A little sand in your diaper

Last week, for our summer vacation we took the kids to the Outer Banks for a week. Seven days in one beach house with five adults and four kids four and under is a little bit of insanity, but we survived and had a good time while we were at it.

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Easter celebrations

So thankful for the cross and the empty tomb! Such good news is reason to celebrate each year at Easter. This year we made a trip to Raleigh to visit family and spend some special time together.

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Extended birthday celebrations

Wednesday was my birthday, one of my favorite days of the year. That birthday feeling and how I celebrate has changed a bit over the years, but I still always look forward to the special day. This year, obviously, is my first one to celebrate with Hudson. He didn’t sing to me or get me a card or anything, but he, Bart, and I had some fun adventures that made it a lovely, extended birthday celebration.

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33 weeks: a last hurrah?

This weekend, Bart, Murphy, and I hopped in the car and drove down to Raleigh for a bit of a “last hurrah” car trip before the baby gets here. We don’t envision making any grand trips from here on out, as one just never knows. But we did want to take the opportunity to see some friends and family while traveling is slightly less complicated.

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Thanksgiving with family

Bart and I spent Thanksgiving down in Raleigh (where else?) with family last week. Since his sister is due with her second in January, she won’t be able to travel over Christmas, so we decided to all meet there for Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday festivities.

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Air and Space Museum: Udvar-Hazy Center

Last week, I had Tuesday off for Veterans Day. I’m a little late to the game to say thank you to all those who have served in various ways for our country, but they deserve recognition all year and not just one day, so thank you all for your service and sacrifice!

Veteran’s day is not one of those holidays that Bart gets off from his work; however, after working really hard during October on a project, he decided to take one day off to relax a bit and do something fun while I was off as well. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to check another local Washington, DC attraction off our list. We tossed around a number of good ideas and finally landed on the Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport in Virginia.

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Reflecting on two years

On the morning of November 10, 2012, Bart and I saw the sun rise one last time from our driveway in Erie, Colorado as we got in our cars and began the three day, 1700 mile trek to our new home in Washington, D.C. Two years used to seem like an eternity, but I still feel “new” to my job, our church, and the area in general even 24 months after our relocation. Nevertheless, a lot has happened for Bart and me since we began this new chapter in 2012.

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A gorgeous weekend in North Carolina

This weekend, we made a long overdue trip back to Raleigh, NC to visit with friends and family. We were last there at Easter, and we had planned to make a trip sooner, but summer and life got in the way until October. However, it was an absolutely gorgeous weekend, and we crammed a whole lot of fun and catching-up into three days.

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Making up for lost time

It was astounding how many visitors we had when we first moved to Washington, but I was even more astounded by how few we had after we bought our house last year. We now have a lovely guest suite with a private bath downstairs and have had practically no guests all year to enjoy it! Even when we hosted Bart’s sister and our niece last spring, we stayed in the guest room while they could take a couple of rooms upstairs. However, in October we have been making up for lost time in the guest department. From weekend visits from friends and family to having someone dog-sit while we were out of town, we’ve hosted quite a number of folks in rapid succession at Hotel Taylor the last few weeks.

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One year: looking back

Believe it or not, this weekend marks one full year that we’ve been in our new house. I guess that after a year, you can’t really call a 52-year-old house new, but it still feels like yesterday since we had boxes piled high everywhere. We’ve been pretty busy this year, ripping things out, putting new things in, and making our own personal mark on our space. We’ve also accomplished a lot out of the house, from regional travel to making friends, from getting involved at church to traveling out of the country a few times. Let’s take a look back at what all our first year as homeowners in the DC area has brought us.

Home sweet home

 

• Learned to wake up at oh-dark-thirty to get to work at 6:00 am.
• Renovated/updated a bedroom and a pantry closet.
• Traveled to Raleigh to visit family and friends.
• Went to a few baseball games.
• Made trips home for Christmas and during the summer.
• Almost finished logging two huge oak trees we had cut down.
• Bought a new car (and put 8,000 miles on it in just over three months…seriously???).
• Organized the garage.
• Went into DC to see the zoo, cherry blossoms, and the National Portrait Gallery.
• Took a driving tour of Gettysburg.
• Perfected my waffle recipe.
• Survived a few polar vortices, including one with a broken boiler.
• Pulled through horrible allergies and a bout of stomach bug, bleh.
• Made two international trips (three for Jennifer).
• Made peace with high humidity (just kidding, I still hate it).
• Watched our once paralyzed dog chase squirrels across the yard again.
• Uprooted gigantic azaleas with a pickup truck.
• Successfully grew basil–though it sadly died when the weather turned just a little cool–and an avocado.
• Decked out our front porch.
• Toured New England during the fall, including a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
• Crushed some candies and started doing fun, creative stuff again.
• Observed birds, squirrels, deer, chipmunks, foxes, raccoons, snakes, and golden-doodles in our yard.
• Swept every known kind of outdoor debris off the deck all year long.
• Hosted fewer visitors than we did while we rented our first year here (though we’re making up for it in October).
• Gotten involved and met more people at our new church.
• Generally felt like we finally belong here.

Not that Washington, DC is “Home” yet, but it’s our home for now. We’ve learned to appreciate the opportunities here in DC and how to deal with the crummy parts, like traffic and overcrowding. Being settled in our own house and finally having friends and being involved in a church has helped us reorient and figure out what our new chapter of life looks like. It’s ever changing still, but that keeps life interesting, right? It will be interesting to reflect on the coming year next October to see what year two in our house and year three of Washington, DC, look like.

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