The latest

"So what have you guys been up to?" Well let me fill you in the latest.
 Adam does his usual 12 hours of studying at school for almost 6 days straight. Then on Sunday he takes the day off and its family time! So we are pretty lazy around here, like hang out, take naps, and take walks or drives to the beach. Solana usually takes a 3 hour nap in the afternoon and that adds a little "peace" of heaven to our day. But when it's not a lazy Sunday afternoon,  and Adam is back to studying, I am working on my business. I am so excited to have my website designed and up and running. Well it's not public yet......but soon! Here are some other things we have been up to.

This is my second daughter dolly, she goes everywhere with us, and Solana takes care of her. Whatever I do for Solana, Solana does for dolly. I give a bottle to Solana, she gives it to dolly.  It's really pretty funny. Yesterday Solana went a grabbed A LOT of toilet paper to wipe off her dolly's nose (Solana has had a cold) and she was so good to make sure her dolly didn't get a runny nose too. So when Solana lays down, so does her sidekick. You get the point. The things I never knew I would do as a parent... :)

Having fun with danger girl. The faster, higher, and more dangerous the task (stairs, slides, running), Solana is the happiest. 

Do you like??? The turquoise dining room was my latest project, until I hung up the pictures! I am really enjoying the little genealogy wall I did. 

Guess who just turned 16 months!! I cannot believe how fast she is growing. She is becoming such a girly girl, one who loves her shoes, jewelry, headbands, and lots of other accessories on her all the time. She loves to play games and read books ALL DAY LONG! She is talking more and more, but we are still trying to translate. But out favorite is when she sings, it's the sweetest most perfect sound in the world—then she squeals and screams in high pitched sound and the sweet moment is over. :)

She keeps us the busiest, but also the happiest. Life is pretty dang good around here. Now all we need is some fall weather, and for my business to take off. Then we can actually make some money, which is always a plus :)

Hurricane "Storm" Irene

You probably all remember all the talk on TV about big ol' Hurricane Irene. Well it was all we talked about for a week before it was due to hit us. So we took the smarter route and loaded up on water, dry food, checked batteries and flashlights, and filled up the car's gas tank. We had never been through a hurricane and had no idea what to expect. 

In the security of our home, unaware of any real danger, it was a pretty nice time, hiding out from the torrential rain.  But as Adam's new saying goes, "A hurricane is all good and fun until someone loses power for a week."  So we were feeling pretty good about it all until we lost power, then the complaining started. Seriously what do you do without power!? We lost power on Saturday night, and it returned Monday night. But in small Williamsburg you really don't have a lot of options. So after sitting around our no-AC-85-degree-household, we decided to go hang out with friends, so that we could enjoy our non AC together. Then we would drive around and charge phones and watch movies on our laptops.  I know we were one of the lucky ones to have no damage to our place and to have not gone a week without power like some of our friends. So it was a great learning experience. And now a good story. So here are some pictures of the "big" hurricane. 

 She LOVES the rain. She could have played out there all day, and it was warm, so it was like a shower. eww!

 Seriously, how does a giant tree split down the middle like that?!

We were just amazed at how beautiful it was the next day. (This is not flooding, there is always a river there, the James river to be exact).

We drove around the next morning to assess the damage and we were pretty surprised by all the fallen trees. But other than that, it was a beautiful day!

Onward and upward!

We made it!!!!

And life has never been better. 

Let's start from the beginning.

The original plan was to have me fly out to Virginia with Solana and meet up with Adam, but a driving partner for Adam fell through.  So we packed up the family, put the carseat in the middle and drove the uhaul pulling our car. And it worked out perfectly! We, like most rational people would be, were practically terrified of pulling a 30 hour road trip with a very energetic, loud, active toddler, but Solana was so much better than we had anticipated. Actually, it was one of the best times we've had as a family. We sang lots of song, listened to lots of music, took lots of videos, and talked a ton.  For Solana, it was a whole new world of sitting in the front seat, comfortably nestled between mommy and daddy, who were constantly, inescapably within arm's reach. Adam was super husband on the trip and drove that big rig the whole way. I kept offering, but he insisted. (I think he was more scared of me driving the uhaul than him being exhausted, which was probably a good thing because it was a 26ft. truck pulling our Volvo on a trailer.)

So we said goodbye to Texas and took off on our adventure! And the closer we got to Virginia the happier we became.  Last year wasn't the easiest, but we had 2 great people that helped us through it all.  

 I think everyone needs a Matt and Heather in their lives. They are your best friends who love you no matter what. You tell them what's in your brain and they don't judge you, they understand you. You have them over for your first time making sushi and they are brave enough to try it. And a 100 more stories like that. You get the point, they are incredible! We were sad to leave them, and we miss them a lot.

Please pay attention to how excited Solana is in all the these pictures. She was so happy to be using her legs again.

"land!"

 Our favorite place we stopped was Asheville North Carolina, do you see how beautiful it is??! We fell in love with it. Years ago, my company sent me out here for a furniture trip, and we visited the incredible Biltmore Estate. I fell in love with North Carolina at that time and have been so excited to finally take Adam. We we arrived too late to actually see the Biltmore Castle, but we parked Big Bertha (yes we named the Uhaul) and walked around.

Okay so we were all a LITTLE excited to out of the truck and we were only a day away from Virginia.

Us and our stuff....and we have too much for 3 people folks. I know I am going to look at this photo in 4 years and think that we had nothing, cause I'm sure I can double what we have in that amount of time.

We didn't take a lot of pictures, just lots of video. After about 2 days of driving you don't really want to just pull over for a photo. But when we arrived on day 4 I wish I had, oh well. 

It really was one of our best family experiences, driving across the country, the three of us squished together across Big Bertha's front bench, through rainstorms, getting lost in Atlanta, and slowly grinding our way up and over the Appalachians.  It was a wonderful journey and we're so happy we made it!