Devin's Adventures

While I have been packing up, Devin has been out playing!

First he went to New York!
Our ward did a really neat "Mini Mission" for the youth approaching missionary age. Because we have some great connections (Pres. Calderwood, the mission president there was our previous Stake President, he is also related to Brandon, the current YM President) these kids were able to have this cool experience. Since we are within driving distance, Devin and Brandon each packed their vehicles full and headed for the mission president's home. They had firesides in the evenings, and one day the youth were each paired up with a missionary to go on splits with. While the youth were getting their missionary experience Devin got to tour NYC!

The Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) and 911 Memorial

Then the next week Devin took the young men on a High Adventure trip. They canoed down a river, and lazied it out in hammocks! The young men are lucky to have Devin and Brandon as their leaders. But they have way too much fun!

Pause at 45 sec to see Devin in the group picture.

I'm not jealous. Packing is way better... :/

Boxes

Lots and lots of moving boxes. Overtaking my living room. Full of all our things. We are moving!

We are so excited about our new house! Earlier in the summer I had nearly resigned myself to the idea of signing another year in our town house. For our price range, we couldn't find many options to rent. Then all the sudden a house popped up on Zillow and it had a beautiful yard. We had decided to go for it when we were offered another good house with even more room inside! They were both really good options, both of them in Herndon, and in the ward we love. We had a hard time deciding what to do, and sometimes I've wondered if we made the right choice. But I know we will love the house we will be moving to!

The house we chose has a garage for Devin, a fenced in yard for the kids, and a lovely kitchen for myself. We will be very close to several of our good friends and just across the street from the neighborhood pool. I'm excited for the extra space: four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a big basement, and plenty of storage space. We'll finally be able to have friends over and host game nights! If you haven't made the trip to Virginia for a visit, now is the time! (even if you have, its time to come back again!)

Next week is the start of our move... then its limbo time for about two weeks until we can move into our house. From August 2 - August 15 we will be homeless! As luck would have it, we have friends vacationing for a month in Europe who have said we can move into their home. We are blessed to have such good friends who will take us in for a while!

So my boxes will be sticking around. It is a little weird packing up knowing it will be at least three weeks before I can unpack. A little tricky too, as I am trying to decide which food stuff to pack and what we will need to eat. We will pack suitcases with our clothes and take a box of things we will still need to use like laundry detergent. The nice part of this deal is it allows me a little break from packing/unpacking... since I can't be arranging my new house all we can do is play! I am planning to spend many hours at our new pool and make lots of play dates with friends!

I can't say how excited I am about having a house to live in! Finally, we won't have to worry about how our noisy kids might disturb or wake our neighbor below us! Finally, Bridger can go outside on his own to play! He has started stealing away on his own and taking off down our side walk on his bike. It is so hard for him staying cooped up inside. It will be nice for me hopefully to get a little more done inside, while my kids can get their energy out on their own outside, and I won't have to worry about them so much (especially when I spend so much time nursing). And I have this idea that with more space, everything will have an assigned place to go and my house won't seem so cluttered. I am really looking forward to it!

We will just have to manage a few more weeks in boxes first.

Fun Visitors

We spent a fun week with the Poultons! And we did a little sight seeing...

Monday we went to Luray Caverns. They are so cool! It's really amazing to think the stalactites and stalagmites, columns, and whatever else is in there has been growing for millions of years! It takes between 150-300 years for one inch of growth. That's crazy!

We enjoyed the tour. We also had little Ethan Tanner with us; he and Bridger had a great time together.

The Shaggy Dog

Drapery

Ice-Cream Cone

Fried Egg

Lunch

Wednesday: Mt. Vernon

We had another chance to tour George Washington's home, Mt. Vernon. It is a neat place, I like it every time I go. This round I decided to play outside with the kids and forgo the touring of his mansion.
We walked around his gardens...

And I let the kids take some pictures on my phone...

Myra, with a little help from me

Either Ethan or Bridger took this one

Myra took this one.

And several more pictures were of legs, or the ground, or Myra's finger blocking the view.

We had a good time. Bridger's favorite is the 4D movie in the museum about General Washington, and it snows on the audience. The kids did lots of running around and being silly. When it talked about war in the museum, Ethan talked about the Lamanites.  According to Bridger, George Washington was a prophet. They were pretty fun to have around.

It was wonderful to have Grandma and Grandpa Poulton here and Aileen! My kids can't get enough of having them around and we are always sad to see them go. Myra loved sampling all three of Aileen's lip gloss' every day.  Bridger and Myra were quick beggars for the gum Grandpa carried around.  And Grandma reads the best stories. We wish we could have them over all the time! It was fun to tour around, but mostly it was fun being together with them!

Sawyer's Blessing Day

We had the good fortune and blessing to have so much family here with us for Sawyer's blessing day. Grandma and Grandpa Poulton, Aileen, Grandma and Grandpa Sorensen, Katelyn, Jill and Chris Clayton family, and Amy and Dallin of course. Having them all here with us in Virginia and at the same time, we couldn't help but have a good time!

I am grateful for Devin and that he is worthy to give our son a priesthood blessing. I thought how neat it is that we could think about what we wanted for our little Sawyer through his life and what he might be blessed to do and become.

We invited several friends to come to church for the blessing (none actually showed up) and our family was present while Devin gave a beautiful blessing to little Sawyer.

After Sacrament Meeting we went to a nearby park for dinner. We loved having so much family there with us!  We had enough food to feed half the ward because we had counted in all our non-member friends we had invited. Since our friends couldn't make it our left-overs fed us the rest of the week.  The food was filling (sloppy joes, salads, watermelon, and cookies/brownies for dessert), the day wasn't too hot, fun games...It was a great day!

On your blessing day (July 13, 2014)

Dear Sawyer,

My precious baby. We love you. Today is your big day! So many of our family have come to be here today. We are so happy to have you in our family! You have a mom and dad who love you very much, as well as your brother and sister, grandparents and many aunts and uncles. As we look to the future we hope you grow up physically healthy and strong. I hope you will be happy. I hope you will discover your talents and develop healthy ambition. I hope you always love your mom and dad! I hope you will have the ability to make the best of every day. I hope you will stand for what's right and be a leader. More than anything, my hope for you is that you will have a strong testimony of Jesus Christ and His restored gospel. Today, Dad blessed you that you will know and recognize the truth. Use this truth to bless those around you. Be good for something. Serve. You were born with a purpose, seek out ways to bless the lives of others. You are a child of light, let your light shine.

I am so grateful to be your mom.
Love you!

A Day to Party

Happy July 4th!

 The day began with our wards annual 4th of July breakfast. Pancakes, eggs, and sausage, plus fruit and juice... we never miss it! They also have an in with the firefighters... every year they are invited to share in our breakfast, and they allow all the kids to climb in their firetruck!

So patriotic.

 I spent a long night braiding my hair. Amy helped!

We had a very fun Recon party! Also a traditional thing...  Devin looks forward to this day all year long... the day he can grill the best cuts of prime steak. We had a huge feast... steak, hot dogs for the kids, salads, tons of fruit, and the junk food we never have (pop, chips, cake and cheesecake!). This year the Tanner's hosted the party. We hung out with them (and other Recon employees) all afternoon. It was an awesome day for corn hole and bocce ball too!

Later we met up with some friends I met through Courtney, by babysitting... Kristin and Dustin, and their little guy Tyler. We are so lucky to have the fireworks so convenient to our town home. We only have to step outside and we can watch them. (Super nice when we want to leave kids sleeping at home.) However this year we headed a little further from our backyard to the park with our friends. 

We played a little Uno, ate a lot of popcorn, and covered Myra's ears while she watched the fireworks. She hates them. Loud noises (such as the blender, Devin's motorcycle, live bands) have always bothered her. So fireworks send her screaming to tears. She cried for five minutes maybe before Devin worked his soothing magic. She endured through them but repeatedly asked to go home during the firework show.

She did love the popcorn!...

 
Our group:

 Family shot, minus Bridger:

Preparing for loud booming and banging before the fireworks started...

Happy Birthday America! We love the fun celebrations the 4th always brings!

When Bridger goes missing, part 2... Fun on the Potomac

So we sent our big boy off to fly on the airplane with Grandpa, and the rest of us headed for some fun in Georgetown. Myra needed a fun distraction since she got left behind. So we went to look for fun with canoes and kayaks.

We were lucky to have Amy and Dallin to play with. When we were signing the waver I wondered if they'd allow me to take my 5-week old baby on the water, but when we asked they were fine with it (or so we thought).

Myra loved canoeing!  She kept saying "This is fun, huh!"  And we agreed, it was so fun to get out and do something!  It was a hot day and I wasn't sure how long Sawyer would last, but racing Amy and Dallin, (them in their kayak, us in the canoe) and winning was great fun! ;)

We hadn't been out too long when we had a boat chase us down asking how many kids we had aboard? "Do you just have one?  We got a report that there is a two week baby out on the water." (I had Sawyer hidden in my Moby wrap. By the way who reported us?)
"We do have a baby."
"Everyone needs to be wearing a life vest. I brought one but it might be too big on him."
(I buckled Sawyer in).
"Well would you mind... we really would prefer..."
(So we paddled back to the dock).

He gave us a full refund.  We had about 30 free minutes paddling the Potomac.  We called it a very successful endeavor!

Then we walked to the famous Georgetown Cupcakes.  We all shared some delightful cupcakes, (so moist and yummy) on a park bench over looking the Potomac River.  Myra entertained all the passersby by just being cute, and hop, hop, hopping across the bench.

All in all it was a very fun day with memories made!