The first 2 nights...

We've signed our lives away. Again. Friday afternoon was spent signing page after endless page guaranteeing a mortgage that, by the time we finish paying for will have doubled. Does that seem criminal to anyone else?

Anyways, Thursday night Lexi started coughing, sneezing, and moaning. That poor girl just can't catch a break! Getting acclimated to all these new Maryland germs and she's been sick half the time we've been here! So she stayed home from school Friday and got to come with us to our house closing appointment. She was bored out of her mind so I told her...

"Isn't being a grown-up super fun!"

"I just don't understand any of these papers." she said.

"I don't either..." I whispered back.

Sad, but for the most part true.

Good thing Lexi came with us because as we were going through document after document, Addie started to feel hot and get whiny. Sweet Lexi-lu (since most of her symptoms mysteriously went away shortly after Christian went to school) took care of her the whole time. Sometimes it's really handy to have her around. :)

So now we're here. In our beautiful empty house. Of course we closed on a Friday so we could have the whole weekend in an empty house. And of course that weekend happened to be a long weekend just so we could get one extra empty day. That's okay! Bring on the paint I say!!!

So that's just what we did. The boys went to an airshow and Lexi and I got our painting on! In between taking care of poor little sick Addie. She's got a fever that's stayed above 100 and at one point got as high as 103, but goes down with Tylenol and she is teething. She's eating, peeing, pooping, and acting pretty normal. When she got to 103 I called her dr. who said to just keep doing what I'm doing and as long as it keeps coming down with meds and she's acting normally it should be okay. I verified that info online and so far so good.

We were hoping to get our living room/kitchen area and Addie's room painted but Addie being sick slowed us way down. We did get the one big room painted and I'm trying to figure out how to do another one, but I don't know if we'll be able to cause we got our first guests! So fun to have visitors already! Seriously, I love having guests!

Matt's dad and oldest brother Ken, who I should mention just graduated from the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago (good job Ken!) came to stay for a few days. We had fun last night driving down to the waterfront (after getting lost in a neighborhood for awhile) and eating pizza.

So that's it. I'm home from church with a little sicky. We're sleeping on an air mattress covered with beach towels. Eating off paper plates. Living out of a suitcase. But at least all of this is happening in our house! And not a hotel! Hooray!

Okay, enough excitement. I gotta go, mid morning Sunday nap is calling my name...

Edited to add: I don't know why the bottom portion of this is all jumbled together! Twice I've separated it all into neat little paragraphs and it just keeps going back to mess. Ugh!

There are some things money can't buy...

Our year in numbers... (May 2008-May 2009)

*Nights spent in hotels: 93

*States traveled through: 21

*Nights Matt has spent away from our family: 91

*Miles traveled: 6429

*Meltdowns had: 183

*Schools attended: 3

*Fast food meals consumed: 324

*Diapers changed: 2190

*Members of the family taken ill with a vomiting/diarrhea bout while in hotel: 3

*Prayers offered: 3288

*Times I've been lost while driving: 847

*Finally settling into a home: priceless*

I can't believe I forgot...

to blog about Addie's newest achievement!!!

Last Tuesday we went down to the beach and Alexis and Christian were playing on a floaty toy.

Addie was hangin' with me.

Then Addie stood up and was all like "Hey guys! Wait for me!"

and she took a step!!!

just one.

and then she sat down. 

The end.

Worth the wait!!!

Our house!!!

We are finally signing papers on our house tomorrow! We are soooo beyond ready to not be homeless anymore! We're not really supposed to go to the house without our realtor but we've "snuck" over there a few times and took these pictures.

Can't wait till it's Home Sweet Home!

The Sweetest Place on Earth!

Because our apartment reservations here were cancelled we decided to head up to Hershey, Pennsylvania last weekend. We had such a good time! They have an amusement park called Hershey Park and with the next days admission they allow you to spend the last 2 1/2 hours at the park the day before. So Friday night we were able to drive straight there and figure out where everything was, and ride without lines! Such a good idea!

I really liked the park because they had a little something for everyone. 11 roller coaster, some super high and crazy, some just right, lots of kiddy rides, and shows. It really was worth the price.

Saturday morning Hershey Park opened at 10:00 but Chocolate World opened at 9:00 so we were able to go do the chocolate tour and look around the gift shops before the park opened. 

Some pics...

It was really cute the way they showed the height requirements, like Jolly Rancher Hard Candy is the tallest, and then Hershey Miniatures are the smallest, isn't that cute?! So here I am with Addie, our little Hershey Miniature.

The free and super cute chocolate tour. Takes you through the life of a cocoa bean till it becomes a delicious Hershey bar.

Production...

Yum!!!

Just because who can pass up an opportunity to take a pic with a giant bottle of Hershey Syrup?

The street lights in Hershey, half the Kisses are wrapped and half unwrapped. 

SO CUTE!!!

Like I said, who could pass this up?!

Not us!!!

Addie looks so excited!

I'm the big spot of pink and Christian's the little brown splash next to me. 

One of my faves!

Blessed sleep!

The kids wanted to split up for awhile so we rode some of the boring rides. 

On the ferris wheel and Addie had just woken up.

Included in the cost of admission to Hershey Park you can walk across a sky bridge to the zoo so Matt and I took Addie to see the animals while the big kids rode the roller coasters.

Up the Kissing Tower so we had to kiss!

And because I absolutely could not go to Pennsylvania without a little Jon and Kate spotting, Matt humored me by driving up to Wernersville to drive past their new mansion. I would have rather driven past the other house but I didn't have the address. :( 

Now, I know they have been in the news a lot lately, but that's not why I went. I've been watching them since their 1 hour specials and really enjoyed their show. Not sure how I feel about it anymore, but I really used to like it!

So we drove past the first time and I wasn't sure it was the house till we passed it and I saw the roof jewelry. So I made Matt turn around. 

The next time we drove around they were outside!!! Filming!!! The were all dressed up so when I got home I googled them and found out that it was the sextuplets birthday party that day. So if you watch the show and see their party, just know that we were there that day. :)

Oh, and I didn't get any pics of them because I was messing with my dumb camera and Matt wouldn't slow down enough. :( That's okay, it was still pretty cool.

I thought they'd be super tucked far back but the weren't! I was surprised how close to the street their house was! And how out in the middle of nowhere! Not even around nice houses.

Super fun weekend! Two big thumbs up from me! 

Is it bad...

*that Addie and I have been getting dressed right before we leave to pick Alexis up? At 1:30.

*that I fed my 11 month old french fries today?

*that I told my children to wear their clothes as many times as possible so I have to make as few trips to the laundromat as possible?

*that for the past 2 mornings I chose the donut breakfast instead of the more sensible cereal/fruit combo?

Just wondering...

Maryland, Washington DC, and Apartments

I've had more time to blog lately because we moved out of our temporary apartment and into a hotel. :(

 Now we're all living in one room. 

Again. :( 

Without complaining too much, we just felt like the apartment management just dropped the ball one too many times, with the final straw being when they called Matt on Thursday to tell him we needed to move out of our apartment on Friday because the building had been deemed "unsafe."

Uh, scary!

 They also had nothing else available, so basically it was sorry, but your out. 

That, in and of itself, wasn't a big deal because we made a fun weekend out of it and went up to Hershey, Pennsylvania. But there were lots of other reasons, one of which being the night of the big fire, when the guards told us (at 8:00pm) that we would probably be asked to leave, and our apartment looked like this...

that we should have stayed and they wouldn't be reimbursing us. Uuuuh-huh.  

The cancellation of our week long reservation with no notice was just the straw that broke the camels back.

Anyways, 

I haven't gotten around to posting Matt's 40th birthday pics. We got him an ice cream cake and Amy and the kids decorated it while we were out on our date.

Dang he's old! ;)

We had a family outing walking along the river one night. That bridge behind us connects St. Marys County - where our house is being built, to Calvert County - where our apartment was. So we had to drive over that super tall bridge a couple times a day! At first it really freaked me out, but I got used to it. That's a tall bridge!

An homage to Amy and her Ray nieces and nephew. 

Sitting on the dock of the bay... with the Unibomber.

Amy left a few days after we got here, so after taking her to the airport we made a day of it in Washington DC. 

Total tourists taking the subway pictures!

The Washington Memorial. Did you know you can go up there?! They give the tickets out early so there weren't any tickets available when we were there, but that's definitely on the to-do list.

Up close view. 

Jefferson Memorial.

White House!

Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jamie Kennedy! I blogged about seeing them here 

Jefferson Memorial up close. And since Matt didn't know, I thought I'd share some useless information I learned as a Kindergarten teacher. Did you know that you can actually see Lincoln sitting on his big chair, on a penny? 

I know you just ran to get a penny and check. See, it's true! 

You really did learn everything you needed to know in Kindergarten! 

Or at least some kinda fun stuff.

They were having some sort of Lincoln dress-up day. Pretty cool.

Gettin' in on that action!

White House up close. -er. I also blogged about our close encounter with the Obamas that other day too. There were only a few things that kept us from saying hi to them. The huge lawn, fence, and guard there to name a few.

 Another of them being the guards perched atop the White House roof. With machine guns.

Soooo, maybe next time.

We'll be seeing you again Obamas! 

*But not in a creepy stalker-ish kind of way.*