Our new place

I have a hard time figuring out what to call our new place. It's not a house. It's a duplex. Some people say it's a town home, and some refer to it as apartments, since they are all rented out. But at any rate it's our new home. I think it will work for now. It's hard knowing it's temporary when we had hoped it would be a permanent move. I guess we just have to find the right place, and maybe that will be easier now that we live here. But it's great for now, especially moving in sight unseen.

So where do I start? We spend most our time downstairs, so I'll start with the kitchen. It is larger than our last place, with more counter space. However there are fewer drawers, so I've had to find more places for things that used to go in drawers. Now I wish I'd bought two canisters at IKEA


I love our fridge. It is much bigger than our last one. I can fit two gallons of milk on the door, and the freezer has a shelf. It's much easier to find things, and to fill it up. The oven works better too. I miss having our food storage down stairs, but the closet will do for now.

This is the view from our kitchen window!

There is a park behind our house - mostly just a field, with a pavilion, horseshoe pits, and volleyball court. I think you can rent the equipment from the civic center on the property.

There is a desk in the kitchen, which will come in handy for homework, and it's a great place for office stuff that the kids can use.
To the left of the desk it the half bathroom and the door to the garage.

Small but functional. It's nice that we have two bathrooms, except that it means I have to clean two of them.

Across from the bathroom is our utility closet with our new washer and dryer! I love them!

Amy wanted to be in the pictures too.
The dining area is next to the kitchen - obviously.

I feel like we are back in Texas with the table on the carpet once again. So we have a rug to attempt to save the carpet from a lot of damage.

Our living room is about the same size as our last place, but it feels much bigger since the ceiling opens up.

I also like that there is no railing for the kids to get stuck in.

I like that the computer is downstairs in an open room. It's much more accessible and I can be in the same room as the kids when they are on it.

The view out of the back door.

Upstairs there are 3 bedrooms and a full bathroom, as well as a linen closet. The boys share a room, and Amy has her own room. I miss having all the toys in a separate room, but so far it hasn't distracted them at bedtime. But their rooms do get a little messier easier.

Amy likes having her own room, as far as I can tell.


Since I took this picture we put the toddler bed in her room, just so it wasn't taking up space in the garage. Every nap time and bed time since then Amy has chosen to sleep in the bed rather than the crib. She falls asleep with no problem, but she still uses her binky to go to sleep. I dread the day it disappears, but I know she can't use it forever.It's nice to have a counter again in the bathroom, and drawers.

I love our room, especially that the bed isn't in a corner. I still feel it's a little cluttered, but hopefully soon I'll find a place for every thing.

Our walk in closet isn't as big as the one we had in Texas, but it's much better than our last place. Plenty of room for storing boxes etc.

One of my favorite amenities: Air Conditioning. Something we haven't had since Texas. Not that we needed it a lot before, just a few weeks out of the year. It is much hotter here, but that has a allowed us to do more water activities such as running through the sprinklers, and outdoor swimming lessons. It's also been nice to have sunny days just like I remember having growing up. Yesterday it was cloudy, and we ended up with the most beautiful sunset.

Well, it was better from the field, but this will give you an idea of the colors.
We love it here!

Camping trip

Tuesday I started preparing for a camping trip. Aaron had been invited to go fly fishing with Brian U* - one of the partners at the clinic. So it was pretty much up to me. David still wasn't feeling very well, so we had him take it easy in the morning. We mostly watched movies and played games. After lunch David was feeling much better, so I let him play outside. As the day gets later I realize that our camping trip will make me miss laundry day. So I started a load after dinner. I also cut the boys' hair. While I was half way done we had a visitor stop by with some yummy bread. Sister P* drove out with her granddaughter to deliver the bread to us. She would have lived down the street from us had we bought the house we looked into. It was very sweet of her.

Aaron got home after the kids were in bed. I still had another load of laundry to do in the morning before we left. Aaron helped me find everything we needed before we attempted to go to bed early. That never works when you are trying to prepare for a trip. Luckily we weren't trying to leave early. Check in time was at 2:00, so we left around 10:00, giving us plenty of time for stops. The difficult part of this journey is that there is no direct route. We got 3 different routes from 3 different sites. So we took the most traveled one. Amy took a nap somewhere along the way, and I had made sandwiches for lunch along the way. (Side note: on our trip to CA Amy discovered peanut butter sandwiches. She loves them and calls them "peek a butteh samiches" So cute!)

We ended up on dirt roads for a really long time. But I think the trip was worth it. We stayed by Lake Tahkalakh near Mt Adams.

You can see how close our campsite is to the lake.

Amy loved to walk along the fallen trees.

As soon as camp was set up the boys went fishing

That's the view of Mt Adams near our campsite.

Amy just loved being outside
Can you see how dirty her face is?

Timothy hid in the small tent to escape the mosquitoes.

He tried to get them with David's bug vacuum.

Yes the mosquitoes were the only downfall of this campsite. We used bug repellent, however they seemed to not care at all, or find the spots we missed, or attacked as soon as it wore off. I ended up with only a few bites, Aaron a few more, and the kids had hundreds!

As we went further around the lake we had even better views of Mt Adams.

There were beautiful flowers too

Just before dinner was ready Aaron caught a fish - about 12 inches long. So we put it on the fire and supplemented our dinner. That's about as fresh as you get.

As it cooled down and the lake started to get still Aaron got a great shot of Mt. Adams, and the reflection in the lake. He even got the moon in there.

Of course we had to have s'mores.

Amy wasn't quite sure what to do with it though

Timothy loves s'mores

David still doesn't like me taking his picture, but I snapped one of him roasting his marshmallow.

I snapped one of Aaron too.

Amy finally figured out how to eat a s'more

The kids stayed up late and we all went to bed around 9:30. Aaron only stayed up long enough to make sure the fire was out. Amy didn't sleep well, so she kept us up most of the night. Maybe she's always this restless, but she wouldn't go back to sleep. I think I was up between 1 am and 4 am straight. We did get to hear some owls hooting back and forth. She finally went back to sleep at 5:00 am and slept until 7:30. Stinker! Of course by 5:00 am it was light, and I couldn't sleep.

But she's still cute in the morning.

And loves her yogurt and pancakes

The boys went fishing again, and Amy and I went for a walk. We discovered if you keep walking the mosquitoes don't bother you as much. Amy and I saw a deer. I took a few pictures, but they didn't turn out well because I was on the wrong setting. I tried to put Amy down so I could fix the camera, and she yelled, "No!" and the deer bounded away.

While the boys were gone fishing I started packing up some things and cleaning up camp. Around 11:00 they came back pretty happy with their morning. Timothy's pole caught this one:
David and Aaron helped him reel it in. Aaron actually had to kneel on it to keep him from flopping back into the water. We measured it at about 21 inches. Aaron caught another one about the same size, but it got away at the last second. Aaron wished he'd brought his net. Aaron cleaned Timothy's fish and put it in the cooler.
Then we went for a little hike. It was supposed to be a 1.5 mile loop.
I was glad we had the back pack for Amy. She's getting a little big for it, but she wouldn't have made it far without us carrying her. At first she wouldn't sit in it. I had to give her the binky to calm down. But she traded it for a peach and some crackers. Aaron's shoulders and back were a little achy after that hike.

The hike was to the lava rocks. Relatively new rocks that were formed about 3,000 years ago when Mt Adams last erupted. Notice the peach that Amy is eating.

We kept seeing this flower all over, and finally found out it's called beargrass. Apparently the stems are used to make baskets. And you have to get a permit to harvest it!

As we went along we found some patches of snow

We met another family (with 4 teenage daughters) on our hike and they told us about the view on the side trail. So we took it.

It was a cloudy morning, so all we could see was the base of Mt. Rainier. But it was a great view.

When we got back to camp we ate some lunch and headed back home. We decided to take the road less traveled home. It was supposedly shorter, but on lesser used roads. We found out why. It goes right through the Indian Reservation where there is a "No Trespassing" sign. We didn't want to take our chances, so we went back the other way. A 45 minute detour to discover that we probably shouldn't take the short cut. Everyone was a little tired after our adventure!

We got home and had a late dinner. That trout was so good, and we had some left over too.