We're alive

Things  sure got crazy after we left Washington.  We had 2 days when we got home before we got the keys to the new house, so we could just chill out, grocery shop and hang with friends.  Then the packing continued and continued and the work on building closets and getting the house ready began.  It was exhausting, but we are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel :o).
I will blog later about the rest of our trip (thankfully, I wrote the text on the drive back, so I just have to get the pictures together).  It was a new record,  14 hours and 2 minutes.  We had to stop 5 times, 3 to visit the bathroom, so there’s still room for improvement.  The best part was pulling into the driveway!  The kids went right to bed and we put things away.  It went pretty quickly and even enjoyed a little Olympics before bed.  The next day, the kids were up early and I was starting to have a plan for packing.  
We picked up K Tuesday morning and had him for 3 days.  He returned home for a long weekend and then was permanently with on Auguest 14th.
Looking  at the bright side, all the busyness is great for weight loss, which is good because a summer at the lake is not good for weight loss!!!We officially moved on August 19th and I'll be sending out an e-mail to everyone to update their records.  We rented a truck and had 4 guys and we were done in about 5 hours :o).  Thankfully, I had done all the car trips back and forth the previous 10 days and had most everything in its place.  All we had to do was put the beds together.
Later that day, I was doing a load of laundry and checked to make sure things weren't leaking and unfortunately, there was water on the ground.  Ryan had just tightened a bolt in the yard because it was emitting a poop smell.  It seemed that the 2 were related so I asked him to loosen it and water started seeping out.  The bathtub was also a little backed up.  I called a friend and he said it sounded like their was a  block in the sewer line from the release to the road and suggested we take the cap completely off to release the pressure and clear the line.  That was interesting.....nothing like a poop geyser in your front yard draining all over the driveway and into the grass.  The cable guy got more than he bargained for as he was trying to "save" his drill bit from the flow and ended up tipping over our swing and crashing on the grass-but not in the poo :o).  If only we had been smart enough to grab the video camera we would be $100,000 richer, no doubt!!!
We had just gotten the mail and the home warrantly info. arrived, so we gave them a call and they sent someone the next day who broke 5 blades trying to get through the tree roots, but there were no trees in yard!  He said we needed to get the camera down there to check it out.  The camera couldn't even fit through the pipe, it was so clogged.  Thankfully, the camera guy had bigger, stronger blades and was able to completely clear the block and give us 4 inches of diameter.  I pulled up an old picture on Zillow and there was a tree about 5 feet away that was cut down, so we are hoping the problem is solved (gotta love the internet!).  If not, we found a great plumber from our church, who will help us fix it.  We are lucky that the problem is under the grass and not the driveway :o).
So, the week went buy and we continued to cross things off our list.  The house feels like a home now and we just have to hang pictures and empty the garage.  It has a nice flow and feel and we are really enjoying it.
We did have a surprise a couple night ago when the carpet near my closet was wet.  We knew it must have been coming from the shower, so Ryan headed into the crawl space (truly a crawl space) and barely made it over to the problem.  Huge leak in the pipe to our bathroom, so we called the Home Warranty again and someone is coming today.  We knew the pipes were old and going to be an issue eventually, but we were hoping later rather than sooner.  I am very thankful we have 2 bathrooms and a Home Warranty!!
Welcome to home ownership!!!  The good thing about moving is you never sit down and I managed to lose all the weight I gained over the summer at mom and dad's.  It is all about focus and we are choosing to focus on the positive, despite these problems and it has helped lighten the mood.
Oh, I almost forgot....in the mix of all this, we added K back to our family 2 weeks ago and he has been adjusting well.  3 is a challenging age as he knows everything and wants everything on his terms, but we are working through it and coming to an understanding :o).  The kids have been great despite the craziness and being passed around to friends.  We have such good friends and could not have done the move without them!  Not only did we move, but we had to clean the rental house and return it to its original condition.  We did it in a day and it was worth it because we got our full deposit back :o).  I'm glad that chapter is over......

Trip to Lummi

Well, we had tons of fun again this year.  Lots of searching for treasures and making some really cool things out of our treasures.  Grandma got to keep those to decorate with!  Liha and Spencer got to join us this year and I’m pretty sure he’ll want to go back again next year :o).  

We saw purple starfish for the first time and that was really cool.  We also visited a beach not far from the cabin that had all kinds of really cool rocks.  We could have filled the car with all of the interesting rocks!  Thank goodness we only brought a tiny little bucket.
We had a fire and roasted marshmallows, searched for sea glass, flipped rocks to find tiny crabs and watched a little of the Olympics.  Oh, and ate lots of good food, of course :o).
Unfortunately, I never sleep well there….last year my mom and I had a terrible allergy attack in the middle of the night and this year Spencer was in our room and was having some kind of trouble and was thrashing all around for a good portion of the night (probably because he ate 1 ½ cheese sandwiches!).  When he was finally quiet, we heard Liha walking around upstairs.  She came and got mom because there was a bat flying around!!!  I pretended to be sleeping :o).  They got her bedding downstairs and set her up in the living room next to the kids.  Mom came in and reported that Liha had a drip of something fall on her lip…hmmm bat pee??!!  This was so super funny to us and we giggled hysterically which Liha did not appreciate.  The bat wasn’t finished with her as it kept swooping down lower and lower (probably trying to stop the incredibly loud snoring).  She opened the door and it flew out and then we giggled some more and finally fell back asleep.

Ainsley turned the big 6 yesterday and lost another tooth!  She had all kinds of fun this year for her birthday! The parties just kept coming.  It started with Grandma Peggy taking the kids the Thursday before we left to let Ainsley pick out a few birthday goodies.  I think Grandma Peggy has the same problem as Ryan…they can’t say no to our cute kids.  So, it turned into quite a shopping spree, complete with sunglasses and hair accessories.  I am very glad I sent her with a coupon!  Then they went out to dinner and saw Ice Age 4.  It was quite the fun afternoon for them!

 Clothes from the shopping spree...

Saturday the 4th was Ainsley’s party at the lake and the weather was awesome!  Super sunny, but a little warm.  We took a boat ride and it was so hot that I thought a nice jump off the rope swing would be fun.  Jenisa and I went and thankfully, we didn’t have to call the medics.  Jenisa fell in the rock, but came away with just a small gouge in her leg.  I had fun doing back flips :o). 
Ainsley had a good time playing with the cousins and neighbor, Cami.  I think they were out in the water all day, but we did manage to get her out for presents and cake.  It was fun to see everyone one last time before we headed out the next day.

The weekend we got back to Livermore, we had a party at the Robert Livermore Community Center Pool.  It is the first year we have had a party there with her friends and it was really poor timing with our move.  We were right in the thick of it and it was quite amazing that we were able to pull everything together.  It was actually a nice break and the girls ended up staying to relax at the pool long past the end of the party :o).  She was surrounded by her best buds and had a great time doing what she loves most, swimming!

 We love you Ainsley for who you are:
The giggly girl who we often have to ask to stop laughing
The sweet motherly girl who loves on little ones and her babies
The girl who has to have her hair just so
The little teacher who may just be a teacher one day
The girl who gives up her juice to make K stop crying
The athletic girl who wants to do everything
The girl who needs her hugs and cuddles
The girl who loves to dance and sing to her Kidz Bop and church songs
What a diva, but don't too close to those pits....she's a stinker