Around Monterey

Standing on top of the Train...not without Mommy...at the park
Kaden posing with the Dennise the Menace statue at the  Dennise the Menace park. 
This area is called Lover's Point, it's at the very tip of the Monterey Bay. 
Here are a few random pictures of some of our excursions around Monterey. Honestly, we haven't been very good at bringing our camera with us when we go...need to work on that. We had a productive yet low key weekend. We spent ALL of Friday working on the garage and Matt is still out there today figuring out how to put everything it so that it all fits, and maybe just maybe, we can actually park a car in there. I'm doing random fun chores like laundry and house organizing...yet all is not lost. Tonight is family movie night so we have that to look forward too! :) Tonight's movie is part 2 of the Sound of Music, which the boys love!

  Tomorrow morning, bright and early, Matt starts school. Keep him in your prayers as this is a really blessed time for him but will also be a challenge. Not sure what my week holds...I may get back on a cleaning schedule! :) Hope your weekend was blessed as well. Jesus loves you.

New Neighbors

Kaden checking out his buddies through the gate at the end of the warf. It's hard to imagine and I"m not sure why I didn't get a picture of it but there's a whole side with no gate where you can lean over and be close to them...not that I want to get to much closer! :)
This picture is from the end of the warf where you can't get out to the Sea Lions...believe me you can get Much closer! 
This is a baby Sea Otter, the mama just swam away...it's kinda hard to see details but it's floating on it's back and the big bump is it's head. 
Wanted to post some pictures of our new neighbors! One of the highlights of living in Monterey is being about 5 min. from the beach! I am LOVING that. I'd spend most every day down there if I could get away with it, but alas it's not vacation it's real life! :) So we sneak down there whenever we get the chance. 

  One of my favorite places to go is down to a warf in Monterey where there are literally hundreds of Sea Lions sunning on the rocks. You can lean over and be 4 ft from them, and reach out and touch them if you weren't afraid they'd bight you!  They're so so cute, but as I reminded Caleb and Kaden who were ready to climb on top of them...they're still wild animals! We'll have to get a few more close up shots when we go down next time...or better yet you all come out for a visit and see our new neighbors for yourself!

First Day of School

In the car ready to go!
Kaden ready to go in for his first big day
The outside of Kaden's school
Mommy and Caleb went to Starbucks and the duck pond while Kaden was at school! Now when we drop Kaden off at school, he usually asks if we're going to coffee and quack-quacks!  Sadly we can no longer feed the ducks at the duck pond here ( I used to bring my brothers when they were little and it was a blast). Is that a rule all over the country or just in liberal California?

We finally down loaded all the pictures off of our camera and have our computer set up so that it's semi-functional (how ever the internet we have out here is much slower then in Texas so that's driving me a bit insane!)  so wanted to post pictures of Kaden's first day of school! He is LOVING school. He had open house on Monday night and was so proud to show us around the room and his folder full of papers. It has really helped him to make friends and he's already found a pretty little girl friend that he's thinking about marring! What really blessed my heart was walking into class to pick him up one day and watching him work on one of his assignments. They were supposed to draw a picture of their friends that they play with at school. Kaden was drawing several of his friends and then I saw one little boy drawing a picture of Kaden and telling everyone that this was his new friend! So precious. Nothing blesses a mommy's heart more then someone loving her babies! 

  Tomorrow Kaden gets to take the prize bucket to school for show and tell. A very exciting day at our house! If you ask Kaden what his favorite part is, it's getting to pick a different job every day. So far he's been line leader, weather man, teachers helper, and paper man. :) I love that work is a joy! Hope he's always this excited about school...if he's anything like his daddy (who starts his masters program on Monday) he will be! 

Moving In

AHHHHHHH.... Have I ever mentioned how moving is not my favorite thing! But alas, we are in our new home...in meaning 75% of the boxes are out of the house, and 50% of the stuff is put away (we have a functional kitchen, living room, dining room, laundry rooms, and semi bed rooms). The garage...well the garage is going to take a long, long, long time to go through mostly because our lovely movers felt the need to unpack all of my nicely organized bins and put everything inside into random boxes. Hence I've found my maternity clothes wrapped up with Matt's office decor. This is the vain of my existence at the moment, knowing that I'm going to have to go through 30 boxes marked "boys clothes" and soon since Caleb needs the next size up...oh well there are far greater problems then this in the world so I will count my blessings! Praise the Lord we have clothes to go through! 

  We're also having trouble getting our phones working and the internet set up right. This is the first night we have had internet and I'm laying in the "Cave" (the space under the stair well ) since that's where the builders put the internet access!? Oh well, all this is part of the joy of moving. 

  So as  I read back through this it sounds like a lot of complaining, but in reality we have much to be thankful for. We are living in a breathtakingly beautiful area. In fact today, I got to take a couple of hours by myself to just go sit on the beach and walk in the waves. It was me, about 100 seagulls, and some dolphins! Amazing. The boys are doing really well, loving having all their toys back, and Kaden is THRIVING in school, loving every bit of it. He even begs to stay and take naps there, but I draw the line at paying for naps! And Matt is excited to be starting his school soon. We are so thankful for how God is providing. Another big praise is that most of my friends in the North didn't get flooded as I was fearing! Praise the Lord! 

  Well, I've hogged the computer for the last hour and it's late and there more unpacking to do tomorrow so until we chat again...Jesus loves you.

We're going home

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are heading up to Monterey, CA  tomorrow to set up our new home! We are really excited to get unpacked (no more living in a suitcase!!!) and settled (I'm in desperate need of some routine!) , but sad to have to say goodbye to family again. At least, we know it won't be long before we see Matt's family again since were only 6 1/2 hours up the road. 

  The plan is to leave tomorrow and drive straight up there. Matt and I will both be driving. He's planning on taking the van with the boys for most of the trip and I'm going to drive the truck...and have some very nice alone time! :) Sunday we're hoping to go to a church that I used to attend in high school, and then Monday Kaden starts pre-school! He is so excited and has been counting the days for about 2 weeks. Tuesday morning we should get the keys to the house and unload all the stuff we have with us, and Wednesday the movers are supposed to deliver our household goods. Lord willing, things will go as planned and this time next week we'll be sitting in a semi-unpacked house! :) 

  Thanks for the prayers that I know are coming our way! Hope you all have a great weekend! Jesus loves you

Catching up

Waiting for Matt to land so we could spray him!
Matt taxing into position
Climbing out of the plane
This was the fun part!
Standing at attention while his list of accomplishments were read
Matt recognizing the boys. They both got a little airplane toy


Caleb just kind of walked up there to stand by daddy
Hanging out in the old jump seat 
I love that he's looking at Papa's hat like he's waiting for something to come out of it
Oh, that's what the hat is for!
Texas pilots
Not a whole lot to post so I thought I'd catch everyone up on some pictures from Matt's fini flight. What is a fini flight you might ask? Well, true to it's name it's the last or "final = fini" flight in his aircraft which this time is the T-6 . Matt got to pick 3 of his buddies to fly with him, one in his plane and the other two guys flew in formation with him. Basically, they just get to take the airplane and have fun. When they land, Matt's co-workers, family, friends, and all our teens were waiting for him. As he steps off the plane we get to spray him down with fire extinguishers full of water! Lots of fun for the boys who were very excited to spray daddy! After Matt got soaked we headed inside for some barbecue and fellowship. After the food, the commander came in and gave Matt some medals and such for his service at Laughlin AFB. Matt was also really sweet that night to recognize my parents, Kaden and Caleb, and myself for supporting him over the last 3 1/2 years.  It was really sweet. I'm so glad that Matt could end his time at Laughlin with such sweet memories. 

Lions, Tigers, and Bears...and other various creatures

Kaden and the Hippos
San Diego Zoo explorers  
Even more exciting then the animals is the statue of animals you can climb on!
Not quite as exciting as Kung Fu Panda
Sitten' pretty
Caleb really liked his zoo bucket...and is still running around with it on his head!
The one standing up is the baby giraffe
True to form all the big cats were napping, still a great picture of the lynx.
My favorite giraffe!
Caleb lasted until about 4:30, sweet baby was out for the rest of zoo day.
Matt and his mom and Caleb waiting while Kaden and I were in the spider hut. 
A Kaden spider and a mommy fly
This is our view from the arial tram...if you look really closely there's a black and white spot...that's a panda bear
Another highlight for Kaden was the sky box, he loved being up high and flying over the zoo.
Caleb still sacked out at the end of the day. And a peacock who came to say hello
So yesterday was our trip to the San Diego Zoo! Such a fun, amazing day...I always come away from trips to the zoo amazed by God and His creativity. Have you really stopped and looked at animals, they are so weird looking...take an anteater for example. It looks like a vacuum cleaner hose with a feather duster at the end. Weird. God is so awesome. Some of the animals we saw were really active. The elephants and the polar bears were a blast. I've never seen a bear that big, that close, swimming under water like the swan princess...it was fascinating. And of course the baby animals are always a favorite, I can't remember all of them but I know we say a baby gorillas and a baby giraffe.

  However, the best part of the day came close to the end. The one thing Kaden said he wanted to see at the zoo was spiders...and that was the one thing we couldn't find on the map. So imagine our joy when we found the bug building...and then we noticed that there was a rope in front of it and the doors were locked. It had closed 5 min. before we got there. Kaden was devastated.  Huge tears started to roll down his cheeks and our hearts sank for him. Just out of curiosity I climbed over the rope and peered in the door. There was one zoo keeper inside cleaning the exhibits. I waited about 5 min. until she turned around and noticed Kaden and I standing there. One look at Kaden and his big tears and she told us that we could come around the back entrance and stay as long as we liked! We were blown away, and so blessed that God cared for Kaden's heart so much. It was like a special date, just mommy, Kaden and the spiders! Thank you Jesus.

  One of the funniest moments of  the day was when Caleb fascinated watched the elephants picking up sticks with their trunks and  put them in their mouth for a snack. Caleb immediately dropped to all fours and tried "eating" the leaves and sticks on the ground with his nose! To cute. We had such a good time and I can't wait to take the boys back again...if not for them for me! :)

 

One of the reasons...

All the kids at Matt's fini flight...and yes Matt is soaking wet from being sprayed down after the flight...more pictures of that later.
The girls made Matt and I cakes for our going away party. This is a Strong Bad cake for Matt...don't ask! :)
This is my cake! I LOVED IT! 
My cake's way better then Matt's! :)


Our last Friday night Bible study
We had our last Bible study down at the church, a very bitter sweet night.
The "Four Chris's" 
Last Girl's Bible study...we look pretty good despite the tears!
One of the reasons, we miss Texas so much is all the children we had to leave behind. As most of you know, God blessed us above and beyond our greatest dreams with an AMAZING youth group. We loved each and everyone of the teens like they were our own...and in some ways they were. Time and distance won't ever take them from our hearts. I love you guys! 

Going for a Ride

Thought I'd put a few Texas pictures up...Still hard to do, the memories are very bitter sweet. These are from when my Grandma came down to visit right before we moved. I love that she was willing to get on Dad's bike. The things that Mommies do for their children...no matter how old they are! 

 The boys we're also excited to get up on Papa's bike and ride around. Sweet memories.

 Tomorrow we're off to make some more memories. We plan to take Caleb to the zoo for the first time! I think I'm more excited then anyone! I've been wanting to go to the zoo for a good year now. Matt's mom is going to go with us so it should be a fun day. And don't worry we'll have lots of pictures to post!