HeaderRight and analytics

Pic of the Week

Friday, November 27, 2009

Ian's funny

Ian has said so many funny things lately. Unfortunately we forget most of them before we can post on the blog. But over dinner we had one of the funniest conversations to date.

Ian: Our family has 3 kids?
Me: Three? Really?
Ian: Yeah.
Me: Are you sure? Can you count again?
Ian: Three! We have 3 kids.
Me: You're one, Rinnah's two....who's the other one?
Ian: (very excitedly) Daddy!!

We were cracking up. He was laughing too, although I'm not sure he realized why that was funny!

Black Friday shopping was a blast. It honestly was less crowded and less chaotic here than it was in our little town back home. Maybe just because there were so many different stores? Mom Weatherford and I went, and I really had fun. It's a lot more fun with someone else, plus she knew all the best routes between stores! At any rate, I was able to pick up almost all of the items we were looking for. We got some nice deals on some toys and games for the kids. Next we just have to decide which ones are for Christmas and which will be saved for later. We also picked up the $39 camcorder at Target, one of those pocket ones that just takes Youtube quality videos. We're hoping that makes it simpler for us to take quick videos and upload them regularly. I got another memory card for my camera. And Jeremy finally got new shoes, which he's needed for quite awhile. And the best part? 99cent Ben & Jerry's ice cream from Walgreens on the way home. Perfect way to wrap up our Black Friday!

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We had a really nice day today. I headed out early this morning to hit the drugstores. They did 3 day ads instead of just Black Friday, so I went to RiteAid, Walgreens, and CVS to load up on free stuff and really cheap Ghirardelli & Lindt chocolate. Then we went over to Jeremy's parents' house for a fantastic meal of turkey, chicken & dumplings, and all the fixings. Jeremy hadn't been there for Thanksgiving since his freshman year of college 9 years ago! We were definitely overdue to spend Thanksgiving with them.

In the afternoon we did a skype call with my mom & brothers, and it was nice to say hi to them. Ian has been talking for days about calling his uncles and Aunt Katy on the computer, but of course when we got online he got all shy on us. Oh well. At least he sang most of the alphabet for them. We tried to call Katy & Peter, but they weren't home.

Tomorrow we're going out super early to do some Black Friday shopping. I've never gotten to do it in a major metro area-I'm excited! One of the things we're hoping to pick up is a new hard drive, which will help me get caught up on my pictures. I really really want to be able to upload pictures again by the end of the weekend. Definitely the goal I'm aiming towards.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Progress

Saturday evening Jeremy and I went out to see his dad's barbershop chorus at a cabaret dinner. It was great! The music was really wonderful and the food was good. Jeremy's mom watched the kids so we could have a little date night. I ended up coming home early because I just wasn't feeling good, and when I got home both kids were asleep in bed. I don't know how she did it, but what an awesome gift. That's the first night EVER we have come home to two sleeping children. Usually we can't even get them to sleep that early. Anyway, we're already planning for what we want to do when we're both cold-free and we could actually be out past 7pm. What a great feeling!

Sunday Jeremy was sweet and took the kids over to his parents' for a visit while I stayed home and rested. It did a world of good too, since today I'm feeling quite a lot better than yesterday. Ian is still coughing too much for me to feel right taking him to the children's museum, so we did another Walgreen's trip today and spent some time at Mom Weatherford's house again. When Jeremy was done with work we took another walk over to the pet shop (Ian insists he can't go there without daddy) and had an easy evening with the kids. They're both not quite 100%, and tiring out earlier than normal, so I think it was good for them. Ian has been sleeping 12 hours a night and took a nap this afternoon too, so I know his cold is still getting to him. Hopefully they'll get plenty of rest tonight.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Colds

We've been fighting this cold for almost two months now, and it seems like we can just never get completely over it. I thought we were almost through earlier this week, and now Ian and I are going through kleenex like crazy again. (Good thing we just got 15 free boxes of Kleenex last week.) So the last few days I haven't taken the kids to museums or anything like that because I don't want to get other kids sick. We spent a morning catching up on laundry and today we went and returned some things to Target. I'm bummed because I was hoping that we could all go out to one of the children's museums tomorrow, but it looks like that will have to wait.

We have spent time visiting with Jeremy's parents still, which is nice. I'm so glad the kids are getting to spend some good time with them. Our visits before have always been around a week, so just as the kids were getting warmed up to them we'd have to leave. It's nice to have the kids get comfortable at their house, and with their Grandmother, Granddaddy, and Granny Gunn.

Jeremy has almost finished recovering the data from the laptop hard drive (I'm so thankful to have a techie husband) so hopefully soon I'll have things going again so I can post pictures.

Our exciting thing for the day-pomelo!! It's a huge citrus fruit, kind of like a grapefruit but sweeter, that we loved in Thailand. I found some today at a farmer's market here. It was such a treat to enjoy it again!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Special Day

We've reinstated the reward chart for Ian for sleeping. He starts with two "green go"s, since he loves green go/red stop things, and if he keeps getting out of bed we turn them to red stop. For each green he has left in the morning he gets a sticker. We had a picture for him to put the stickers on, and with a perfect track record, he could have finished it in 6 days. It took him about 3 and a half weeks, but he finished it this morning. So tonight we went out to Chuck E Cheese (we had a coupon) and played for a few hours. He had a blast and felt so special. We don't plan on making every reward day this big, but we wanted the first one to be a huge deal so he'll start associating the reward with staying in bed. He loved picking his rewards at the end to spend his tickets on. He just had trouble believing that he could get more than one thing-he thought we were asking him to change his mind. His cherished big prize is a little plastic ziploc-style bag with chuck e cheese on it, filled with some stickers, candy, and little plastic star-shaped glasses. We had a great time today-Jeremy and I even got to play skee-ball and pinball. Rinnah loved shaking the tokens in the cups and pouring them back and forth between two cups. She also loved putting the token in the slot to make those little cars rock back and forth, but freaked out when it started to move. Oh well.

Pics may have to wait. We had a little incident here involving someone less than 3 feet tall, a small cup of water, and a laptop, so until we get that all straightened out I don't have a way to upload the pictures.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

The weekend

Yesterday we went to the Tech Museum in San Jose. Jeremy's been looking forward to going there. We were running late and managed to leave without the camera-I'm still kicking myself for that one. If we were going to miss pics at a museum though, this was probably the one, since most of the exhibits were geared toward older kids and even adults. We had fun. Rinnah's favorite part was the escalator. Ian liked the MPG simulator where he got to drive a car, and the magnetic shape blocks. I just wish we could have gotten the pics of the kids interacting with their grandparents, because it was really precious.

We made it to church again today. Jeremy's parents attend a really awesome church. The worship is so vibrant and the music reminds us a lot of the churches we'd visit with the gospel choir we sang in back in college. The speaking has also been really good. Unfortunately, the one thing that hasn't been good is the nursery. Last week Rinnah was turned away because they were full, but we arrived late so we figured it was our fault. Today we got there a good 15 minutes before the service even started (a major achievement for us) but Rinnah was turned away again because a nursery worker hadn't come in so they were short-staffed. This morning though, Jeremy's mom was sweet and took Rinnah to the overflow room so Jeremy and I could enjoy the service without having to worry about taking care of her. And last week Rinnah was just amazingly well-behaved during the service, so it has mostly worked out. I think we're going to have to give up on attending the service with Jeremy's parents though, since the nursery is in such high-demand and we don't get home until 1:30 when we attend that service, which is really pushing the kids' naps. The service is very good though, so we don't want to go to a different church. We'll make it work.

We had such a nice week this past week, visiting with Katy and Peter, spending some evenings over with Jeremy's parents, and doing the museum on Saturday. I guess now I have to come back to real life and catch up on some cleaning and laundry before we go out on too many more field trips!

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Sunnyvale

Last Saturday we made it to Sunnyvale, California. This felt like a huge milestone since this whole time we've been headed to California as our major destination. We're excited to be here. Visiting Jeremy's family was one of the big appeals of the RV for us, since this is an experience we could never have without the RV. We are planning on staying in the area for two months which will give the kids some nice quality time with their grandparents.

Jeremy's sister Katy and her husband Peter were out here for a few days. The last time we met up with them in person Ian was only 10 months old, and obviously Rinnah wasn't around yet, so it was a long overdue visit. They are doing really well and the kids took right to them. We had a nice visit; I just wish it could have been longer. I'm still working on getting pics uploaded, but hopefully that will be soon.

We've been trying to take a little easier day today because since we got here, we've put the kids through a lot of late nights and napless days. Both kids took a nice long afternoon nap today and then we went to a nearby park so they could play. We also got to talk to Grandma Fox on skype tonight which was nice. Still working on bedtime, but hopefully they'll get a good night's sleep and we'll be able to go somewhere tomorrow.

Friday, November 6, 2009

California

Ian keeps getting so excited anytime the GPS says anything about California, and keeps asking when we're going to California. We've tried explaining that we're already in California, it's just a really big place, but I think he's confused since this whole time we've been saying we're going to California to see Grandma & Granddaddy, and we haven't seen them yet. But we will soon! Tomorrow we're off to Sunnyvale, California which is very close to Jeremy's family. We're looking forward to it!

We've had a nice time here in Redding, but I think the better part of a week was just about right. We went to the (one and only) museum, but it was geared toward much older kids and there wasn't a whole lot for Ian and Rinnah to do except outside. We had gorgeous weather at the beginning of the week but with the rain the last few days, outside parks and playgrounds aren't really an all-morning sort of option. We did go to the Kids Kingdom in a park here, and saw the hugest and possibly the best playground we've seen yet. There wasn't a way to get a good picture-it's a labyrinth of a wooden play structure that goes on forever with all sorts of twists, towers, and crannies to explore. Here's one pic that I'm borrowing from someone else of it:



Aside from that, we've just been catching up on laundry, recovering from colds, and enjoying playing outside any chance we get.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Sick day

The museum was finally open today but we couldn't go. The kids seem to be picking up this mild cold thing that we've had, but it's been hitting them a little harder today. Rinnah had a fever this morning of 101 so I decided to keep them home and try to get her some extra rest. Poor Ian was so upset that we weren't going to the museum-he was feeling just bad enough to be extra cranky, but not bad enough to get any extra sleep. At any rate, it seems to have done her good because this afternoon and evening she seemed to be almost back to her old self and no longer had a fever. Hopefully both kids will sleep well tonight and we'll be able to get to the museum tomorrow.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Redding

We are now in Redding, California. It is so wonderful to be in summer weather again! Here I thought I would have to do laundry this week but instead we're just busting out the t-shirts and shorts. It's been in the 70s, bright and sunny-a welcome and refreshing change after the 50 degree rainy weather we'd gotten used to in Washington and Oregon. It's amazing how yesterday morning we were freezing cold since the furnace wasn't working (battery too low to blow the hot air), and today we're opening the windows and Ian's complaining about it being too hot outside.

Today was pretty low-key. The kids got to play outside quite a bit for the first time in a few weeks, which they loved. We even let Ian get out the sprayer he has so dearly missed. We took a quick trip to Walgreens to keep my register rewards from expiring, but otherwise spent the day here at home enjoying the weather and the fresh air. I made lasagna in my new pan (Target clearance! I'd never had a lasagna pan before) and we had a nice early evening.

There is one museum here in town, but during the winter hours they are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so we have to wait awhile longer to get there. I'm hoping to get the kids to a playground tomorrow. We've missed our evening walks to parks and maybe this will be the week we can reinstate them.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Roloff Farms

On Friday Jeremy took a vacation day and we all went out to Roloff Farms. The Roloffs are on the tv show "Little People, Big World". I haven't seen all the episodes, and I haven't seen any in at least six months, but I'd seen enough of the show to be curious about all the things they've built on their farm. During weekends in October, they open their farm to the public for pumpkin season. They've got the typical harvest-fest type of things in a really nice setup.

From Portland


We started out at the pumpkin patch. Rinnah even learned to say "pumpkin", although it sounded more like "bump"!
From Portland


From Portland


Ian surveying the pumpkin field
From Portland


From Portland


From Portland


They had a really neat hay maze for the kids
From Portland


From Portland


From Portland


From Portland


From Portland


Ian was so excited to pull one of these wagons through the pumpkin field.
From Portland


Rinnah thought it was a lot of fun!
From Portland


Plenty of cute photo setups but the kids weren't exactly cooperative
From Portland


From Portland


From Portland


From Portland


Another wagon ride for Rinnah
From Portland


From Portland


There was this giant chair to sit in
From Portland


From Portland


Amy Roloff was out as a clown doing balloons for the kids
From Portland


I think Ian was scared of the clown outfit....
From Portland


Checking each other out at the petting zoo
From Portland


We also got to take a wagon tour of some of their farm, including their Old West Town and their sports fields, and drove by their house. It was pretty cool to see everything we'd seen on tv! Matt really did build the 'ultimate playground' for his kids-it looks like an awesome place to play outside.

It was also great to just have an extra day for our family. Jeremy takes vacation days pretty rarely, and it's usually because we're visiting someone. That's nice, but there was something special about taking a day to do something with just our family of four. We enjoyed it. And this is just the sort of thing that we never would have taken a trip to do, but an opportunity came up with our RV life and it was a fun experience.


We then spent the weekend driving and have now made it to Redding, California. The RV park is nice, tucked behind a used car lot but very well maintained and (best of all!) they have a great internet connection so far. Jeremy and the kids were even able to do a Skype call with Grandmother & Granddaddy W. tonight. We will definitely appreciate a reliable connection!

Based on original Visionary template by Justin Tadlock
Visionary Reloaded theme by Blogger Templates

Visionary WordPress Theme by Justin Tadlock Powered by Blogger, state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform