No, SERIOUSLY

I gather that there's a little confusion about my last post. No, I wasn't just stating the results of the poll. I had an ultrasound yesterday, and we are having a girl!

Now that I look at it, I can see why my first post was confusing, sorry about that.

(Good job, Tara and Sarah for getting it the first time around!)

Majority Rules!

You voted, and the results are in! We're having a girl!

Baby Poll

I have an appointment with my new doctor next week! I'm not sure when they'll do an ultrasound, but it could be anytime now. I'm putting up a poll, so make sure to vote!

5 days down, 2 to go

The hotel we're staying in is really nice. But I'm kinda tired of living in a hotel, all the same, and (as you can see above) counting down until our stuff arrives on Wednesday. And crossing my fingers that there aren't any delays. The driver of the moving truck said he'd give me 48 hours notice prior to his arrival, so that means he should be calling today...

Speaking of the driver, I forgot to mention in my last post a funny little tidbit about him. Both times we've moved with professional movers, we've had a great driver, memorable in some way. This guy has been awesome, he went way above the call of duty on a couple different occasions...for one thing, Cole's quite-difficult-to-put-together bed had to be completely disassembled in order for them to put it on the truck, but he's going to reassemble it when we get there. Also, the guys who packed our stuff were less than thorough. When the loading guys came we discovered a couple of dresser drawers still full of stuff. Not a big deal, but what was a big deal was when we discovered that they hadn't packed up the stuff in my cedar chest--stuffed to the brim with random breakables. The driver took it upon himself to pack it up. I was deeply grateful. I could've done it, but I had two clingy kids hanging on me and begging me to go outside, and it would've been very painful.

Anyway, near the end of the day as they were finishing up, the driver was sitting on the living room floor doing paperwork when his cell phone rang. I was in the kitchen cleaning and not paying much attention, when suddenly I heard him say, "Zaraz, zaraz." My ears perked up immediately. Was he speaking Polish?!? Sure enough, as he continued the conversation I became sure he was. When he hung up, I asked him where he was from. We had a great conversation about Poland. That's one thing I love about having served my mission there...you don't run into Poles very often, but when you do, they become instant friends because it's so uncommon for them to meet an American who speaks their language and understands their culture. As a funny side note, earlier in the day when I was showing him the stuff that needed to be loaded in the garage, he suddenly asked, "Are you Mormon?" Puzzled, I said, "Yes, actually. How did you know?" He said, "The food." We did have a tiny little bit of food storage in there, but I had sold about 80% of it before moving day! The things that give us Mormons away...he said he had recently moved a Mormon family with 9 kids from Albuquerque to Salt Lake City, and they had a 2-car garage entirely full of food. We must look a little strange to people sometimes. :)

Anyway, so here we are, waiting for our stuff to arrive...but we've found some pleasant ways to pass the time. On Friday I took the kids to Ellanor Lawrence Park, which is essentially a huge forest with lots of walking trails and a pond. Gorgeous this time of year, with the fall colors and the crunchy leaves underfoot, and the smell of forest and decomposing leaves. It has been so long since we've had close access to nature, I just kept breathing in the fresh air. I couldn't get enough!

Saturday we took the Metro into Washington, D.C. It was my first time there, and didn't disappoint! Everything on the National Mall is so beautiful, well kept, and impressive. We only visited one of the many museums, the Smithsonian Institute of Natural History. We thought that would be most interesting to the kids, with the dinosaur skeletons and everything. They did like it, though their attention spans are still too short to explore a museum thoroughly. We also saw the White House, the Capitol Building, the Washington Monument (how could you miss it!) the World War II Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. There was a lot we didn't see, but it was kind of like having annual passes to Disneyland--we don't have to wear ourselves out seeing it all in one day, because we live right here and can easily go back whenever we want. I need to make a list of all the historical sites worth visiting and just knock them off, one at a time, as much as we can. There's so much to do and see! I think Mount Vernon is next on my list.

We didn't get to attend our ward yesterday...or should I say, we chose not to, as it starts at 9 a.m. and the kids are still not adjusted to East Coast time. They didn't even wake up until after 9, so we attended an 11 a.m. ward instead. I think I might have to stop using the blackout curtains in their room after all, and start letting them wake up with the daylight...if I don't, they may just happily settle into a pattern of staying up until 9 or 10 and sleeping until 9. It's nice in the morning (like now) when they're still asleep and I can get things done, but probably not the healthiest schedule for them or us in the long run.

After church we were invited over for dinner by some new friends, David and Cheryl. Cheryl is the sister of our friends Kirk and Jamie in Boston. They have two boys; Austin, who is 5 years old, and Jack, who is 17 months. Cole and Austin hit it off instantly - as quickly as I've ever seen Cole take to a new friend. They played very happily for the two or more hours we were there, and when it was time to leave they gave each other a big hug and Cole even planted a big kiss on Austin's cheek. When we got home, Cole said, "My favorite friends are Bennett (cousin), Jalen (cousin) and Austin." Wow. This kid made it into the elite circle with great swiftness! We're going back over for a playdate tomorrow. It was great to see Cole making friends. Weston and Jack were both still a little too young to notice each other's existence much. As far as the adults went, we really enjoyed chatting with Cheryl and Dave! They were great. And it feels good to have friends here already.

Whew! Congratulations on making it to the end of this post, which as it turns out is more like a journal entry than anything! And the kids are waking up (it's 8 a.m.) so maybe we're headed for a more reasonable schedule after all...

A Good Beginning

We've finally arrived in Virginia! It's been a crazy couple of weeks...getting ready for Halloween, then the packing and cleaning in preparation for the move. Thank HEAVENS Brian's company finally decided they'd pay for packing and transporting our household furnishings (and not just our "personal effects", as they first said). Things were crazy enough as it was!

Anyway, it was very strange, saying goodbye to friends and leaving El Segundo, the place we've called home for the last 4 1/2 years. It was strange looking back at the empty, echoing house as we locked the front door for the last time. It was strange flying out of LAX knowing we wouldn't be coming back for a long time! It kind of felt like every other time we've left on vacation, except that this time we only had a one way ticket.

We've had some wretched airport experiences the last few times we've flown, so we were dreading the flight (though not nearly as much as we would have been dreading a cross country drive). We were very pleasantly surprised as every step of the trip went smooth as honey. There were no lines to check in at the airport (pretty sure that's NEVER happened to us at LAX), the airline folks were actually pleasant to deal with. We had debated whether or not to bring our double jogging stroller with us or have the movers take it in the truck, ultimately deciding to take it with us. Then we debated whether to check it with our luggage or take it to the gate. To the gate all the way, baby! Why haven't we ever thought of this before? It was so much easier pushing the stroller through the airport than holding/dragging small screaming children. I wondered how they'd handle it at security, but it was actually an asset. The security people pulled us to the front of the line and then took the stroller to another location, where they gave it a thorough screening. Easy as pie. We arrived at our gate an hour early (that's also without precedent in our family) and leisurely ate our breakfast from McDonalds. The flight itself, which was supposed to be 5 hours long, only took 4 1/2 hours. The kids were relatively good. I think the biggest miracle of all came when we got seated on the airplane and realized that the seat in front of Weston was empty. The kid always kicks the chair in front of him repeatedly, earning us dirty glares and sometimes lectures from the person seated in it. I can understand this, as I don't particularly enjoy it when someone kicks the back of my chair either...but it's an exhausting task to keep a two-year-old from doing it. What a blessing that we didn't have to worry about it! The relief was intense.

We had a minor glitch when we got lost trying to find our hotel. According to Brian, this is an essential feature of any trip to Virginia. What should have been an easy left hand turn became tricky because we couldn't find the street we were supposed to turn on. As it turns out, the street is named one thing on one side of the road and another thing on the other side of the road, and we kept looking at the other side of the road. Alas, we found the hotel and all was well. The hotel is great. Blackout curtains in the kids' rooms kept them asleep until 9 a.m. this morning (when we had to wake them up so I could take Brian to work). There is a DVD player in the room, a CD player in both bedrooms (very handy since Weston's become obsessed with listening to music when he goes to bed) and the lobby has a library equipped with kids' games. Nice! So it hasn't been as hard to keep the kids happy inside the hotel as I imagined--this afternoon after lunch Cole and I played Candyland while Weston watched Baby Einstein. Pretty nice.

This morning after dropping Brian off at work, we went to pick up the keys for our townhouse. I had never seen it before, so I was very curious what I'd think of it. I have to say Brian did a great job. It's in a really pretty location. You walk in the front door and can see out the sliding glass doors to the back, where there's a huge, gorgeous tree whose leaves have turned bright yellow. The kids ran out onto the patio and had a ball throwing the leaves off the deck. The kitchen is much nicer than the one in our El Segundo house, though I don't think it has as much cupboard space. More drawers though. There's a fireplace in the living room, and Cole can hardly wait to start a fire in it.

I'm actually glad we moved here in November. I have missed fall weather ever since we moved to California almost 5 years ago, and we are at the tail end of fall here, but it's still definitely fall. Some trees have lost all of their leaves, but many still have bright colors (like the one in our backyard!). I am loving the cold air and the change from the sameness of California weather. It will be pleasant to have a fire in the fireplace, and I'm sure Cole would insist on one even if we moved in July! I'm looking forward to a holiday season that FEELS like a holiday season--chilly air, impending snowfall, and all. Cole seems to like it too, he has said on a couple of different occasions today, "Momma, I want to stay in Virginia forever." This coming from the kid who has been telling anyone who will listen, "We'll be back in California in one year."

It doesn't feel like I'm on the other end of the country--I guess that's what air travel does for you! We're going to head into DC either tomorrow or Friday though, and maybe then it will sink in how far away we are from familiar territory. Maybe it's living in Los Angeles for so long, but the unfamiliarity doesn't bother me like it used to. I'm ready for this adventure!