We had a lovely break from normal life (not that life has been normal lately, anyway, what with the new house, the new baby, and lots of company) while the boys played and played in Montana with Grammy and Grumpy. Jeremy and I enjoyed lots of sleeping in (without our early riser, Aric, waking us up at 6 or 6:30 at the latest) and getting to spend lots of quiet time with Ascha. However, we missed our big boys terribly and we were so thankful to get back to them.
On Wednesday, we decided to head toward MT around the middle of the day. We took Hwy. 14 from Vancouver all the way across southern Washington. Although it lengthens the trip by about an hour, it's a beautiful drive and we really enjoyed ourselves. We stopped for the evening in Couer d'Alene, ID and stayed with our great friends there. It was wonderful to spend a bit of time with them and their kids! In the morning, we pressed on to Missoula, where we met up with our boys, plus Grammy and Great-Aunt Lynn, for lunch. We were all excited to see each other again!
On Friday, Jeremy got to go up to the lake for his tri-annual ski. :-) Poor guy - once every three years is just not quite enough! He had a nasty wreck and is still feeling the after-effects of bruised ribs. That evening, we all went to the beautiful property where Amos and Meredith were going to get married. We had a rehearsal and then we all drove to a steakhouse in the beautiful Skalkaho area and enjoyed the rehearsal dinner.
Saturday was a whirlwind of a day. My mom and her friends were in charge of making 530 shish kebabs, which was quite a task! I attended the picnic portion of my 10-year high school reunion. It was good to see old friends and reconnect with people I only "visit" with online. Then it was back to my parents' house to get ready for the wedding. After the whirlwind of getting everyone ready, we headed over to the wedding where the boys got to be the "ring bears." They did a stellar job, and were incredibly handsome to boot. :-)
Sunday morning came all too soon and we had to head back to Washington. We got to stop in Idaho for a few minutes so the kids could see their friends while I nursed the baby. Then we trekked onward, stopping in Plymouth, WA (not much there) and again at Crow's Butte, WA (pretty pond and lots of water foul to see).
After 13 hours, we finally made it home to figure out what our new "normal" is going to be as a family of five in our new home. We're still working on figuring that out, but it's a relief to not have any huge events "pending" for a while. The boys are glad to be home and Ascha's still trying to recover from her days of sleeping and sleeping. Her daytime schedule has yet to recover (and she is changing all the time, anyway, as she becomes more alert for longer stretches), but her nighttime routine seems to be a fairly consistent 5 or 6 hour stretch, which we are SO thankful for!!!
Ascha is now one month old! I didn't ever get any good 3-week pictures, but I captured some acceptable one month pictures this morning. For some reason, I find it hard to capture my kids' personalities at this age and I'm usually unhappy with the pictures because I don't invest the time in making them look "just right." Oh, well - perfectionism has to give way to reality, so here's a picture of Ascha smiling at her Daddy this morning. She's started working really hard at smiling "for real" and it's so fun to watch. She opens her mouth really wide, then curls the corners of her mouth up into a smile, complete with dimples. Then she closes her mouth and the corners stay turned upward for a little while (this is the "phase" captured in the picture). She is already growing up too fast! The boys are both wrapped around her little finger (and, ok, I'll admit it, so are her parents! :-)
2 comments:
WOW! You guys have been busy! Everyone is growing up so fast! How far are you now from Vancouver? We're coming up in August and would love to see you. :)
Taylor and Aric look so handsome =). Sounds like you had a great trip.
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