Our Trip Back Home

Ty has been gone for what seems like forever, in fact, this week will mark his 7th straight week of being out of town...and we hate it. So, on a whim and with a little nudge from friends I decided to take the kids back to Michigan since I am tired of being home by myself. I figured why not? It's going to be much harder for me to drive with all three kids once the baby gets here! We left at 8am on Thursday morning and the kids were awesome in the car. Maybe it helps that I've got the drive down pat and a strict schedule in the car--probably more for me than for them, but it seems to help a lot!

8-10:30 they play, sing, etc.
10:30-11:30 watch a movie.
11:30-12: Stop for gas, potty and eat lunch while driving.
12-2 Naps.
2-3: Movie
3-3:30 Snack and play games in car seats.

We went to my Dad's house the first few days and Riley and Lincoln have so much fun! They were so excited to see Nani and Papa and ran around the house for hours, probably glad to be out of the car! My sisters are still at that age where they love playing with the kids so they spent a lot of time in the basement playing Barbies, instruments, playing doctor, etc. I love it because it gives me a little break and the kids have a blast.

That Saturday was Lincoln's 2nd birthday and Ty was really upset that he wasn't going to be with Lincoln so I told my Dad we wouldn't celebrate Lincoln's bday much because we would do it the following weekend when Ty was home. However, my dad made his famous donuts that I love (and the kids do too) we stuck a couple of candles in them and sang Happy Birthday. Not sure he knew what was going on. He looked a little confused!

That evening my G and G came over for a steak dinner and cake for Grandad's and Lincoln's birthdays. Lincoln's bday is the day before Grandad's. Lincoln was having so much fun with Grandad and actually sat still for a while on his lap!

My camera, unfortunately died, after my first day there so I don't have many pictures. These are all from my Dad's camera or Jori's. On Sunday we went to church with my Dad then went to Papa Vino's for lunch and to celebrate Mother's Day. Afterwards we went to Ty's family's house to hang out for a while. We were there a few hours then the whole incident with Riley and the ER happened so our stay was shorter than I was planning, but we're going back in two weeks.

After getting back from the ER with Riley we took off to my mom's because the kids needed dinner, I had to drop off Riley's prescription, and they needed to go to BED. This was the night Lincoln decided he was going to start climbing out of his pack-n-play. These 3 nights at my mom's were probably the most frustrating in a LONG time. It was taking him 1.5-2 hours to get Lincoln to bed because he kept getting up. I was NOT happy and I was exhausted. Thankfully my mom would take over and of course it only would take her 5 minutes to get him to sleep...what the heck?!!

It was so nice to be home and it was great to have a break from my everyday routine. The kids had so much fun with the family and I know after this next weekend (Memorial Day) we won't be home for a long time! Hopefully we'll have some visitors though instead.

Riley's new favorite thing to do: PUZZLES. She's good at them and it keeps her occupied for at least 10 minutes...that's a long time for her!

Cuddling with Gma, watching Veggie Tales and ready for bed!

West Virginia Roadtrip II

As I said, we woke up bright and early Tuesday morning. Riley and I let Ty get ready for his interview and we went down and ate breakfast. His interview was from 8am until 5 pm! A WHOLE day of sitting in a room interviewing with 5 or 6 different people. The CEO even flew in from PA for the interview! Once Ty left, Riley and I went back up to our room and watched cartoons, showered and got ready to hit the town. The had a "shuttle" back and forth to the city. I was glad not to be stuck in the hotel all day since Ty had the van. We went to the mall and shopped till we dropped!

In the mall elevator going to eat on the 3rd floor.

Once Ty got out of his interview we quick hopped into the van and drove an hour west (I think) to check out the "New River Gorge". It's a HUGE bridge, in fact the largest single arch bridge in the US and second in the world. It was an hour away, but it was great to check out the area for a while. Riley fell asleep in the car and we enjoyed the beauty. The pictures absolutely don't do it justice.

On our way to the New River Bridge.

Daddy and Ri walking to get a good view of the bridge.

Here it is! The sun was right in the way when we were taking pictures, but it was awesome nonetheless.

The New River. I've heard the white water rafting is awesome down there. I've only been once and loved it, so hopefully we'll get the chance to do it again.

On our way back we also stopped at this waterfall. It was called Kanawa Falls and it was beautiful as well. We walked all the way too it and Riley really enjoyed it:

This is the New River Dam (I think). I just loved the picture!

We got back after our normal dinner time, went back to the mall for a little more shopping and dinner then headed back to the hotel for what we thought would be an early night. Riley didn't agree. It took her until 10 again to fall asleep. It's hard to get her to sleep when we're laying next to her pretending to sleep.

The next morning we got up, went downstairs, ate breakfast then packed up. We wanted to go to a different part of the city to see if there was anyplace we would potentially live. I was nervous because before today I hadn't seen even one typical subdivision that I was hoping to see. I told Ty I couldn't even consider living here if I didn't see at least a few "normal" houses. Ones I could see us in. We drove around for 2.5 hours and found some beautiful homes and subdivisions, I was pleased so we took off for home. We were in the car that day for a total of 12 hours. Riley was a champ and only complained once saying "Mommy, my bottom hurts from sitting so long..." I told her mine did to :). We were all going a little crazy by the end of the drive, but I couldn't wait to get my littlest one from my mom. When we got to my mom's I about jumped out of the car before it had even stopped. I ran in the front door and I could tell he was happy to see me! Man I missed him! I'm glad we're all under one roof again. We got home, kids in bed then began to unpack...

As I said, she was going a little nutty by the end of the trip!

What's Goin' On?

A lot of things are changing around here and I'm not just talking about the leaves!

This past weekend I got the opportunity to leave the kids with Daddy and take off for the WHOLE weekend. Mandy, her sister, Jessie, and I went up to Traverse City for a "scrapbooking weekend" and met about 6 other women at Mandy's friends house to scrapbook. In other words we literally scrapbooked the whole weekend. Friday we did it from 5pm until 2 am (9 hours). Saturday from 8 am until 3am (19 hours) and Sunday from 8am until 1pm (5 hours). It may not sound fun to some of you, but we had a blast. I think my eyes were bleeding by the end of the weekend and my brain hurt from trying to be creative. But, other than that I had so much fun! Good thing for chocolate and Dr. Pepper! What a weekend of time with girlfriends can do to make you appreciate time with your husband and kids. I feel rejuvenated again! It was just what I needed. AND I got about 60 pages done in Lincoln's scrapbook. I'm almost caught up!

Other changes: A few months back Ty had interviewed for a job in West Virginia, he hadn't heard anything for a while so he assumed he hadn't gotten it. Then about a month later he heard from them and they wanted to do an over-the-phone interview. They said they'd be in touch. Anyways, 3 phone interviews later they decided to do a face-to-face interview. So they told Ty they would fly (or drive if we preferred) all of us down to West Virginia. This past Monday that's exactly what we did. We took the 7.5 hour journey down to the sticks...errrr, I mean beautiful hills, of West Virginia. We wanted to take both of the kids with us but knew it would be a VERY long trip if we did so we left Lincoln in the loving arms of his Grandma (my mom), Grandpa and Aunts. We knew he'd be very well taken care of and knew dealing with only one child on the long trip would be much easier!

Anyways, more about our trip in my next post...but if you think of it please pray for us that we make the right decision to take this job if Ty gets it and if it's where the Lord wants us to be that everything will work out. It's a great job, but it would be a BIG change for all of us; Ty would be working A LOT more than he is now, we'd be 8 hours from all of our family and friends, not to mention everything else that comes with moving hours away. Anyways, thanks for your prayers. We're suppose to find out Monday, so I'll keep you posted :).