August - Part 1

There are no words to describe our month of August. We started the month in California, spent two weeks in Oregon, and ended it living in Washington. Our plans for our life and move changed about a hundred times, and I am sitting here a week into September trying to figure out the last time we felt settled. But at the beginning of the month we were blissfully ignorant as to what was about to happen. On the first of August, my biggest trouble was Hunter's constant contribution to my afternoons. It seems no matter the diaper size or brand, he has a way of spreading his joy all over his clothes and blankets at least once a day. Usually 2 or 3 times. We love this guy, and he loves to remind us when he wants a wardrobe change :).

Somehow this summer (AFTER having my 4th kid in less than 6 years, mind you) I became the team mom for Alex's office. My main responsibility as team mom was to bake cookies - a different type of cookie - each week to send to work. This may seem like no big deal for a stay at home mom, but I'm SO not a baker. I don't love to stand in my kitchen with children so sweetly standing next to me with hands in their pockets, teaching them to bake my passed-down-from-grandparents recipes. That's not our reality. But nevertheless, at least one kid helped me each week to make cookies for Dad's work. It was fun to explore this realm that I don't enter very often and push my current level of domesticity. Plus, as an added bonus, I got to eat amazing funfetti cookies!!

I decided that Olivia was old enough to take her up on her offer to help me with the packing for our two week Oregon trip. My packing strategy includes an insanely detailed packing list, piles for each category of the list, then meticulous organization into many bags and suitcases. Packing for 5 is no joke :). This time, however, my sweet daughter had her own additions to the list (and absolutely REFUSED to pack any pants for herself...dresses every day). She also helped me reorganize my piles and checked some things off the list all by herself! It was a wonderful adventure. I'm sure she will continue to help, and I hope that her love for organization and doing things in her own efficient manner serves her well throughout her life.

Every evening, either Alex or I gets the fun job of keeping Hunter awake as long as possible. So far, it hasn't helped him sleep through the night, but it is fun to have this quiet time with our little boy.

On the 2nd of August, Alex found out that he got the job as Assistant Ticket Director at Washington State University! Such an amazing opportunity, and one that was about to change our life dramatically. As a wife and mom, I was really excited to take our family out of the Bay Area and to a more family friendly and cost friendly place. However, as someone who was 3 days away from a 2 week trip with the kids, I was slightly concerned as to how we were going to make this happen. Naturally, I packed for the kids, separated a few things out, and jumped on a plane to Pullman with the baby to house hunt on the same day that Alex drove the other 3 kids to Oregon by himself. What a hero! And an untraditional start to our new crazy life.

Contrary to what that picture shows, Hunter did very well flying for the first time, and was a charmer to everyone sitting nearby.

Just for the sake of remembering, here is our schedule for those days:
Friday,
     4:30 AM - Hunter and I leave our Concord house for the airport
     9:00 - Alex, brings Olivia and Carter to their last day of summer camp
     11:30 - I land at the Pullman airport after 2 short flights and a two hour layover. The Pullman airport is 5 minutes outside of town, has two gates, and gets about five flights a day. The same people who check you in cross through security and take your boarding pass, and there are more TSA employees than airport personnel. You can complete the car rental process while you wait 15 minutes for your luggage, and watch for the luggage to come the entire time.
     12:00 - back in California, Alex picks up O and C from camp and heads out of town towards Oregon.
     12:30 - After grabbing a quick lunch, I meet the realtor at the first house. We sent her a list of 7 possibles. Really we had three houses in our radar and the others were only to have a comparison point. There are definitely a limited number of 4+ bedroom houses for sale in Pullman this late in the season, and we had 24 hours to pick one and make an offer. So we did as much research about the houses as we could together in Concord, then when I set out with the realtor I was pretty sure I knew which house we wanted. Initially I was disappointed to not see my favorite first, but Abbey (our realtor) showed me her favorite house first, and it stuck with me.
     5:30 - My mom came to help my look at houses. After seeing 10 houses, I had 3 top choices. None of those three were on mine or Alex's top 3 list initially. I was SO glad that my mom was driving from Spokane to Boise that afternoon and was able to stop by and help me make sense of the whole thing. Making such a crucial decision (and spending SOOOOO much money) without Alex there was really hard. I know that our entire family has to live with my decision, and all of the options had such different upsides and downsides.
    6:45 - We went back to the first house that I was shown first and walked through it one more time before making an offer. Some of the things I was originally turned off by were equally disappointing in other houses, so they became less of a problem and more of something I just need to get used to. So we made the call, wrote the offer, and were done with the single most expensive thing I will ever buy on my own.
     7:00 - My mom and I checked into the hotel, got settled a little bit, then went out to find dinner. We tried a fun Pullman restaurant called South Fork, and it was so fun to be out with just my mom (and Hunter) for an evening. The entire trip kept feeling WAY too easy, especially when I called Alex, who was on the road with the kids, and heard Makenzie screaming in the background. Our kids do quite well while driving, but Makenzie spends most of the time testing her voice :).

Everytime I just have one or two kids I notice that other people are so helpful. Going through TSA with Hunter only felt like a breeze to me. Grab the bins, take him out of his seat, shove the seat and full bins through, fold the stroller (with 1 hand while holding the baby), pick it up and put that through the scanner as well, then reverse through the process on the  other side. It always takes me a little longer than most people, but it's not a bad process. This trip in particular though, people were bending over backwards to help me, and it just felt easy to me because I had only the baby with me. Babies are so sweet and simple on trips. No extra food, no extra bathroom breaks, no extra toys or electronics needed, etc.

Anyway, back to our daily timeline. I'm not sure when and where Alex stopped on this trip, but I know he was disappointed by how slow the drive went.

     9:30 - I was snoring while 'watching' the opening ceremonies at the hotel. It was a crazy long and exhausting day, with another equally exhausting one to come the next day
   11:00 - I think this is about when Alex got to my parents house. 8 hour drive turned into 11, but he made it, and that is a huge deal any time you are driving with three young kids.

Whew! I can't even believe all the things that happened that day. Of course, being the scatterbrain that I am, I only took this one picture of the house to show that it had double paned windows. So if you want to see what our new house looks like, here you go!

Saturday wasn't quite as exhausting, but was perhaps more crazy and convoluted than Friday. We had the weird process of switching places, being present in 3 different states, and trying to figure out how to connect and figure out life when we weren't together at all...crazy.

Alex woke up (bright and early...thanks to the kids :) ) at my parents' house (my mom and I were both not there yet) and sent me the following pictures while he tried to get the kids ready. Maybe he needs some hair lessons! My dad and him together came up with the wrestler ponytail look...it reminds me a little too much of every time my dad had to do hair in elementary school. I still remember the shame associated with showing up to 3rd grade with a nape-of-the-neck ponytail.

Luckily, Alex brought the kids to his parents' house before the party where I was picking them up, so Aunt Ashley was able to help Makenzie (and Olivia for that matter) out with her hair.

Alex brought the kids to Keizer before driving to the airport, where I was conveniently flying in with enough time to have an hour or so of time to decompress, have lunch together, and figure out our life. I gave him the keys to the car I left at the Oakland Airport the day before, and he flew back home for work the next day. I drove down to Keizer to see the kids at Danielle's birthday party and bring them back to my parents' house that night.

On Sunday, the kids and I officially started our two week vacation at my parents', and we needed a day off, so we mostly hung out. Olivia made some awesome Lego creations that she wanted to show to her cousins, so she described them all to me individually. First is her ice cream truck. She said that every town has an ice cream truck. I asked why the people have no heads, and she said that they do have heads, I just can't see them. Touche'. Next is the Tower of England. I got no information about this, and I have no idea what the Tower of England means to her.

land and the horses have lots of thing ssto eat
allergy doctor truck
car that follows the allergy truck to get the people who fall out
waterskiing boat
tower of england
ice cream truck

This is her waterskiing boat with all the people waiting to ski. Grandpa Dale is driving the boat so he has a cool hat.

This is my favorite part. The first picture is an allergy doctor truck. Below is the car that follows the allergy truck to pick up the people that fall out.

The other fun thing that happened that morning was when Olivia went into the garage looking for the Barbies. She found an antelope head instead, and it spurred some interesting conversation. The kids had been learning a lot about gazelles (thanks to Carter's amazing animal boxes every week), and Olivia was quite concerned that Grandpa shot a gazelle. We had to convince her that an antelope is a gazelle cousin, and Grandpa wouldn't kill a gazelle unless he wanted to eat the meat. This conversation about guns, hunting, and eating animal meat was crucial later in the evening...

Late that morning, Grandma Bonnie called to invite us over for dinner! The kids were very excited to see their grandparents, as you can see by the next picture :).

Like everywhere we go, we brought the crazy something fierce. Within 20 minutes of my dad and I arriving with my four littles, my mom got there with Maely, Justin, and Kylie, and Jenaye came as well. It was a loud, crazy evening. We ended it outside on my Grandpa's rope swing. Each of the kids tried it and they were so brave! Olivia would have gone from 40 feet - we seriously need to get that girl ziplining or something. Carter, Kylie, and Justin were a little more timid, but they all tried it and had fun.  Maely impressed us all with her rope climbing skills and Grandpa even took a turn! I, too, couldn't resist feeling like a kid for a little bit, it was exhilirating!

On the way home I witnessed my first of many hilarious conversations between Kylie and Olivia. Each of the pairs of cousins (Kylie/Olivia, Justin/Carter) produced some amazing listening material throughout the two weeks that we spent together. Here is what I got to hear driving home from Grandma and Grandpas.

O: 'Remember those turkeys that live here? I want one to take one home for a pet'
K: 'I want to eat one for Thanksgiving!'
O: 'Yeah, you're right. Does Grandpa Turkey Buzzard still have his big gun, Mom?'
Me: 'Yes, I'm sure he does.'
K: 'OK, so you and me will go out with Grandpa Gary and hunt for a turkey and we can eat it.'
O; 'OK. We will do it for Thanksgiving. You can come to my new house in Pullman'
K: 'I used to live in Pullman, but now I live in Idaho! You would like it there,'
O: 'I lived in Idaho too, and then California. Now I'm moving to Pullman.'
K: 'New Plymouth is the best place to live. The air is so fresh. More fresh than Pullman.'

They just kept going, one-upping each other in the sweetest way ever. It was the start of a fun two weeks :)