Photo session

Some photos from our weekend. Hope they are not too sore on the eyes. :)

27 weeks

First family photo we've had taken in a long time!

These pelicans were so magnificent looking. They flew by in waves every 5 minutes. You could see their skeletons from underneath.

Once I sit down... I'm not getting up.

Can't get in the new car with dirty feet!

What a week

We are 1 month down living in CA and every day is a busy day it seems. Despite everyone being sick we managed to get so much done!

We decided to give baby Noname all of Miles' furniture. So, we were on the hunt to find something fantastic for Miles' new big-boy room. We were torn between a bunk bed and a trundle. We know we're going to have visitors throughout the year and we were done with air mattresses, plus it gives us the option to let our "boys" room together in a few years. We found an awesome room set that was BOTH a bunk bed and trundle! (That's right, 3 beds in one). It was a pretty penny but something worth investing in.

Gotta love iPhone photos. Here is Miles' new room. He sleeps on top!

Here is Baby Lowe's new room. See that glider in the corner? I found that for $50 on Pendletonyardsales.com. I love the military yard sale sites. Such a great deal! Now, I just have to decorate these walls.

Speaking of yard sales, we had our very own! This was at the very end when there was slim pickings left. We made over $500! The military folk sure loves yard sales! I can't believe that 75% of our stuff was listed for just $1 and we still came out with that much. We had a LOT of stuff. We were way overdue to get rid of it. I can't wait to have our next one. Next year maybe?

Brad is never home these days. I am so glad my mom is with me because it would make for some lonely days. He's been working 13-14 hours and weekends. We sure miss him and I know he's exhausted. Friday his work had a "mandatory fun day" on the beach. Family was invited but when I showed up it was a sausage party! (All males). Thankfully, Miles took this time to pee his pants so I had a good excuse to run home. It sure is nice living in this beachy town though. I don't think I'll ever get sick of this.

My 90 year old grandparents were supposed to come today. We had to cancel on them because of this nasty cold we all have. The last thing I want to do is kill my grandparents with a cold. You never know with the elderly. They are getting ready to drive to Michigan (from California) tomorrow. Did I mention they are 90 years old?!

3 weeks in CA

Today marks 3 weeks of living in our new house in CA. While all our things (except 2nd car!!)) are here I still just don't feel settled. I think the hardest part about it all is making new friends. It's just not something that happens over night but takes months to develop. I was not thinking about this when caught in a whirlwind of excitement about living in the USA again. I'm sure it will happen over time- I just hope I have a few girls to call "friends" before this baby is born and especially before Brad takes off to the middle east.

We've had a lot of "battles" the past couple weeks. The most hilarious was the battle of the snails. My mom planted a beautiful garden in front of our house and she takes great pride in it. She was not aware of the amount of snails/slugs that crawl out at night to devour her flowers. It started off as a small pain and turned into a huge obsession with snails. Every night she was crawling on her knees to physically remove all these creatures. Apparently snails hiss. Who knew? Why this knee-crawling method? Because my mom cannot kill anything! All she had to do was sprinkle some snail killer and this problem would be solved. Finally, Brad couldn't take the snail obsession anymore and bought the death powder and sprinkled it himself.

We also have a battle of the birds. We all love birds here but not when we've planted fresh grass seed. You should see this house whenever one of us discovers birds pecking away in our front lawn. It results in everything from a chicken dance to gobbling/grunting noises to scare them off. The birds have learned to ignore us over time so now our cats take watch outside. We will welcome them back as soon as we get some decent grass growing.

The battle of lunch. Somewhere along this huge transition my little power eater has stopped eating his meals- at least willfully and happily. We've all taken turns fighting the lunch battle and I have to admit it's exhausting. Finally, my mom discovered a secret. Let Miles make his very own PB&J and he will devour it whole. I don't know how many PB&J's this kid has eaten but it's only a matter of time til he'll never touch the sandwich again.
In other news- Hyatt and Jeanne came to visit! They spent 6 weeks with us back in Germany this past Fall and it's great living so close. We plan to see them as often as we can. It was great having them pop over. Uncle Hyatt and my Dad put together my new patio set! Thanks guys!
Miles LOVES Aunt Jeanne. I think it's because of all the rounds of bowling she played with him back in Germany. Here they are playing bowling again.

Some exciting news- my Dad got a new ipad! Brad won an ipad back in October of '10 and we finally just got it. My poor Dad is constantly on the road with the most beat-up, out of date computer. Since the ipad was such an unexpected surprise for us, we wanted to pass it on. It came just in time for his 62nd (61? 63?) birthday. Or maybe it was a secret ploy to get my Dad hooked on apple products. :)

Speaking of Dad, we shipped him off a few days ago to start round 2 of trucking. This time he is in the 2nd phase of training and will be making much more money. I was happy to see my parents re-united if only for a couple weeks. It was hard to say goodbye though...
We also sent my mom off yesterday. She is in Auberry visiting family in central CA now. She's been with us since Germany and it was a small shock to our systems to see her go. She is the most active, non-lazy, helping, giving person I know. It's been great having her around while pregnant. She literally does everything... That's not the only reason we miss her though. :)

We got a new grill/patio set last week. This is where you'll find us every night...doing something like this. We are grill-happy.

In baby news- I'm 26 weeks now. Is it bad we haven't bought a single thing for this baby? I feel like this child will be born with nothing and with no name. We have got to get on the ball. We decided to get bunk beds for Miles room and give the baby Miles furniture. So now we're on mission to find something nice to fill Miles room. We still need to buy a stroller, bottles, clothes, carseat... the list goes on forever. One of these days we might find a name.

The Marine show

We took my parents and Miles to the "Marine show" which was really the silent drill team as well as the official Marine Corps band. It was pretty cool and we were all so impressed with how so many people could move at the exact same millisecond. My favorite was the silent drill team. They did some pretty neat flips with their rifles and I can't believe no one messed up once.

This wasn't even a fraction of how many Marines were there to watch. They evacuated these bleachers in formation all at once. My mom and I couldn't believe our eyes. They weren't even part of the show! It was neat seeing all these guys salute when they played the national anthem.

Enjoying the show!

The Silent Drill Team

The Marine Corps Band aka "The President's Own."



If you're curious to see what the silent drill team looks like... here is a commercial advertising for Marines. They moved much quicker than this in person, but it's still neat to see!

One way to kill an afternoon...

Brad started his first day of work yesterday. With this comes sharing a car which has been a bit challenging in a place where there are no trains or public transportation. So we found one way to kill an afternoon...beach! It was 70 and sunny today and somehow we managed to overdress still. Guess it will take a while to get the German out of me.

I was kicking myself for not bringing my super zoom today. There were so many cool things (including surfers on huge waves) to take pics of. Oh well, I'm sure there will be many other opportunities.

On a side note- with Brad's new job comes deployments and news of deployments. I found out yesterday that he leaves in September to Afghanistan. I knew this news was coming but it still makes me sick no matter how prepared I am to hear it. The part that I was not prepared to hear was all the pre-deployment training that comes with it, i.e. a month at 29 Palms right when our baby is supposed to be born, a short time home to say goodbye, then adios until 2012. Ugh. Yesterday was a pretty emotional day trying to absorb this. Brad is constantly reminding me to not let it be this big shadow in our lives and try to enjoy now. I promised him I'd try... So here is me enjoying today. It's not so hard with all this beautiful scenery.

Miles sure LOVES his Pock.

Sea World

We spent the day at wonderful Sea World yesterday! We took advantage of the 'Here's to the Heros' program where you get a free pass every year. We all had such a great time but forgot how easy the CA sun burns your skin. Ouch!

We all got a chance to pet and feed the dolphins. Guess who was more afraid of them... my mom or Miles?

Brad's before pic at the beginning of the Tea Cup ride.

Brad's end photo.