Washing Dishes

Kaci loves to play in the water. She gets jealous when I do the dishes, so instead of fighting with her when I have to do the dishes, I decided to let her help. I wash and she rinses. Believe it or not, she actually is helping. I get em done faster when she helps, go figure!

Unpacking

Kaci loved unpacking! This is her putting her dresser drawers together. We painted it white so we had taken off all the handles. I was putting them back on when Kaci climbed into the drawer and started helping. She is such a good helper.

FOG

Virginia has some crazy fog. Almost every morning the fog is so thick you can hardly see the trees on the side of the road.
This picture is of my first experience with the fog as we drove to Harrisonburg to move in. Those tail lights are the UHAUL Brad is driving.

This picture isn't blurry, it's foggy. You can hardly see the zillion trees lining the road. Crazy stuff... crazy!

Free Bed

Triumphant at last!

You have no idea what it took to get this bed from off the side of the road to Bruce's garage. We saw a posting for a free queen bed on craigslist but we weren't positive it would be there when we got there, so we packed our car for an adventure to DC. But, lucky us, when we got there the bed was still on the curb with the FREE sign. So, we pulled over, put the bed on top of the car, then the boxspring and tried to squeeze our surf straps around them. They weren't long enough, so we reversed it and tried it again, still not happening, then we decided to take just the mattress. Strapped that on, but it wasn't super tight and we had a 20 minute drive home. So we stoppped at Wal Mart, bought some rope, drove back to the curb and started the whole process over again with the rope. We laughed ourselves sick when we realized how funny the whole thing would have looked from a 3rd person point of view. Especially when we laid on the mattress to see if it was comfortable as it sat on the side of the road. Pretty funny. All in all we felt like conquerers when we got it home.

Lincoln Monument

On one of our mad dashes to get free furniture, we got lost in DC again (it's pretty much how we got around town there). This time we ended up by the Lincoln Monument. This place is HUGE. I had no idea how huge it was. This is a picture of Brad hugging one of the many pillars, like I said, HUGE! I liked seeing it at night, kinda cool don't ya think!

Apartment Hunting

Kaci, what do you think about all this apartment hunting business?

She was so relieved when we finally found a place!

Future Old Lady Driver Alert

We did a lot of driving when we got to Virginia. Eventually neither of us, meaning Brad or me, would want to drive. That's when Kaci offered to take over. She is too funny.
I think she totally looks like an old lady behind the wheel.

(P.S. Click older posts to see our apartment if you haven't seen those posts yet.)

apartment

Our 610 sq. ft. Efficiency Apartment

We are unpacked, organizing, and livin' life in our little apartment. It's the absolute perfect size for us. We are on the ground floor and in the corner right next to the playground. It's simply wonderful. When we looked into these apartments they first showed us a large two bedroom, I took one look and knew we would never ever fill up that whole apartment with our meager possessions. Then they hesitantly showed us this little wonder and we fell in love. They thought we were crazy, but we saw it as a 200 sq ft upgrade for basically the same price. And now we are here and we have more room than we know what to do with. We're trying to think of ways to fill it up. I took a dumb video that I am uploading to youtube right now. It'll post in just a bit, I figured it would be better than pictures, but I'm not so sure about that now. Enjoy!!

DC adventure day

DC is crazy. You really have to know what you want to do and how you are going to do it. Uncle Bruce drove us around it to give us an overview. I got really excited about the FREE zoo, so we planned a trip to DC to see it. But, even with directions from mapqust, we got lost, again and again. We ended up at the Air and Space Museum which is no where near the zoo. We ended up there because I was going nuts in driving around and when I saw a meter to park at, I pulled in and got out. Luckily we were close to the Smithsonian district. While walking back to our car from the Air and Space Museum, we popped our heads into the African-Amerian Art Museum and ran into a friend from Hawaii, Dustin. He was in DC doing an internship. He offered to take us on a tour of the capitol. If you don't know, you have to write your senator and make arrangements in advance to tour the capitol, so we were super excited to bypass that whole process. So we went on a super interesting tour with a an old friend. Is that crazy or what?! Our favorite part was the rotunda, or the bg round part you can see forever away. It is really pretty in there. The whole building is phenomenal, tons of history.



After the capitol it was too late to drive because of traffic, so we tried to find the zoo again... and succeeded!! That's right, we finally found it! This zoo is crazy. They let you go "behind the scenes" to where they feed and bathe the animals, so you never miss animals. They also have Pandas and a way cool exhibit of other Asian plants and animals. The coolest part about this zoo is the the "O line". There is huge line of poles with ropes that stretch across the zoo. They go from one ape house to another. So, the apes can swing their way across the park, overhead. They were all asleep when we were there, but I want to go back in the morning so I can see em do it. Is that cool or what!!

Brad's favorite part was the cheetah. He got so excited when he saw how close it was to us. He said he wished he had a hotdog to entice it with. He's crazy. He also decided that if he had a hotdog, the cheetah would run and jump over the baracade to get it... hmm, I'm not sure Brad should be allowed to go to the zoo anymore.

Kaci can WALK!

This is HUGE! She tried taking steps in Utah, but at Uncle Bruce's house she took off. She could walk across the entire room with no help. That was at the beginning of August. Now at the end of August she can walk our entire apartment, which isn't much bigger than Bruce's front room, but she can navigate in and out of rooms, turn around, reverse. She's practically PRO! It is lots of fun to watch her and to chase her. She tries to run, and we all think it is hilarious. She always falls over laughing. It's so funny to look up and see Kaci cruise into the living room or wander into the bathroom. She still schooches to get to a piece of furniture to stand up, but she's working on standing up by herself so she won't have to do that anymore too. It's amazing how fast she is learning and growing.


We took this picture at a mini golf place by Bruce's house. Kaci thought it was fun to hold the club and the ball, she looks so cute.

walker

Kaci's Texas Shirt

Our favorite neighbors sent Kaci a super cute Texas shirt. Believe it or not, this picture was not posed. Kaci opened the package, grabbed the shirt, and held it up to her. I don't know why or how she learned to do it, but I think it is so cute. I'm glad I got it on camera. She looks super cute in it. I also got a Texas shirt. It's cute too. Thanks again Akinakas, we miss you SOOO much.

I feel so DISCONNECTED!

Blogging is so much fun, and I really miss it! I had no idea that so many people checked my blog, I was so happy to find out that lots of the extended-extended family checks it as well as old friends, our church friends everywhere, and the faithful bloggers. I had no idea. I feel I have had the poopiest blog ever lately, and I feel bad for anyone that has been checking it. I feel so out of it. But, I will be back in action in justa few short days because.... drum roll please!

WE HAVE A MOVE IN DATE!!!

This Saturday, after almost 4 months of being homeless, we will have our OWN place again. I am so thrilled I can hardly sleep at night (ok, actually I can't sleep because I stay up all night watching the Olympics... I'm exhausted from it, and all I do is sit on the couch and eat brownies, I don't know how those Olympians do it. P.S. You rock April Steiner-Bennett!) I am so excited to move in and unpack so I can upload a ton of great stories and pictures onto our blog.

Sorry for the sluggish month, we have been doing lots of fun stuff. I don't want to spoil the upcoming posts, but I have to say that craigslist in DC is AMAZING! We have spent $65 total and we have a queen size posturpedic bed, two dressers, a full size bed for Kaci, two book shelves, a rolling cabinet, a table and 4 dinky chairs, a toy organizer, two microwaves, a small end table, an oversized comfy white chair, three lamps, AND a huge amazing sectional that rivals Suzy (I know it's hard to believe, all I need to say is that we named her Marge)!!

I also need to say THANKS to everyone that has housed us these past 4 months. Namely, The Howards, The Teo's, The Hebners, The Listers, Kim McGowan, Momma and Papa Call, and Uncle Bruce and Aunt Diana! Thanks a ZILLION!

Alrighty, please don't give up on my blog... I promise in just a few short days it will be rockin again!

climber

Mayley showed Kaci how to climb up the air mattress and then slide down. They had a lot of fun until Kaci slid off onto the ground and Mayley slid on top of her. Kaci was up for round two today, so we caught her on film. I think she's ready for the slides at the park!!

Felicidades a Mi

Thanks for the numerous calls and emails on my birthday! You all are just great! We went apartment hunting all day on my birthday, so we were all business. I actually enjoyed listening to all the voicemails that night. I think that wishing or receiving a happy birthday is one of the most awkward exchanges. The person wishing really can only do one of two things, be sincere or silly and the reciever can really only say one thing in response "thanks". However the 3 second exchange is never only 3 seconds. It always drags on until a really awkward silence is reached and then small talk begins. Does anyone agree? I'm always relieved to just leave a message or send a card on someone's birthday to avoid the awkwardness. Brad thinks I'm silly, but I know all of you are agreeing with me whether you'll admit it or not. Anyway, the point of the story is that I loved all my voicemails and emails because I avoided all the awkward small talk that occupanies a happy birthday wish and I still felt totally loved and super special! THANKS

The grandioso news is that we FINALLY found something! We are so excited! The landlord has to be one of the coolest guys in the world! He looked at us, scanned our application, asked Brad if he had good credit, and then sealed the deal. No hassle, even with no job!! The place is about 600 sq feet, so it isn't HUGE, but it's 200 sq feet bigger than our place in Hawaii AND it has doors!! Kaci gets her own room (halelujah!) and it's about the same price. We hope to move in next weekend. Meanwhile we're living it up at Uncle Bruce's house outside of DC. I am loving watching the olympics on his big screen tv. Pole-vault is coming up this weekend, and Brad has already agreed to occupy the little one! Wahoo!

Sorry no pictures or videos still, we've got some good ones, but we don't have the cords to our camera unpacked yet. So sorry. You'll get a pluthera of pictures and videos the second we are unpacked!!

WE MADE IT!!

WE are all here in VA safe and sound. We got here Friday the 1st. We have been crazy tired, but we've had fun.

For the update, we are still homeless and jobless... but we are still happy as can be!

We've been to DC to see the sites and loved it (once we found a parking space and got over the fact that we got lost forever!). I'll post pictures of our adventures soon. I'm still adjusting to the time change so I'm being sluggish.