Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas to all!

We hope everyone out there reading this has had a wonderful Christmas, full of love and happiness. It was a very merry Christmas for us this year. Phil's parents were able to stay until the afternoon on Christmas day. We were actually able to spend Christmas with family this year! It was so fun to have them here.

We went to mass yesterday evening, then came home and let the girls open one present each. Then the kiddos went to bed and we adults enjoyed a quiet Christmas Eve dinner (complete with homemade eggnog - yummy!) before going to bed. Santa ate up the cookies and milk that Claire left out for him and they must have tasted OK because he left a bunch of presents here. Claire and Maddie spent the whole day playing with their new toys. After Phil's parents left we felt a little lonely, but it helped to finish up the day with a webcam with Nikki and then with my family over at Bill's house. We sure wish we could see everyone in person more often. We miss you!

Grandparents Phase II

Phil's parents left for home today. We kept them busy too, playing with the girls and helping with odd jobs around the house. I know Claire had a great time baking and playing with her Grammy. Poor Sandi really put in a lot of play hours as "Grammy-Mommy", playing house with Claire and LeRoy got tasked with all kinds of Mr. Fix-it jobs around the house.

It's been so nice to visit with family over the past few weeks. The girls absolutely adore their grandparents and have so much fun playing with them. Already our house feels a little less "homey" without the presence of family.

Our new house

OK, for those who are curious here's what our new digs look like. I'm hoping the brick will be nice and strong against any tornadoes that come our way.

Click the photo for a few interior photos

Say "Cheese!"

The other day Maddie was really talking a lot. It was nothing that we could decipher but we got out the camera to take some videos of her babbling. Unfortunately, when she saw the camera all we could get her to say was, "Cheese!" She has really perfected her cheesy camera smile.

Altus Christmas lights

We took advantage of the warm weather and packed the girls in the car to see the Christmas in the Park display in Altus. Maddie oohed and aahed at the lights and contentedly saw the sights from the stroller. Claire, on the other hand, thought she was in heaven and set out to enjoy it all on foot, dancing around and picking which path to take whenever we came to an intersection. I'm pretty sure that this is the stuff 3 year-olds dream about.

Click the photo to see Claire pick which path to take

Grandparents Phase I

Boy did we keep my poor parents busy the entire time they were here. They were real good sports about staying in the hotel, then on a blow-up mattress (that we dragged them an hour each way to buy) in our new house, painting bunches of walls (including a pretty castle mural courtesy of my mom) and watching/entertaining the kids for countless hours while we unpacked. My mom came loaded with fun activities for the girls, which was good because they were pretty tired of the things I had come up with! My folks never complained about the take-out food and unending work. We were so thankful for all of their help; I really don't know what we would have done here if they hadn't come to help. We'd probably still be buried under boxes. We did find time to let the girls open their presents from them before they left.

Click for more pics!

We were really sad to see them go, but took solace in the fact that Phil's parents were coming the day after mine left. Woohoo! More helpers! :)

We're back!

It's been over a week now and we finally got television, internet, and phone service this morning thanks to Cable One. Moving is such fun!

Breakfast with Santa

Phil's new squadron hosted a breakfast with Santa this morning for the kiddos. The kids were supposed to go in their PJs and we figured you can't go wrong with a Santa/pancake combo so off we went. They had a great turnout and we got to meet a lot of the people in the squadron. Claire had a nice time and told Santa that she'd like a teddy bear for Christmas. Maddie was much less enthusiastic about Santa (read: screamed until we took her off of his lap). The bouncy castle was a big hit too and hopefully burned off some of the energy Claire seems to have in abundance lately.
The squadron here seems like a big family - I think we're going to really like it here.

We're here!

The girls and I managed to escape the crazy snow, rain, floods and power outages that Washington threw at us in our last weekend there and we have settled quite nicely into our room in Oklahoma. The sun peeked out long enough for me to take a few shots of the girls in front of our house as we pulled out of town.

Our move would have been much more difficult had it not been for the help of many of our friends. They watched the girls, fed us, let us stay in their house, loaned us their van, took us to the airport and were there to help us with everything. It's going to be hard to make good friends like that again.

Anyway, once we were on our way our flights went well, though I can't say that I'd like to fly all day by myself with both children again anytime soon. Thankfully, there were really nice people on both of our flights to help me get all of our necessities (diaper bags, DVD player, car seat, Happy Meals, blankie, baby carrier, two girls, etc) onto and off of the planes.

Claire and Maddie have been real good through all of this adventure. Claire has asked to go "home" several times and they're definitely ready to get their toys back. Otherwise, though, they're hanging in there.

In our quest to find ourselves a home we looked at houses on-base today. Hopefully we'll know our address for sure tomorrow. In the meantime, please keep your fingers crossed that our household goods found their way past the floods and out of Washington!

Road Trip, Day 3

Albuquerque, NM to Altus, OK


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Well, we made it. Roughly 2,222 miles from there to here.

Bailey is now enjoying a suite at the local dog kennel, and I'm trying to prep our temporary living quarters for the arrival of the girls tomorrow.

More to come as we figure out our permanent housing situation.

Road Trip, Day 2

Fresno, CA to Albuquerque, NM


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1773 miles behind, 442 miles to go (a little over 900 miles today...).

The weather cooperated again and we had a nice tour of California agricultural facilities along CA-99 and then really enjoyed going through the Sierra foothills east of Bakersfield. The Mojave Desert was scrubby and sunny, and I can see the home stretch now.

Katie and the girls are dealing with four inches of snow, followed by rain and wind, plus collapsing outdoor furniture and power outages--in addition to hurricane force winds blowing along the Pacific Northwest coast. Nice way to finish their time there...

On the Road Again

Day 1 - Tumwater, WA to Fresno, CA


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861 miles behind, 1357 miles to go.

The weather was nice and the driving easy for Bailey and me. Hopefully the next two days will be as good.