Monday, December 14, 2009
I stumbled across an Etsy site and found an absolutely adorable stocking stuffer for my kiddos. I thought any of you that actually still read my sporadic blog and just happen to be looking for a cute stocking stuffer for Christmas (or a cute gift for any time of the year), I've found the perfect and reasonably priced gift! Check it out! Click here.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Okay. I admit it. I am a quote junkie. I have been collecting quotes and short stories since I was about 12 years old. Up until this time, I have kept all of my quotes organized into a notebook, but now with the prevalence of the beautiful digital age, I've decided to slowly work all of the quotes I've collected to an online blog. This has been up online for a little while, but it's needed a lot of tweaking. It still does, but at least now it's somewhat decent. So. if you're ever in need of a quick quote of short story for a talk or just a little pick me up for the day, well then, feel free to stop by my new blog: Common Hour Quotes!
Monday, September 14, 2009Kami's first day of Ballet was last week and she LOVED it! Here are some pictures of Kami after dance class back at home. I wanted to take some pictures of her at the studio with her teacher, but it was pouring rain, and we were running late due to the President doing his 9/11 speech at the Pentagon (hmmm. Never thought I'd use that excuse. 'The President made me late'. LOL!) that backed up traffic. Anyway. Enjoy what I captured! :^) Kami loves her class and her teacher, Miss Sarah (who is the owner of the dance studio she goes to) is absolutly adorable!
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
So tonight Drew and I had a meeting with the Bishop. Drew was certain the meeting was merely a 'welcome to the ward' type meeting. I was positive it wasn't. Turns out, I was right! I nearly jumped out of my seat saying "I'll take it! I'll take it! I'll take it!" when the Bishop extended the calling as a Primary Teacher to me. This is one calling that I've never officially had (I was originally called to teach Primary in Illinois, but before I was set apart they called me into the Primary Presidency...interesting...same thing happened to me in Korea with YW's) and I've always wanted! Anyway. I'm excited! :^)
(Drew on the other hand...the Bishop turned to him and said, "You will be getting a phone call soon and we'll go through the proper channels to extend your call." Muahahaha!)
Tuesday, September 08, 2009Drew had a long weekend for the holiday, so we decided to take the kids and drive down to southern VA and see some historical sites. Day 1 started out great (as far as great can go with a 3 year old and a 1 year old!). Monticello was absolutly beautiful and very...unique...AND we were excited to see that they had a lot of things for the kids to do!
Okay, so I suppose these pictures can't really be called 'before and after' because they have absolutely nothing in the room and nothing on the walls. This was before our shipments arrived. I was determined not to spend 3 years in a house with white walls. So, while we had an empty house, I took advantage of the time while we were waiting on our things to come to paint as much as I could in the house. Here are the kids' rooms. I have always wanted to try the taping technique since I discovered DIY-TV. It was a lot of work (especially AJ's room!), but it turned out GREAT! His room is probably one of my favorites!
Saturday, August 22, 2009Seoul to Seattle.
Seattle to Denver.
Denver to Washington DC.
Why stop there? Let's head south now!
Washington DC to Tampa.
Okay. I might be a little bit crazy to attempt more plane rides sans Drew. But, how could I resist when I found out that 'Dora Live' was going to be in Tampa and I have a sister, who I LOVE visiting who lives in Tampa!?! The temptation was strong and I caved.
We all had a FANTASTIC time at the Dora show...especially Kami. I love, love, love this age where she can sit still and be totally engrossed in something that interests her. She was, however, quite upset that when she realized the show was over and we were leaving, that she never got the chance to go up on the stage and play Swiper. Her emotional state was, of course, taken in stride since she was well overdue for a nap by the time the show was over!
We also made it to the beach! It took all morning to get out the door and we spent all of about 30 minutes enjoying the sun and the cool water before the winds picked up, sand started blowing everywhere and the afternoon rain/thunderstorm came rolling through. This, by the way, was AJ's first beach trip! And yes. He did try and eat the sand. The kid won't eat much of anything else I give him. But sand? Sure! Why not?
...oh yes. And hot day=ice cream! Always!
AND.....AJ has started to walk! Though crawling is still his choice mode of transportation, he's really mastering this walking thing! I credit my niece Emily and her friend, Linda who must've spent hours sitting across the room from eachother, trying to get AJ to walk to them. This middle picture is of AJ when he's walking, and then falls down. He puts his hands on the side of his head as we all say, "Oh noooo!"
BTW - Tampa to Washington DC. Yes. All vacations must come to and end and we took one last airplane ride back home. I think we'll stay put for at least the next few months!
Okay! Wow! Finally a blog update! Yeesh. I'm sitting among boxes, packing paper and a house that's almost unpacked. However, a few weeks ago...
...we had the pleasure of hosting my sister, my niece and my brother in our home for a couple of days. We welcomed them to nice empty rooms and lovely air mattresses! But not to worry. We didn't stick around the house all day long! This particular day we ventured out to the Tidal Basin by the Jefferson Memorial to feed the ducks and do some paddle boating. It was an overcast day with a chance of rain and we practically had to force the paddle boat rental place to take our money and let us out (they gave us a stern warning that it's wet, it may rain, and they don't give refunds. Whatever. I wasn't about to leave the place after promising my 3 year old a boat ride!). So, those who weren't afraid of a little sprinkling geared up for the ride. Me, Kami, my brother Scott, my niece Emily and her friend Vicki were the only ones on the water for quite some time.
Okay. Funny story. So. Me and my brother are paddling along going all over the basin and the entire time I'm thinking: "Wow. This paddle boating stuff isn't so bad! I could do this all day long! It's easy!" When we took the boat back to the dock and took off our orange life vests, I looked over at Scott and laughed when I thought back to my comment. His face and his shirt were all sweaty. Hmm. Guess paddle boating isn't such a pleasure ride for all of us!
Oh yes. And by the way...the clouds burned off and it turned out to be a BEAUTIFUL day!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009Being homeless is no fun. Okay not really homeless. But, close enough. We've had a call into the housing office for a few days to see if there was a chance we could get into our place a little earlier than 31 July. So today we went over to the housing office on Bolling AFB to sign some paperwork to get into our house and inquire about an answer to our question. Unfortunately they told us the place just wasn't ready and there was no way to get in earlier.
So. On to our next question. Because Drew and I have been discussing plans for our furniture (we know we'll have to scale back on what we've got...we're trying to work out what we want to keep, sell or store), we asked the lady at housing if we would be able to get into the house or one similar to actually see how big (or little) the rooms are. It's peak PCS season, so we know they're super busy, but it never hurts to ask. The lady sent us over to a house that was supposed to be open for a family moving in later that day. So, we packed up the kids and headed over to see the house. Bummer #2. The house was locked. But as we were heading out of the housing subdivision, Drew got a call from the lady at the housing office who asked us to meet her at another address. They had been going through their records and found a house (same layout) who's potential residents had not gotten back with housing in the set time. This house was move-in ready. We were thrilled as we pulled up to the house, walked inside, looked around and realized that we have a really good view of the Potomac River from our Master bedroom and our deck! We can easily view downtown Washington from off to the right and Old Town Alexandria off to the left!
The irony of the whole thing is, just yesterday as we were driving along the Potomac to Mt. Vernon we saw a HUGE house for sale along the river and joked about why our realtor didn't take us to see that house. Surely a mere couple million dollar house could be worked down to our $375,000 cap. Yes? And now, we really can say we have a house on the Potomac! Looks like we'll be moving in sometime next week (provided we can get our stuff delivered!). Wahoo! There's a light at the end of this tunnel! What can I say? We were just in the right place and the right time.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Today we took some time out of our super stressful, super unsuccessful house hunt to enjoy some of the sites of Washington DC and surrounding area. We visited Mt. Vernon and took a boat ride on the Potomic River. Drew mom came out to watch the kids while we spent this weekend searching for a house and today was her last day with us. We wanted her to be able to see something besides a hotel room while she was here! Anyway, it was a beautiful day and I'm positive we'll be back to visit George Washington's home in the near future. So much history in such a small radius! I'm so excited!
As for a place to live...we searched and searched the area this weekend and nothing really grabbed us that was within our price range and a reasonable commute for Drew. So. Fortunatly, while we were in Colorado Drew put our name on the waiting list for base housing on Bolling AFB, and before we left for DC, we got a call that a place was available for us. So, using living on base as a last resort, we came here in search of a home. There are a few reasons why we really didn't want to live on base, a coupel of those being (1) we just came from a place where our lives revolved around a base, (2) the area outside of Bolling AFB is not the safest of places...we would have to send Kami to a private school for Kindergarted when she starts.
So, after a frustrating day of not finding anything, Drew and I went for a walk and talked about what we were going to do. Then something my father-in-law said to us occured to me. In giving us advice on house buying, we was telling us that if we felt pressured to make a purchase and wanted to think about it, to use my faith as an excuse to wait. If it's meant to be, the Lord will make it be. So, I thought about what Jerome said that night and realized - maybe THIS was our answer. Maybe getting base housing so quickly and not finding any other place that meets our needs and standards is Heavenly Fathers way of saying, 'This is where you need to be'.
As soon as we put aside our fears and began to have faith, Drew and I have been at such peace with our decision. I don't know what future the next three years will hold for us here. But, I feel strongly that this is where we are supposed to be.
So. We're here. We've got internet (another bump in our plans that worked to our advantage...TLF messed up our reservation, so we had to move out of TLF yesterday to the Homewood Suites. Constant high-speed internet!) and you'll be hearing more from us here in Washington DC on a more regular basis! I've updated quite a bit of pictures from the summer, so please feel free to scroll down and check out our crazy adventures!
WARNING: if you don't want to see this picture, close your eyes and scroll up (or down). But, this is why we now lovingly refer to Kami as 'Staple Head':
...and here's the story in a nutshell. While BBQing at Drew's brother's house in Castle Rock, CO, Kami and her cousin, Halle we playing around on one of those toddler ride-on toys on the outside deck. The girls were on the toy facing each other, and scooting each other around, laughing and having fun. However, apparently they got too close to the edge and didn't hear (or had the selective hearing as 3 and 4 years olds do) Drew hollering at them to stop. The toy went over the edge of the stairs (it's only about 3 or 4 stairs to the bottom) and took the girls along with it. Kami took the brunt of the damage and broke Halle's fall. However, somewhere along the tumble, Kami got a pretty good gash on her head. Nervous about the amount of blood that was coming from the back of her head, me, Drew and Susan (Drew's mom) rushed Kami to the nearest ER. It was bad enough that instead of stitching her up, they had to use staples (which...knock on wood come out TOMORRROW). Kami's done great with these in her head and hardly notices them...although she is aware they they are there. She'll feel the back of her head every once in a while and talk about her "booboo". She is seriously one brave girl. I think Drew and I were the most shaken up of the three of us. All I wanted to do that night is sit down and cry. For some reason I felt like I had to stay strong. But, the emotions of that night came caving in a few days later while kneeling in prayer giving thanks and asking for strength. Sometimes I think a good cry is just what you need to de-stress.
Eating at the White Fence Farm Resturant in Denver has been a tradition in the Feth family for decades. So, we are dutifully introducing the new generation of Feth's about the tastiness of WFF. I thought it would also be fun for the girls to record their time there. So, I bought each of them disposable cameras and let them take pictures to their hearts content. One minor drawback about this idea in todays world...they didn't understand why they couldn't see the pictures right away!
But the real highlight of the evening was a horse drawn carriage ride with Grandma!
All these Kami posts, I just wanted you all to know that I DO have another child! AJ is doing well (although currently teething and keeps us up at night with low fevers). He also had his time in the water in Colorado. We filled a sand box with warm water and let AJ splash away! He stayed in so long, his little feet were so wrinkled by the time we took him out. He was also doing great walking with a push toy. He's not quite ready to walk on his own yet, but, he got a little taste of how those legs will one day work!
Kami loves, loves, LOVES animals! So, taking her to the Zoo was a no-brainer activity while in Colorado. It was also the perfect thing to do while Drew met up with his former commander from Korea at the Academy for a round of golf.
...and then we were off to Colorado! After 3 weeks (that went by all too quickly!!!) me and the kids drove to the SeaTac Airport to pick up Drew, who was finally coming in from Korea! After going for lunch and taking the car back, we checked back in at the airport to catch our flight to Denver. 4 hours of delays later we were off!
But, if you would ask Kami, it was all worth the trip...the next day (or was it two days later?) Kami got unlimited access to the sprinkler in Grandma's backyard with her cousin, Halle.
One of the last days of our visit to Seattle we took a day trip over to Bainbridge Island. It was a fantastic day for a drive across the Pudget Sound, eat at a little Cafe, spend lots of $$ at Ester's Fabrics and play at the park.
Oh yes. It was also absolutly PERFECT for a Ferry ride! AJ fell alseep in the car, so I wasn't able to go up on the deck with the rest of the crew, but Kami came back to the car and told me all about it. She had a blast!
Kami turned 3 years old in Seattle! 3 YEARS! Yeesh! Where has the time gone??? Since we were visiting my sister and none of Kami's friends seemed to not be able to make the trip from Korea to Seattle, we had a small little breakfast party with our family. It was actually really, really nice. And I was quite proud of the cake, by the way! I'm not sure what recipe I used, but, there are tons of recipes if you google "rainbow cake"
My family, of course!! At least some of them, anyway. It's not easy to get my 3 sisters and 4 brothers nailed down in one spot at one time (I believe the last time was at my sisters wedding...nearly 9 years ago!). But, when you can get half of the family together, well then, that's something to celebrate!
My parents made their way to Seattle while me and the kids were there. It also happened that my brother, Scott was in town for a few days for an IronMan in Idaho. And of course, the resident Seattle-ites...my sister Rachel, her husband Robert and their kiddos Charlotte and Calvin and my brother Aaron and his wife, Chrys.
It was so fun seeing everyone! Hopefully we can get together again....and maybe sooner!
