Goodbyes

Well, we have had to say a lot of goodbyes, to a lot of special people. We are a very lucky family to have had all these friends in our lives, they have all made an impact in a big way. There are so many more we will miss, but I do have some pictures of a few. Of course, in this most important time of our lives, our camera decided to quit working, so all these pics are taken with my phone, not the greatest, but still pretty good.
It all started with Will's preschool:
This is Will and his teacher/owner of preschool, Jackie. This woman was a god-send to Will. I couldn't have imagined a better person to have his first experience with preschool, she's got an enormous heart.

This is Will and his teacher, Miss Maria. I can only hope and pray that he will love all his school teachers as much as he loves Maria. He had such a connection to her, I was so worried about severing their relationship, it healed my wound just a little bit when I found out she wouldn't be teaching at the school next year, b/c she was moving too, so her and Will bonded even more while talking about their moves together.

Lastly, this is his 3rd teacher, Miss Lee. He is one lucky boy to have THREE wonderful teachers. He had so much fun with Lee and was always so sweet and kind to her.

Mira...oh Mira. I'm not sure how to spell her name, but this is "Mirror-a." She's a tad older than Will so she's in the other class at Will's preschool, but they were always together in the summer and on the playground. Mira was the very first friend Will made at preschool. He was very nervous to start and she took him under her wing and hugged him when he cried. B/c they were in different classes I didn't hear much about her through the year...but just like the first day of school, there she was on Will's last day of school. They were laying together on the floor reading a book...she will always have a special place in Will's heart.

Next comes our precious playgroup: Thank goodness for playgroup. I'm so happy Katie asked us to start coming for the weekly play dates. Will absolutely adores all these girls and boys and I am so thankful for having a group of woman to talk to each week about all the woes of motherhood. The group began with our eldest and we all added our youngest within a couple months and some a couple weeks of each other. I can only dream that I will find a group as fabulous as this in our California neighborhood.

Sara and Ellie

Syd, Jack and Cole (twins)

Will with Jayden (they HAD to take the picture while they were drinking at the exact same time) Will always had a special connection to Jayden...to illustrate: On this day, a girl asked Jayden to play and Jayden said, "I'm playing with Will. You can play with us." and the girl said, "I don't like boys." And Jayden said, "Well, here, play with this girl then (pointing to a random girl on the playground), I'm going to play with my friend Will." I was SOOOO proud of her. :-)

Another picture of Sara and Ellie but with Will in the middle this time...right where he belongs :-)These girls loved Will and Will loved them.

Stephanie with Lauren (Sara is big sister).

Katie with Andy (Ellie is big sister).

Sheryl with Cooper (Jayden is big sister)

And last but never least, our precious friends, Matt, Amy, Luke and Drew Flinn...Like I said in my previous post, I hadn't really gotten emotional about our goodbyes, but when I hugged Amy goodbye, I said, "short and sweet, right, short and sweet." B/c I knew if I said anything else, the flood gates would open. Amy also PROMISED (I know you're reading this Amy) they would visit. I said, "yeah everyone says that." And she said, "no I really we will. We actually visit!" I will hold her to that.

Molly pat, pat, patting her man, Luke.

Drew and Will hangin' together in the toybox.

Humoring mommy with a Will and Drew last picture...last picture in Washington....for now. B/c we will visit...right, Amy!? :-)

The Movers Were Here...

...and now they're gone. The packers were here Wednesday, the gi-normous truck, drivers and loaders were here Thursday. And we officially said goodbye...it was so sad. I hadn't gotten emotional about all the goodbyes we've had to do, but as the truck filled up and our house was nearly empty, it hit me and I finally cried...a lot. I kept picturing Will riding circles around our patio, and throwing Ladys toys up and down our long hallway. And driving his cars and trucks up and down the wood floors. And being 9 months pregnant w/ Will and crawling around on the floor of his room painting blue, yellow, and brown stripes on his wall. Every Christmas party we ever had was in that house. We have a lot of memories, and that's what's fabulous, we can take THOSE with us...where ever we go. But we will miss our first house, our first family house.

I Can't Believe I Have a 6 Year Old....

Well if any of you know me at all, you know that Lady is treated like my first born child. I love my sweet doggy to death and can't imagine life without her. We celebrated her 6th birthday at the end of July!!! We sang and ate cake and ice cream (well....she did, wait till you see the pictures :-)). I can still remember the day we brought Lady home. Jeremy had promised me a cocker spaniel for sooooo long. And I finally said enough is enough and started searching for my cocker spaniel puppy. And man...did I search!! I called breeder after breeder, took notes, wrote down info, left messages. It was rediculous...finally I said to Jeremy...hey! you said YOU would buy me a puppy cocker spaniel...so how come I'M the one doing all the work. That was a Sunday...so he said, Fine, opened the Sunday morning paper to the classifides (I tried this with NO success), read the section on puppies for sale, made ONE, yes ONE phone call, and we were on our way THAT AFTERNOON to Sacramento to get our first puppy. We had nothing, no food, no dish, no collar, nothing, and no KNOWLEDGE on how to train a puppy. We got to the house and Lady was strange!! She ran from us, hid behind the shed and slunk away when we walked towards her. I told Jeremy her behavior made me think there was something wrong with her, so I was too nervous to take her home. We started walking away, and she jumped up on the tiny little fence, started wimpering and gave me the biggest, wettest kiss on my hand. That settled it, she was coming home with us. We tried to put her in the car....and she bit me. Yes, my precious Lady puppy bit me within minutes of owning her. It takes about an hour and a half to drive from Sacramento to San Francisco, Lady's first ride in a car was in the back of our Mercedes SUV and she had her nose jammed between the side of the car and the driver's seat. She was scared to death. We made it to Wal-Mart for supplies and finally home...If you are familiar with the Lady and the Tramp story...Jim Dear tries to put Lady to sleep in the kitchen in her own bed, but she ends up at the foot of the bed every night...our Lady was the same, she jumped over the gate out of the laundry and slept at the foot of our bed every night after that.

We love you sooooooooooooooo much, Lady Girl, you are the best doggy out there!!
Happy 6th Birthday!!

Success!!! (With pictures this time!)

We are finally home from a long day of traveling (NEVER take a connecting flight from San Diego to Seattle, it takes all day even though we are so close, rediculous) and we had yet another very successful trip to SD. Molly was a rockstar yet again...she wasn't quite as patient in the car, but she didn't have to be in it as much either...the first morning there, she slept till 8:30am and then took a 3 hour nap from 11am to 2pm....it was AWESOME! :-) Will stayed home again but this time with Nana (Jeremy's mom) and he had a blast. He loves his Nana to death and we don't get to see her very much so it was a very special weekend for them. Anyway, we saw 9 houses overall, 3 we really liked, the yards were okay, the neighborhood was good, but we didn't like the location at all. Then we saw 2 more that we liked just as much AND the location was better, so we were really happy we wouldn't have to "settle" for a good house/neighborhood in our last choice location. So we signed a lease for a house!!! It's a 4 bedroom house with kitchen, dining and front rooms, plus a bit of a yard, big for down there but small compared to what we are used to. But we've pretty much realized we hit jackpot with our yard and will never find another house with this kind of yard again. I'm really happy we were able to find 4 bedrooms too b/c one of them will be Jeremy's office. We weren't sure what we were going to do if we only had 3 bedrooms, so that worked out. We decided to rent for awhile b/c we realized we would have to find a place to live very quickly and wouldn't be able to close in time if we bought, and we are not that familiar with the city and neighborhoods, so we want to get to know it better. So we will be moving all our things down to Carlsbad, CA at the end of August! (oh and everything was such a whirlwind and happened so fast, we completely forgot to take pictures of the house!!! grrr... :-) but we are going to ask the landlord, a super nice guy, to email us some pics.)

Here's the front of the house...
As you walk in the front door, this is the front room...the shutters open to the living room that is open to the kitchen.Here's the dining room, staircase and the balcony, all the bedrooms are upstairs.And here's the backyard, aren't the roses gorgeous...thankfully the house comes with a gardener, cause I'd kill those roses within a day! :-)And of course, the beach...we'll live 10 minutes from this. :-)