Adventures in June.

I turned 32! Getting older doesn’t bother me but I’m starting to get annoyed by all of the gray hairs I have now.  I haven’t dyed my hair in over ten years so I’m thinking it’s about time.  

The girls had a fun week in the middle of June.  Their bio dad came into town.  It had been a couple years since his last visit.  He spoiled them like crazy and took them all over town.   I was afraid the visit would be uncomfortable since he and I don’t really get along but we were surprisingly mature and didn’t fight with each other! Woo!

We took trips to several nearby nurseries to look for trees and get an idea of what we wanted for the new landscaping.  The nursery that we ended up buying our trees from has goats that you can feed.  It turns out that Ryan really doesn’t like animals up close but he’ll wave hi like crazy from a distance.  He did like to feed the fish in the pond.  I think they were far enough away.

Snow Day.

Holy crap, I’m caught up on my blog and with just 10 days to spare before the New Year!  Yesterday was the last day of school for the kids before their Winter Break started and it snowed all.day.long.  This was the most snow we’ve seen since we got to Washington.  Today we bundled up the kids and let them go outside and play.  Kaeleigh and Maylyn joined the rest of the kids on our block and did some sledding down the hill behind our mailbox.  Ryan just wanted to walk up and down the street.    

Our neighbor’s dog loves the snow and little kids and she and Ryan greeted each other happily.

Whoever does the plowing didn’t get around to plowing our street but that was okay with me because I’m afraid to drive in the snow.  What can I say?  I’m an Arizona girl.  The worst things we drive through are haboobs and the occasional pouring rain.  I have no idea what to do on a snowy road.  I think I’ll just stay inside and hibernate until March.

We live in the Woods.

 The girls had mentioned to us that there was a moose up by their bus stop one morning.  One of the parents shooed it off and I didn’t really think about it again; until one morning about two weeks ago. I woke the girls up for school and went back upstairs to wait for Ryan to wake up.  All of a sudden I hear Maylyn say, “There’s a moose in our yard!”  So I ran down stairs and sure enough we had a visitor.  He was a young moose and hung out there for about two and a half hours (who knows how long he had been there before we woke up.)

 

I took this one from the street.

Finally he got up and limped away.  One of his back legs was messed up.  According to our neighbor, he and mama moose had been hit by a car.  Mama moose died and he ended up with a broken leg.  That was over a year ago.  I called animal control and they said that because he can get up and move around they don’t do anything about it.  Then after awhile the moose came back and started snacking on all of the trees and plants in our yard and the neighbors’ yards.  There were a few of us out on the street taking pictures of it.  

Maylyn has seen him a few more times since then and Bill saw him down the hill by the grocery store a few days ago.  Apparently this is his hood and he likes it here.

November.

The beginning of November marked our first snow fall.  It wasn’t too much and melted and was gone the next day.  The girls had to walk uphill to the bus stop…in the snow.  Ha ha!  Now they have a story for their grandkids someday.

 We flew to Arizona to visit family.  The Husband found out last minute that he had to work and wasn’t going to be able to make the trip with us so I flew by myself with the three kids.  Flying out of Spokane wasn’t too bad.  Bill helped us get inside and to the security line.  I had Ryan in a carrier on my chest and was carrying his car seat.  And because he was on my chest they sent us through a family line where I had to have my hands swabbed by a TSA agent.  It didn’t take too long and we were on the plane in no time at all.  When we got on the plane a flight attendant helped carry Ryan’s seat to an empty row for us where I buckled it in and got everyone settled.  Ryan was by the window, then me, Maylyn was next to me, and Kaeleigh was across the aisle.  Well, as the plane begins taxiing down the runway another flight attendant (a different one than who helped me) comes over and tells me that Ryan can’t be over the wing of the plane and we’ll have to move seats.  So she asks these gentlemen a few rows back if they’ll trade seats with us and the first flight attendant who put me in that row came and apologized and offered to hold Ryan so I could carry all of our crap to the now vacated row.  Talk about embarrassing.  The pilot had to stop taxiing so we could do the seat swaps and everyone on the plane was staring at me as I unbuckled Ryan’s seat moved rows and buckled it back up. To top it off, Ryan was just starting to fall asleep before the move and then refused to sleep for the whole flight after the switch.  It was great.  I don’t know how many cookies that kid ate but I was doing anything and everything to keep him from crying.

 We celebrated Kaeleigh’s 10^th birthday while we were in Arizona.  Everyone came to Peter Piper Pizza to celebrate with us.  It was so great to see my family and friends.  A few of Kaeleigh’s old school friends came to her party also. 

 It was a short trip but lots of fun…until the flight home.  Sky Harbor airport is a nightmare.  It makes the airport in Spokane look like a library in comparison.  We got to the front of the security line very quickly, surprisingly. Ryan was on my chest again in his carrier but had fallen asleep this time around.  So again they pull me aside to swab my hands but this time I set off an alarm.  I have no idea why but the TSA agent grabbed all of my stuff and took me to this separate table where they proceeded to swab all of my belongings and wouldn’t let me touch any of it.  I had to be taken into this little room so that I could get a pat down from a female agent while another female agent and Kaeleigh and Maylyn looked on.  Keep in mind that Ryan is still asleep on my chest this entire time.  It was ridiculous.  Obviously I looked like a dangerous individual with two kids and a sleeping baby.  Let me tell you something, those agents have to pat you down everywhere.  I had to loosen Ryan’s carrier so she could feel under my boobs and everything.  Luckily we arrived early for our flight because that whole fiasco took forever and stressed all of us out except for Ryan who slept through the entire thing. Until we got on the plane and then he was all rested and didn’t want to sit in his car seat so I spent another flight with a wide awake one year old trying to entertain him with snacks and all of the pamphlets in the seat pockets in front of us.  I even took advantage of the free Wi-Fi on the plane and the free TV they offered to distract him.  It didn’t really work.  He spend the last half an hour or so fussing.  Getting home was a lot harder than getting to the airport.  Bill had flown out a few hours before we flew in so he left my car in the parking garage and I got a luggage cart to transport all of our things to the car.  It was exhausting.  I told Bill that I am never flying by myself with all of the kids ever again.

 Kaeleigh’s actual birthday was November 15^th so we took her out to dinner.  She chose Olive Garden.  And when we got home we had some cake and the kids got to Skype with family.  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned how much of a Harry Potter fan Kaeleigh is but the girl just loves HP.  Bill found the perfect gift for her.  It’s Hermione’s wand and time turner necklace.  Sadly, about five minutes after Kaeleigh opened her gift she and Maylyn started arguing and Maylyn sat on Kaeleigh and broke the wand.  We haven’t found a glue yet that will keep it together.  Maybe it really is magic…

 I also buzzed off all of Ryan’s hair this month.  It had gotten to the point where he would twist his hair around his fingers and pull handfuls of it out.  He actually sat pretty still while I cut it; I was very surprised.  And now he looks like a little man!  It makes me sad to think about how quickly he’s growing up.

October.

In October we went trick-or-treating!

This was the first time I've ever had to have the kids wear clothes underneath their costumes because it was cold.  

 Ryan was a cow.

 Maylyn was a colorful skeleton.

 Kaeleigh was an 80's pop star.

We only made it about a block or so.  It was just too cold and Ryan wasn't really feeling it. He had no idea what people were handing him. I'm sure next year will be a different story once he realizes that people are giving him candy. 

August.

August was fun; maybe slightly less fun for Maylyn because she had summer school. But she had a surprisingly good time.  The Husband was able to take some vacation time and we did some exploring. 

We headed back to Lake Coeur d’Alene and let the kids put their feet in the water.  The lake was packed the day that we went.  Ryan was not a huge fan of the sand and the water and clung to Bill the entire time. 

 We stopped and had snow cones before leaving and the girls came across an ancient relic.  They had never seen a pay phone before!

We signed the kids up for swimming lessons.  This was Ryan’s first time in swim lessons and he did really well.  He wasn’t a huge fan of floating on his back but he really liked jumping in from the side of the pool.  His lessons were first so Kaeleigh and Maylyn sat and read until we were done and then it was their turn.  I spent the 35 minutes of the girls’ class chasing Ryan around the aquatic center.  There were just too many things for a one year old to see!

At the end of August Bill surprised us with a trip to Silver Mountain Resort in Kellogg, Idaho.  It’s this beautiful resort about an hour away from us that is a ski resort during the winter time but also has an indoor water park that runs year round.  

We took a 3.1 mile gondola ride to dinner the first night that we were there.  Ryan was a little nervous and held on tight to his daddy and sister. 

See those buildings in the distance?  That's where we started!

 We spent the next two days swimming, enjoying some treats, and having some fun family time. 

We had so much fun that Maylyn passed out as soon as we got home!