I am so glad we did it…and it wasn’t until everyone was gone that I got really sad thinking about how much we’re going to miss everyone. (It’s always sad leaving, but the last time we left, we were just going to be missing two families…this time, we have more friends that we’ll be missing so it will be even harder.) But at least we have some great memories!
Today Tom and I did a long round-trip to the new house to drop off a FULL 14′ U-haul. Why, you may be asking?
Well, we somewhat recently found out that our last move was about 5,000 pounds over our allotted weight limit. Technically we could have been charged for it—but weren’t—so we didn’t want to take any chances this time. We’ve gotten rid of a lot of stuff (see the #40bagsin40days posts) but it still just felt like A LOT. Yes, we likely wouldn’t have been charged…but this way, we can make 100% sure AND we also get paid to do a “partial move” ourselves (they pay gas plus a per pound price, if I recall correctly).
So we had loaded up all of the small heavy things that we could—everything from his garage cabinets to pantry goods to tools to golf clubs to cat litter. We even took the garage freezer (so we wouldn’t have to empty and defrost it) and our new refrigerator (we were NOT leaving a $3000 refrigerator for our potential renters/buyers). We managed to stuff just over 5,000 pounds in the truck (quite impressive, I thought).
The original plan was for Tom to go up himself and unload then drive home. But once we decided to take the refrigerator and realized we needed to upgrade to a full truck vs. just a trailer, that meant Tom would need a way home (since it was a one-way rental). I could follow him up, but it didn’t seem to make much sense to drive if we could tow the car instead. Loooong story short, we ended up with a full trailer (vs just a tow dolly) which likely ended up to be more difficult than the dolly would have been…but it was nice not having to drive two cars.
So this is how we traveled to Virginia.
Unfortunately, the whole road trip part SUCKED. With such a beast of a load plus towing the vehicle, our speed was limited—and then of course we hit traffic around Stafford (the parking lot that is 95) so it took us 6.5 hours to get there (best case scenario the trip should take five hours). So, ugh.
The unloading didn’t go too badly—it was warm but not ungoldly hot. We met a neighbor who was very nice and has a 4yo and 2 week old and was excited someone was finally moving in (it’s been empty for like six months). She told us the street is mostly Army and Air Force—we’ll be one of the few Marines. We met with the landlord to pay our rent and pet deposit. We asked about the fence (as it wasn’t up yet) and he told us he was just waiting for the association to approve his request. It’s been 1.5 months since we signed the paperwork so either he didn’t ask right away or the association is slow—neither of which is a good thing in my mind.
I had also taken some measurements of our stuff to the new house so I could see just how things would fit—and some stuff is going to be TIGHT. The space looks big, but once you put our big stuff in it, it doesn’t look quite as big. Our table and chairs will fit in the eat-in kitchen space, but it’s going to be close—and we may not be able to open the leaf…because our huge sectional will be taking up ALL the living space. (I’m going to have our real estate lady go back and check measurements of a space in the basement to see if there’s room for the sectional there instead. We may end up selling it if it won’t fit nicely. We bought it for this house with the HUGE bonus room…which most houses don’t have a room that big and it’s very hard to fit.) Our table would fit fine (with the leaf, too) in the actual dining room space, but I honesty don’t want to eat there every day—it’s not convenient to the kitchen at all plus it has white carpet. There’s also no room for our current island (where we have the dog and cat food) in the kitchen…so not sure where we’ll be putting that food or the island. It’s just bizarre that this house is SO huge but the space isn’t allotted quite how I’d prefer (like our master bedroom is twice as big as it needs to be). So, time will tell on all that stuff. It will all work…it will just take time.
So then, the ride home. Ugh. It was worse than the ride up. Apparently there had been construction on 95 South so traffic was already backed up. Then there were storms farther South so that had backed up traffic even more. And then there was an accident somewhere along the line… The parallel road (Route 1) which we can sometimes take to escape 95 was also backed up due to trees down from the storm. It took us almost two hours to go 38 miles…and took us seven hours to get home. We had hoped/planned to be home by 8 but it turned into 10:30. At least the kids were in good hands—Virginia was babysitting. 🙂
A TiVo friend was in the area so he came over for a visit with his wife and two of his kids. Tom and I had met him before in 2008 at a big TiVo meet but we wanted the boys to meet. 🙂
The kids all had fun in the police car, except it was a little crowded so the threesome didn’t last too long. 🙂
His son, Josh, is one month younger than Owen. By now you shouldn’t be surprised at size differences. 🙂
Our kids are so very very lucky to have you as their dad! You’re amazing!
And of course, to my own dad, who I love more than anything…except I blame his rule on not becoming a grandpa before he was 50 on scaring me so badly he didn’t get grandkids until he was 60! 🙂
And to my stepdad, David, who has a heart of gold and is a great addition to our family! And I just realized I don’t have a pic of just the two of us!
We were there early to make sure we got good seats. Unfortunately, we had no idea where Owen would be sitting, so we just picked seats in the front row.
Katie did pretty good, considering we had to wait about 35 minutes. We kept her occupied with my phone. 🙂
Then it was finally time for the graduates to enter. And surprise! Owen was the Line Leader (something which he LOVES and always begs to do)…except he apparently got a HUGE case of stage fright as they came into the room and he kept his face buried in his hands, rubbing his eyes, and was almost crying…and would not have made it down the aisle if Miss Ashley hadn’t grabbed hs hand and guided him to the seats. I couldn’t even get a picture of him until he was past me. Poor kid.
Trying to talk to Owen to make him feel better.
Nope, still upset. And here you can see I had just about the worst possible seat in the entire room to try and get a picture of him (which you’ll see better in the videos).
This was Owen pretty much the whole time everyone was singing or otherwise participating.
There were a few slightly more normal moments.
“Days of the Week” (no participation)
“Pete the Cat” (the song he sang outside the other day)—a partial, because he wasn’t participating at all.
This was “The World is a Rainbow” which I didn’t even try to record because by that point, there was no hope of Owen participating.
When I looked back up, they had finally pulled him to the side so he could sit by himself but I motioned him over to us. He didn’t want to sit on my lap, but instead just kind of layed in my lap and let me hug him. Katie reached out to touch his arm and say “It’s okay, Owie.” /sniff
Then I tried to get a picture of him in my lap and he was all smiles once he saw himself in the camera…
But he even refused to go up and get his diploma so Miss Ashley had to come hand it to him.
As soon as it was over and he realized he had to wait in the room while we left, he was upset again. We all filed outside to wait for the graduates to exit and walk down the sidewalk. Katie was happy to be let free.
Everyone else coming out of the doors was happy and running…and then there was Owen.
Being comforted by his sister. 🙂
I wanted a picture of Owen and Braxton—but even THAT very normal act couldn’t break through his funk.
Braxton really tried—even talking to him. I thought this was so cute…it looks like he’s giving him a pep talk!
At least we got a decent family pic snapped by the TA Miss Sam. 🙂
And then after he had a snack, he was back to his normal self and very willingly took a picture with Miss Ashley.
And in the packet we took home, we had this picture, obviously taken BEFORE the ceremony started. Our graduate. 🙂
The ice cream truck comes around pretty frequently but we’ve never stopped him because it’s too expensive, we usually have ice cream in the house already, and we’re rarely outside when he comes by. And Owen knows what it is but has never wanted it. But Tom came in the house today telling me he heard it coming and he wanted to go out with Owen—at least once before we moved. Okay, sure, no problem. (Katie was napping.)
So out we went to wait. He wasn’t quite sure what he was waiting for—he knew it was a surprise but couldn’t hear the music yet.
Tom was power washing some equipment on the back deck while the kids were riding around. Of course they liked the mist, and eventually got out of the car to run directly in it…then of course daddy started spraying them directly and that was even more fun!
We are not beach people. Yes, we live somewhat close (45 minutes) so maybe we should be, but we just never go. Things get busy at home on the weekend and it’s a bit of work to go (toys, towels, snacks, drinks, diapers, wipes, yada yada yada) so we end up just staying home. But since we’re moving soon and we know the kids love the beach, we thought we’d treat them! Unfortunately, most of our beach toys were packed away, so we made do with some bath and pool toys, a big bucket, and a kids garden rake and shovel.
Getting dressed in the restrooms.
Tom dug a small hole for Owen and Katie immediately got in it.
Friends of ours happened to be there, too!
Then we took a break and had lunch!
It took a few hours but she was FINALLY super comfortable in the water!
Owen made friends with some kids who were building this.
The kids Owen was with had nets and caught some minnows—and he was holding one!
Katie’s ball rolled under the cabinet and she was whining because she couldn’t reach it. Tom told her to use the light saber to get it out. That’s all he told her…and she figured it out on her own!
She eventually needed help, but we were both amazed that she understood and figured out what to do!
Since Mother’s Day was spent house hunting/traveling, I officially declared MY Mother’s Day would be this weekend. 🙂 So our day started with a trip to Costco, Owen’s face-painting at the farmer’s market…and then since it was a GORGEOUS day, time spent outside using the deck/pool/yard/playset (we’re trying to use it as much as we can since we will have NONE of it at the new house)…
We were playing music outside.
Owen: DJ Shuffle is in the house!
Us: Whaaaaa?!?!
Owen hurt himself with that jump/landing, but felt a little better when I showed him the cool picture I got of him in mid air!
While we were outside, Tom went and got the mail…and my mother’s day present (that I ordered for myself!) had arrived! I LOVE IT SOOOOO MUCH! (It’s an 11×14 wrapped canvas.)
Then Tom grilled super yummy BBQ chicken (which Owen tried and liked!) and I made a huge batch of our favorite tomato and basil bruschetta and we ate on the deck!
And even though I got these from Owen awhile back (done at school), I forgot to post them, so there’s no better time or place than right now!
I love his answers! And he didn’t do too badly…though I can’t believe he said salad instead of any other number of things! 🙂
We stopped at the farmers market on the way home from a Costco run…and they had face painting! Owen had never had it done, and I thought I might be able to entice him with a superhero…and it worked!!
The before:
He had a handful to choose from. Can you tell who he picked?
Katie and daddy were waiting:
Sponging on some red…
Painting some lines…
The final product—he was suddenly shy and wouldn’t look at me and wanted to go to the car. Oh well.
But once we got to the car, he had turned into Spider-Man and he was ALL SMILES!
And even throwing webs!
When we got home, he was a super big help unloading the car, and then I heard “Mama take a picture!” Yep, he had found his matching Spider-Man Lego head! 🙂
So Katie has been limping off and on for a few weeks now so we finally took her in (Tom came with me because he’s off this week). The doc agreed her ankle was swollen and guessed it might be a fracture so sent us for x-rays. Thankfully they came back clear, but the only recommended course of action was ice, rest, elevation, and ibuprofen (yeah, like ice, rest, and elevation are really going to happen) and to check back in two weeks if she was still limping. I guess that’s better than having to get a cast, but I’d almost rather have a definitive solution (i.e. cast) as opposed to “wait and see.”
She was a little poop at the appointment, though—you know her normal super talkative self? Who never shuts up and is always smiling and laughing? When the doctor came in, she turned to stone. No smiles, no giggles, no hi-fives, not ticklish…it was the craziest thing.
But she was a ROCK STAR getting the x-rays—she just layed quietly on the table (it helped that there was a pillow so she pretended to sleep!). The radiologist said she wasn’t used to kids who stayed that still. 🙂
We met our friends to transfer the kids and Owen was excited to go play with his new friends.
We met our agent at the first house and actually really liked it. It was quite similar to the Band-Aid house:
Four bedrooms…but an unfinished basement.
More hardwood floors…but not quite as open a floor plan.
A deck…but no fence possible.
Kitty corner from a playground…but everything felt a bit crowded.
But $200 cheaper a month. 😐
So it was back to the Band-Aid house to talk with the owner, who had requested to meet us. He wasn’t thrilled with the July 1 start date but he liked the 3-year lease…so apparently he wanted to see if he liked us…?!?!
Amazingly he is willing to put up a fence and some ceiling fans. It’s only three bedrooms but it’s got a HUGE finished basement with a full bath so will be great for (long-term!) guests! The one small bad/strange thing [that we didn’t realize in ANY of our searching thus far] is that bedrooms here typically have no overhead lights…so we have to buy lamps again.
So it was a very tough decision. I honestly thought we’d be good in either house, but my gut said the Band-Aid house. Tom was in the same boat…but I think the agreement to put up a fence sealed the deal, so we filled out the app, shook on it, then went to get certified checks…and breathe a sigh of relief. And panic a little because it’s a bit over our budget. But we’ll make it work because we have to.
Of course then we started thinking about things…and looked at the listing again. It says 4BR but we don’t remember four bedrooms—in fact, both of us were sure it was three. But if it’s the same as the first house, then it has four (because I remember thinking the basement bedroom made five). And we can use our own washer and dryer—but we’re pretty sure it’s a gas hookup so we may need to ask to have an outlet installed (I’m not buying a gas dryer AGAIN—we did that in Troy and sold it when we moved back here). And where are we going to put our deck set with no deck?! I guess it will be a party table in the basement.
So…exciting and still terrifying at the same time!
So here’s the Band-Aid house—the houses are very close together but at least it’s a house and not a townhouse!
You can just see the corner of the kitchen (hardwoods), then the main living area with the fireplace, and the carpeted (?!) dining room (which will likely be a play room):
The kitchen—with Corian counters and the gas stove on the island. He calls the appliances upgraded but they’re pretty basic (though I guess the fridge is a side-by-side with a water dispenser). We’re debating bringing our awesome stainless fridge and putting this one in the garage (then buying a cheap stainless one for our house in Jacksonville).
Cool windows in the stairwell:
The huge master bedroom:
And the closets are BEFORE the bathroom like I wanted—not THROUGH the bathroom like we have now. 🙂 It has a soaking tub (not jetted like we have now) but we never used it anyway so no biggie.
And the kids’ bath has two sinks like I wanted!
There’s not much of a back yard…but at least there’s some nice grass!
So we’re just waiting on the app and credit check to be run Monday morning so they can send us the lease to sign!
Friends of ours live in Fairfax so we went to visit and have dinner with their family. (Tim was in the Marines with Tom back in the day.) They had also offered to watch the kids if we needed them to, so we were letting the kids get to know them. 🙂
Of course Owen immediately got along with them all (ages 7, 5, and 2) and had a blast on their playset. We had also brought Maggie and she was having fun playing with their lab!
The kids were way off their sleep schedule but both did well—they were both wide awake as we drove home at 8:30!
Today’s fun thing? We found an awesome house—the first one we looked at [again!]. Great, we thought, it JUST came on the market, we’ll get our app in and be done. Except no, they’re not looking at apps until MONDAY. So of course by then they’ll have a mountain of them to sift through and to get ours to stand out we’d need to offer more rent. It was already over our budget so adding more just wasn’t realistic. [Sidenote: That really pisses me off. You put it on the market so take my app and be done—or raise the listed rent price to start. None of this other BS.]
So we kept looking. Everything we saw was simply okay—nothing that we loved. There was either no basement or what they called a basement wasn’t really (one was literally a 6×10 room with a fireplace right inside the front door?!); fenced patios with no grass or doors to the patio/grassy area were on the lowest level (doable but not convenient at all for letting Maggie out); only three bedrooms with no good place for guests or an office; and lots of townhouses with absolute crap for parking.
There were a few we surely could have made work, but we still had more on our list so we kept going.
Then we saw one that was almost identical to the very first one we wanted—it was the same floor plan but with less hardwood/more carpet and no bedroom in the basement. But we still really liked it so it became our top choice. It had been on the market awhile so we were pretty confident we didn’t have to act immediately so we kept looking. But we referred to it as the Band-Aid house because there were little cosmetic issues throughout (stains on carpet, no fence, no ceiling fans, etc.) but nothing serious. 🙂
We took a mid-afternoon break to get lunch and let Katie take a nap while our agent had another appointment.
Afterwards, it was back to work. She drove by a few and said the parking was horrible so we were able to cross them off without even looking at them. A few others didn’t even have any grass patches so those were immediately out. And another one was doable but not great. And others just felt too small. One was in a perfect spot—right across from a walking trail to the pool (maybe 100 yards away) along a grassy, wooded area—but of course the house wasn’t quite right.
We had time to wait at that one so walked around—and Owen actually held a caterpillar! I never thought I’d see the day he’d hold a bug! (Of course, Katie picked one up and immediately tried to squish it!)
But we still had a few on our list we needed to check out before deciding on the Band-Aid house…so we knew we had another house hunting day ahead of us… But at least we had pretty much centered our search on the Lorton area—Alexandria was just too crowded with no parking. I’m sure some of the homes themselves were livable—but it’s very hard to give up space when that’s all you’ve ever known. And of course we had the open-floor-plan Band-Aid house in our memory.
On our way here, our agent called us to give us the rundown of houses on our list that were already gone. Of our top eight choices, five were gone. FIVE. I mean, we expected some to be gone but not that many! And our top listings weren’t even perfect listings—there were compromises. Which means the remaining ones have even more compromises. Ugh.
So she made some appointments and we met her at the first one—which we immediately loved! Someone else pulled up to look while we were leaving so we had our agent cancel our other showings and go straight to her office to start the process (and Tom went to get the cashiers checks and I sat and panicked—I hate feeling rushed and there might have been other good houses but you have to MOVE when you see something you like).
So she arrived at our hotel with the bad news that there was already an app in on the place…we basically missed out on our first choice house by minutes because the other app was being input as our agent was calling to tell them our app was coming in. 😐 She said we could also put in an app but chances were it would just be a waste of the $80 application fee…unless we wanted to offer more rent (which is apparently very common here)—but it was already over our budget…soooo no.
Have I said I hate house hunting? 🙂
So…without checking my spreadsheet I think we have one or two more of our first choice options left. And the few other places we did drive-bys on after dinner have crap for parking—like one of us would have to park more than a few town homes down and I have NO idea where guests would park. No thank you. My DC friends say to suck it up because that’s life here…but I can’t quite commit to that level of suckage yet.
To make the day worse, we found out the hotel pool is outdoor—and closed, which wasn’t listed anywhere—so Owen is sad (we promised him a pool). And the A/C in our room doesn’t seem to be working. And of course we have the smallest and crappiest Hampton Inn room ever. And Katie didn’t nap!
We sent Owen up to get dressed and he came down in a very nice outfit (i.e. matching!) and when we told him he looked good (or snazzy or something we don’t remember because I didn’t write it down right away) he made this face. 🙂
So I was trying to read the kids a book before bed but Katie just doesn’t have the patience to sit quietly so every time I started a page she’s shrieking (at something she sees on the page) or babbling or saying “Mama look!” Completely disruptive so that I couldn’t even hear myself reading. So we just looked at the pictures…and even then I gave up before the end of the book.
So then it was time to pick up toys and Katie picks up a book and says “story please?” and I said no it was time for bed. She heads over to Tom with her book and again says “story please?” He says no and she gets THE biggest pout on her face. But she tries again—with the puppy dog eyes:
Katie: Story please daddy?
Tom: Are you going to be a good girl Katie?
Katie: I’m a good girl daddy.
Tom and I both looked at each other like “Did she really just understand and respond with a full sentence?!”
So he attempted to read the story and only got through about a half page before he agreed it was time for bed. 🙂
