2013-09-17

Posted by Julie Wiens Posted on 11:35 PM | 3 comments

Rewind back to May

I'll keep this post short so we can once again try to catch up. May was very busy. We completed our 10th move in 15 years. This was by far our hardest move since we had to deal with a running toddler trying to help with everything. Below, Logan was ensuring that his grocery cart could handle a heavy load.



Food in hair was a common look at the dinner table for a long time.

Logan tried his first crayons back in May. He attempted the standard paper route and then tried to see if they could be a delicacy. 



Logan LOVES books. We read all the time. I loved this photo of them all  reading together.

Frak, as always, was a great packing helper. She assumed her paper weight role. This was her 7th move, so she is a pro now. I think she may have been relieved to not be moving cross country again. 

It was a bittersweet good-bye to the home that saw Logan's first months of life. We loved living there.  The neighborhood was great, and we loved having our park 1/2 a block away. However we were happy for the owners, friends of the family, to finally be able to sell it. If only we could sell our home in Los Alamos ... 

I must put out a huge "THANK YOU" to our friend Tim, who came down to help us move some stuff over to the house. We hired movers to do the bulk of the work, but Tim saved us a lot of time by giving up a Friday to help us move.

The other complication we had for this move is that we were sick for about a week prior to the move and then a week after the move. That certainly didn't help the packing/unpacking processes.
 
Here is Logan learning some new tricks in our new home. As always, I was trying to organize the kitchen first, and he was trying to organize the cereal for me.

Our new place has 3 levels, so that has been a huge adjustment.  It took me forever to get the baby gates installed the way I wanted them. Not only do I need to block Logan from using the stairs, but I had to find a way to block Frak from jumping low gates and waking me up all night long. I eventually installed what I would call a barn door. I put some wheels on a door and attached it to a rail at the top so it could roll back and forth to block off the stairs. Of course it took me forever to finish that project, and in the mean time Logan did learn to use the stairs. It was really scary to watch Logan learning to manage the stairs, but he really is pretty good on them these days.

We were lucky to have some old Colorado friends come to town. They were attending a flyball tournament, which I really want to see one someday. Apparently their dogs love it. In any case, they came over for some drinks and to introduce us to their little Lily. Good job Brenda and Ryan. She is a doll.

Since we moved the weekend of Mother's Day we opted to celebrate it later in the month. We went out to Red Lobster, which definitely used to be better. Logan did ok during dinner and got to watch the lobsters in the tank. He definitely is hard to take out these days because he really just can't sit still through a meal anymore.

After lunch we headed over to the zoo. I know, you are all surprised by that.

Here the boys are trying to see the baby rhino, but no luck.


We tried to take some Mom-son photos, as is our tradition for Mother's Day, but Logan' was not interested in posing. Some are still cute though. Good job, Kyle.

We spent some time by the amphitheater so that Logan could run off some energy too. 

What zoo trip would be complete without a visit to the duck pond?

This was my first time hiking Bear Canyon Arroyo behind our new home. It is a really nice area with trails to hike and you can't complain about the view. If I were to turn around and snap a photo, you would see the Sandias.

We don't always take the stroller, but this time it was good we did.

Logan loves hats. If you bring one into our home, you must be prepared to share it with him or suffer the consequences.

This is our new park. It is about a 30 minute walk from the house, but it is an awesome park with tons of grass to run around in, a great playground area and an amazing view.

All in all, I actually love our new rental digs. We have a great back yard with mountain views and tons of trees for privacy. The house is old and has many quirks, but I really do love it and the new neighborhood we are in. So, even though I hated doing a 10th move, it has turned out fine. As you will see in future posts, I have been busy with projects to make the place into what I want it to be. It did take me 2 months to get all of the boxes unpacked and a lot longer to get the last disaster of a room into tip-top shape. That was a huge change from my typical 2 week unpacking process. Guess adding a toddler really slows things down, but he's worth it.

Couple highlights for the month:

- Logan started saying "bye bye".
- He had his first laughing snort.