"Our House" - Madness

Look!  Our house :)

 Well, this isn't our house.  This is Caitlin's "little house."  Which happens to be in the backyard of...

Our house!

 I can't stop pointing out that this is OUR HOUSE!!! :)

I'm pretty geeked that this thing is all ours :)  Now let the adventure begin!  (I feel like I've said that a lot lately...)

JULY 17th.
I got a juicer at a garage sale and I was way more excited to use it than I probably should be...

Caitlin was impressed with the orange juice I made.  Her seating arrangements, she was not as thrilled with...

 

JULY 19th.

Household goods arrive.

Homeowner Challenge #1:

Determining where all of our stuff is going to go in this house!  And determining what "remodeling" projects we want to undertake.  And does that affect where we put our stuff???  Oh, joy.

In order to continue reading, I need everyone that reads this to promise they will not judge me on the next couple pictures.  It gets better...just not until I was un-pregnant...I realized we just don't have any storage for our things.  My biggest overall project for this house will be to find a "home" for everything in our home!

Caitlin's toy room has actually kept me pretty sane.  As horrific as it gets in there, I can literally throw all her toys down the hall and I don't have to see them, trip on them, or constantly move them to another corner of the living room. 

This is our sad, sad bedroom...What's laying on the floor is Chad's closet...There is a closet in this room, but it's occupied with my clothes.  So we got Chad a free standing garment rack - that decided to give up the struggle of holding up all his clothes at 3 in the morning.  I'm actually pretty glad I was downstairs on the couch otherwise it would have most likely scared me into peeing the bed...that's the last thing I need.

I share these photos out of brutal honesty.  A few years ago I would have been absolutely embarrassed if anyone saw this, but when I took the pictures, I laughed.  I laughed at how ridiculous this room was.  All the little things strewn all over the place...ugh...makes my skin crawl.  But we're human, and pregnant...it's all part of the journey.  I can now look at our room and be proud of how far this sad excuse for a room has come :)

JULY 22nd.
The homily at mass this morning really stuck with me.  It was about staying plugged in.  Recharging is a big thing in our society, everything needs to have a power source.  Where do you get your energy from?  No one can run solely on battery power.  There are a lot of places one can get their energy from.
*I have found it really easy to recharge at church (if Caitlin sits still and allows it).
*PWOC at Fort Polk.  After a morning with those women, I felt like I could run strong for weeks!
*A really productive weekend with my family is a sweet and simple way to go to bed feeling full.  As physically demanding as unpacking and moving boxes and hanging clothes and cleaning is, the interaction with my husband, being in the same room together working on something that is "ours" counter acts the physical drain and charges my mental capacity to deal with the physical side.
*Watching Caitlin blossom into a person who talks and reasons and has wants (whether or not she understands the reason behind all of her wants...)

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;
he makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul." Psalm 23

What restores your soul?  May your journey to find the answer to that question be enjoyable and informative! :)

"A Whole New World" - Disney's Aladdin

JULY 2nd.
We initially reserved 20 days at the hotel, and they flew by.  They flew by so fast I didn't believe it when the housekeeping staff knocked on our door and asked why we hadn't checked out.  Confused as to why the staff was a little shocked to see us, it hit me - our 20 days had come and gone and we were supposed to have checked out that morning!

Crap.

Thankfully the hotel staff worked with us and extended us a few days.  But this whole waiting process is driving me nuts! - And keeping me up at night - I can't tell if it's the stress of living in a hotel or being 35 weeks pregnant.  I'm sure they are both putting in their 2 cents.

Well, no sense in worrying about things well out of our control.  On with living.

JULY 4th.
It was cold.  And almost rainy.  Just yucky.  But we made it over to Pioneer Park just to get out and do something.

We walked in just in time to see (and hear) the fly over.  It was over to soon for Caitlin to understand what made the sound...

And we go from a nice sentimental picture that tugs at my heart strings, to one that makes complete sense:

Obviously, I was being sarcastic.  Star Wars and the 4th of July clearly go hand in hand.  I can see it, the common theme being revolution...ssuuuurrre.

Caitlin's expression pretty much covers how I think we were all feeling at the moment.  The weight of living in the hotel and being on top of each other all the time was really getting us down.  I can't speak for the other two, but getting up and putting on a happy face and not snipping at everything that each of them did was an hourly struggle.  But I knew it wouldn't be permanent, whether or not we got the house, so I reminded myself every hour to hold my head high, play with my kid, feed my husband, tell them both I love them and keep on trucking.  Who says we have to smile every day, so long as we still get up and hold our flag high, we'll make it through to those days that make us want to smile.

JULY 5th.

 And just as soon as you stop looking for it, you find that one thing that makes you smile.  :)  Thanks Bug.

JULY 6th.
We had a break in the cold weather and our sunshine came back out to play.  Dad bought Caitlin a kite.  She was more impressed than I thought she'd be.

 JULY 7th.
In an attempt to not get too bored this weekend, we decided to try out the glo-putt-putt place downtown.  Definitely an easy way to make some money.  It was cheaply put together, but without the distraction of a toddler, this place might be a cute date night option :)

Caitlin got pretty frustrated pretty quickly with the entire concept.  Good thing she was free!

JULY 10th.
Coming up on 30 days in our grand hotel suite.  Meals are getting pretty desperate.  This afternoon I wanted a big salad.  But a big salad requires a big bowl-which I did not have.  More improvisation. 

Marvin seems to like us again.  Of course, now that we might be getting closer to leaving here and moving into the house...

Still big into reading.

And coloring.  She definitely has the coloring concept down :)

JULY 11th.

Making our rounds back to the library.  This day we just played, no more new books.  Just in case we get the all clear - I don't want to loose library books in the shuffle of moving.

JULY 12th.
WE GOT OUR ALL CLEAR!  On the 9th we requested the sellers to approve an Early Occupancy Agreement, so we could move in prior to closing on the house.  Ultimately we would pay them rent by the day which is determined by our mortgage payment.  Well, I had given up hope that it would be approved because almost a whole week went by without any word.  But we heard this morning that they signed the paperwork and we were just waiting for our copy!  Oh praise the Lord, we have an end date for this hotel stay! - Which is July 16th.  Just one more weekend in the hotel :)

JULY 13th

Marvin warming up to the baby...

Friday the 13th was the last day of the Library's summer reading program.  They had Calypso Farms out with some animals for the kids.  Caitlin had a blast, of course.

JULY 14th.

Our light at the end of the "hotel" tunnel was a double rainbow :)

"Exploring the Blue" - Luka Bloom

Welcome to hotel living.

We were in a suite, which consisted of a bedroom separated from the living/kitchen area.  The couch in the living room is a pull out couch, but Caitlin was cool with sleeping on the couch instead of pulling the bed out and having to put it back together every day.  She liked her "little" bed.

Chad took the rest of our travel days (we drove faster than the Army anticipated us to) so we could start looking for a house instead of signing in to Post early.  Day 1 we drove the town and saw the sights.  I was pretty excited to finally see what Fairbanks had to offer - which is loads more than Leesville.

The first night I attempted to make dinner went okay.

As you can see, it was the easiest thing to make on a stove top - spaghetti!  This is the entire kitchen, the refrigerator is immediately to the left of the sink, a microwave above the stove top, a dishwasher you can see part of, two lower cupboards, and one upper cupboard.  And these are all the pots/pans I had.  Things got interesting as the meals got more creative. 

We were spending a lot of time in the downtown area where our realtor's office was, so we found a park close by that we could go to after breakfast before we met Chris.  It was a very nice park, a lot of open grassy space, a giant concrete tube that Caitlin could run through, and a pretty cool boat :)

JUNE 15th.
We put an offer on a house!!
There were three that we saw in the week before that we were torn between.  Each one had really distinct differences...like we were comparing apples to bananas.  But we decided on the big one :)  And by big one, I mean over 3,000 square feet...whew.

JUNE 16th.
The sellers countered on the house and we accepted!  Let the closing process begin :)

JUNE 22nd.
We drove about an hour north on our first weekend to explore a hiking trail.  It was one of the warmer days we have had since we have been here.  

Beautiful.

 The first 1.5miles was on this dirt road.

 This is how Cate did most of her hike.

 Not a bad view, eh?

 This was the next part of the hike, after going about 1.5miles...I had to put the kibosh on continuing on.  I didn't want to have a baby in the forest and Bug was having a hard time walking on the moss and not face planting and throwing a temper-tantrum about eating grass...

Oh, well.  We had a very good 3ish mile hike I'd say that is pretty good for a 2 year old, and a 34 week pregger.

And to top it off, on our way back we saw a moose!  This time Chad stopped and turned around, and as we were driving back with our eyes glued to the side of the road, they appeared right in front of us!  Caitlin was pretty impressed and continued to demand moose all the way back home (to the hotel).

JUNE 23rd.
The next day was the Festival of the Sun in Fairbanks and they had pony rides.  The best part about having a 2 year old is living vicariously through them...It was a long wait, but Caitlin did really well passing the time brushing all the ponies that weren't working.

And then it was her turn!!

She had her eye on this pony the whole time b/c this little one was also a Mommy.  The sweet little baby followed Mama's every step and Caitlin was infatuated with them.  So not only did she get to ride the Mama, the baby walked with her.  Best 7 min ever.

THE NEXT 2 WEEKS.
Chad signed in and started the In Processing process (yea, I know what I typed).  He only had to walk across the street so we had access to the car and Caitlin and I were able to explore Post a little bit on our own.

The library has a pretty awesome play room with puzzles and dinosaurs and blocks...oooohhh the blocks!

 We went to the park often.  See, it was warm here!

 

We discovered a play group on Post called Romp Stomp.  There are awesome hands on activities and then story time and then the stomping aspect...there is an indoor play structure!

And when we weren't out playing around, we took to skyping!  Which we are happy to do with anyone that wants to see our faces.  Keep in mind, you have to remind me via text to get on the computer b/c we are 4 hours behind most of you and I don't think to skype with anyone until y'all are in bed! :)

And when we weren't chatting with Grandparents or friends, we apparently raid Mom's closet. 

Oh, and we read a lot.  A lot.  Which is cool.  Especially having the library just across the street, we were getting about 4 new books ever 3 days :)

"On The Road Again" - Willie Nelson

For a split second of sitting in the car, my butt almost missed the seat.  Almost.  We still weren't sure as we pulled out of the Haines dock parking lot at 1pm if we were driving the 10-11 hours straight to Fairbanks or if we were going to stop in Tok for the evening.

Not everyone was happy that the car was back on the road and moving, but he was happy to attempt to make himself comfortable in the arms of a toddler.

 
Marvin couldn't seem to appreciate that we were surrounded by beautiful white capped mountains!

The temperature in Haines as we left was 56 degrees, and gas was a whopping $4.96 a gallon-ouch.

We were quickly approaching Canada which got me sifting through our "Important Docs" folder for proof we needed to traverse through the great land of Canada.  The border patrol asked for Chad's ID and if he had ever been to Canada before.  The answer was no, the guard stepped into his office, was back about 4 min later and told us to have a safe drive.  He didn't even ask our final destination...huh.  So glad I busted my butt to pack all of our "Important documents" so neatly.

Our scenery through British Columbia quickly turned ugly and really blah.

The scenery turned a little sour, so we turned to pondering odd topics.  Like, do prairie dogs live in Canada?  Or turtles?  Or any other cold-blooded animal for that matter.  Answers to come...

The Yukon Territory brought some prettier scenery than what BC had to offer.  Some sunnier weather as well.

It's time to add to the "Things That Amaze Me List", #5

Rest stops in Canada:

They are ultimately slightly glorified out houses...they're glorified by being a bit larger...but they lock with the little hook and eye latch, some didn't have lids, and toilet paper was optional I guess...I craved a gas station bathroom after using two of these...Oh Canada...

And now I'm just going to list some beautiful scenery pictures for your eyes to feast on.

We thought a manual for all the signs we passed would have been nice.  Some of them were obvious, and just silly - have you ever seen a sign warning you of rams?  But some of the signs weren't as clear.  See for yourself:

We were pretty elated when we saw the first sign for customs into Alaska, we were very ready to be done driving through Canada.  We were ready to be done driving period. 

Customs this time around was a bit more inquisitive as to why we wanted to cross into Alaska.  I felt a little more validated for having all of the documents neatly organized.  About 10 min later we were finally on our last stretch of the trip.  On this leg of the drive we saw...

A bear family!!!

A couple hours later, when we got closer to North Pole (about 30 miles from our final destination) we saw a moose on the side of the road but I wasn't quick enough to grab a picture...thanks Alaskan wildlife for giving us such a warm greeting on our first day in your state :)


We arrived in Tok, Ak around 11pm.  There was a restaurant that happened to be still serving food so we were able to get real food (we had been munching on cold hot dogs and gold fish crackers).  I called the hotel on Post to make sure if we showed up 12 hours prior to check-in if they would have a room for us, and they did, so we decided to keep on trucking.  This is how light it still was at midnight thirty.  Kinda cool, it actually made the drive a little easier. 

We arrived at North Lights Inn around 2:30am and promptly collapsed in the hotel.

One journey down, just in time for another one to start!  Welcome to Fairbanks, AK/ Fort Wainwright!