Apartment style gardening

We were excited to discover we had plenty of sun on our large balcony to grow a little garden this year. Ethan of course loves playing in the dirt, adding worms he finds to each pot, and pulling leaves off. He also really enjoys smelling the tomatoes--he loves tomatoes so I think he will be very excited to learn one of his favorite foods will start growing soon from his already lovely plant.

Frying Pan Farm Park

One of our first adventures here in Virginia has been to Frying Pan Farm Park. We went on our anniversary actually with Wendy and her kids (how romantic huh?) actually it couldn't have been better. The weather was perfect and the cows were super friendly. It is an old farm that was functional 80 years ago. The county bought it up and turned it into a park. I kept thinking of my Grandpa's farm and how his must have been similar. There are still lots of animals, a garden, a functioning smoke house, and even the cute farm house can be toured. It goes without saying: Ethan loved it...though I am not sure who enjoyed themselves more, Ethan or Craig. It's only about a 15 minute drive from us through the woods and it was pretty cool.

Here at last

What an adventure. The Marshall family has arrived in D.C. (well, Oakton to be specific) and what a blessing it is. I want to give a bit of a travel log to point out the blessings along our path.

A while ago Craig's parents came out to visit us while in Houston. We enjoyed the wonderful early spring Texas is usually graced with. We also went to what has been rated "the countries best children's museum" (some parenting magazine I get) while they visited which was great. Ethan loved it and we loved having them visit.

The next week we flew to Idaho to visit Grandma and Grandpa Rose. My younger brother Eric was also home on military leave from Iraq. By some crazy twist of fate our flight was delayed by two days in Salt Lake City. Who has ever heard of a two day delay for a domestic flight? My brother wasn't even delayed that much coming out of a war zone!!! Anyway it actually worked out great and we visited our dear friends the Luthy's. We counted it as an act of God because it was the only weekend that month they were in town and they are really our family we are just not related to. I wish I had taken pictures but when you are having so much fun the camera just doesn't seem to make it out of the bag. Well, we finally made it to Idaho. We were there for two weeks and loved it. We even got to go to Idaho Falls to see my Grandma. It was a wonderful trip and we were sad to leave...but we had big plans:)

Here we are celebrating Dad's 50th. Eric and Ben insisted on doing "heavy heavy hang over" with his new 100lb garden cart.

We got home from Idaho and started to get ready for our trek across the country. Yes. We drove with a teething 17 month old, over Easter, across the country. To our surprise our movers were able to pack our things two days early. The unexpected punctuality inspired us to leave a little early. Thank heavens we did. We were able to pass through Alabama just two days before the tornadoes struck. Had we left on schedule we would have been there in the middle of the disaster. We prayed each day for protection as we drove and we somehow made it across the country with nothing more than a cracked windshield. We spent Easter morning in Layafette Louisiana. Ethan enjoyed an Easter egg hung in our hotel suite and we even made an hour of church before hitting the road again.

We were able to stop in North Carolina for a couple days with Craig's family before our final journey to D.C. which was a nice break from the car. We made it here on a sunny Thursday afternoon, checked into our apartment and here we have sat since--enjoying our dinners around a diaper box waiting for our things to arrive. We have also visited Craig's sister in Arlington a few times which has been a nice distraction from our empty apartment.

In case you actually read the exciting travel log, you will notice things just worked out all along the way. We have been blessed a great amount. It sure didn't feel like it was working out when Ethan screamed for hours in the car or we sat in an airport at 5 a.m. being told we would sit there for two more days....but everything has worked out. We are here. We all lived. And I am so grateful for this opportunity. Moving is always kind of a chance to start over, meet new people, and resolve to never gather that much junk again. We have family who we love and are blessed enough to have them love us back. We have a Father in Heaven who listens to our prayers and guides us even when we don't realize it. We have amazing opportunities and potential here that I hope we live up to.

Here is a snapshot of our apt. (we are on the upper floor) We would love for friends and family to come visit us--and since DC is just a train ride away we could have lots of fun!

Big News!!!

We are moving to Virginia!

At the end of this week we are packing up for the trek across the country to the land of milk and honey...or just a job that requires significantly less travel for Craig! We are excited to have him home more often and though we will miss our pseudo vacations all around the country  with Craig's business trips, it will be nice to not fly so much--especially since we have to start paying for Ethan's tickets soon.

We are headed to Northern Virginia where Craig will work in Tyson's Corner for a company called Booz Allen Hamilton (a technology consulting firm). Still not sure where we will live...details, details....but we are working on that even as I type. We were able to visit D.C. last year around this time and it was a wonderful trip. We enjoyed the cooler weather and how beautiful it is. I am glad for the excellent school systems and wonderful historical sights. I love history and plan to visit as much as possible.

We are excited in many ways for the change but also sad to leave friends and familiarity behind. It's always hard to move (as a girl who never went to one school more than three years except BYU...I guess I am use to change) but we will learn and make it work. We had dinner last night with two other couples who moved to Houston from northern VA recently and wanted to tell us how wonderful it is there and how much they miss it.We have had amazing friends here and can't wait to make new friends in VA.

The Worlds Biggest Rodeo!

A big event for our family in March was the worlds largest rodeo. Held every year in Houston, the rodeo is a main attraction. Since we took the little man we decided to opt out of the official rodeo and concert enjoying instead the carnival, live stock show...and trust me, a ton of other events. Ethan especially enjoyed the petting zoo and birthing center. We saw baby deer, kangaroos, the cutest rabbits ever, and the famous Texas long horn among many others. Ethan even enjoyed riding on the back of a friendly alpaca. It was a blast and my animal loving husband and son were in heaven.

Ethan's first camping trip!

We love to camp. Unfortunately Ethan hasn't had a chance until recently but it was a blast! We went to a state park outside of Houston (about an hour out) with some friends from church. Ethan until this point had been crawling only. We knew he was capable of walking since he has been climbing all the furniture but just being his stubborn little self about getting off of all four. Until the great camping trip! He isn't the biggest fan of being dirty--I know, lucky mom:) and so he decided to start walking rather than crawling in the dirt. Since then the walking has definitely been on the up! Anyway, back to camping.....

Because the great state of Texas (that's the official name of the lone star state for those of you who don't know) has suffered a drought this year--funny since I remember several flooding incidents--we had a fire ban. Instead of roasting those delicious mallows over an open fire we used our "propane accessories". It was wonderful to see stars again. We must have heard every bird in the state bright and early which should please most campers but is sometimes annoying to those of us who are not morning people! We even heard a hoot owl and a rooster....not to mention a few car alarms and the boy scouts just down the road.

 

(Ethan learning to walk on Daddy and Daddy falling through his 3rd camp chair)

The next day we took Ethan on his first official hike....which hilariously wound it's way around a perfectly manicured golf course. It was still pretty though and the river and scent of the wild onions was refreshing. Ethan enjoyed watching the potato bugs crawl in the dirt and birds flying through the trees. I think he especially enjoyed the other baby who came with her parents. He loves to give her kisses and spent a good part of his morning following her around simply to kiss her and show off his cool belly button.

Finding a healthy balance for an unbalanced family

Lately I have been thinking about the food we eat. This is not very common for me because I have always been of the attitude that eating is a waste of time--other than the whole survival issue. Now as a mother to a 17 lb 1 and half year old lagging behind in the -6 percentile I find my own food issues hitting me harder. We have also discovered recently that Craig has fairly high cholesterol (a family trait I would wager since he eats pretty well and exercises often). I cannot be left out of this equation either. After nursing Ethan for a year I dropped quite a bit of weight without really realizing it. Down to the "freak out level" as the Dr. calls it--a battle I have fought my whole life.

 

So, with mom and baby working to gain weight and dad working to level out to a healthy cholesterol we are kind of stuck at evening dinners. Lunch is where we try to really divide. Craig has gone vegetarian for lunches while me and Ethan have ice cream and cookies for lunch--not really but we do always follow up with a treat which of course kills Craig, the one member of our family who actually enjoys eating. I just can't figure out how to do dinner other than make two dinners. Me and Ethan need all the butter and protein we can get, while Craig needs vegetables! If anybody has any ideas we would love to hear them!

Luckiest Girl in the World

I must be the luckiest girl in the world. I got to spend Valentines with two special boys. I know Valentines is kind of a cheesy holiday...and most men truthfully hate it, but I like the excuse to get treated a little extra special.

The smaller of the two boys especially enjoyed the stuffed animals and balloons at every store we went to:)

funny dreams and baby diapers

I have always had very vivid and sometimes telling dreams. My brother is always jealous of my action packed "save the world" dreams that last all night and often pick up where they left off the next night. A few days ago I had a dream that as usual seamed very real.

As a brief background to this dream--I was reading about the harm disposable diapers do to our environment. I read it takes over 500 years for one disposable diaper to decompose and then thought about all the hundreds of diapers we have already added. From that thought I began remembering the hippy movies I was forced to watch as a child in my Flagstaff, AZ elementary school where we learned in just a few short years the entire earth would be nothing but a landfill.

Anyway, all that said....I had a dream that we decided to go to cloth diapers. It was genius. The diapers were soft, cute, and we were saving the earth. In my dream I changed the first yucky diaper only to find the mess was worse than usual. As soon as I got the diaper off, our one cloth diaper multiplied into 15 more that I was then responsible for washing. The mess was out of control. My hands were suddenly covered with nastiness and I decided in my dream at that moment our new cloth diapers were about to be turned into disposable.

As much as we would like to save the earth...it may not be happening.

Favorite pass times in the Marshall house

We have had some uncomfortably cold weather here in the "great state of Texas" recently. As a result we have had to seek refuge and entertainment inside (an unfortunate and highly unusual course in the winter here).

When we did have power last week we all enjoyed playing the Wii. The family favorite seems to be the obstacle course because Ethan can participate. We hold him while dodging balls and jumping over moving platforms. He really gets into it especially when Mommy is beating Daddy.

Another activity that Ethan and Craig have enjoyed since Christmas is the remote control helicopter that Santa brought. Ethan loves it when it crashes--he crawls as fast as his little booty can get him there, snatches it up, and insists on giving it to Mommy rather than Daddy. Not really sure why--because Mommy then gives it to Daddy who controls take off. It has been fun and Ethan enjoys the rainbow lights it makes as it flies just out of reach of his sticky little fingers.

A new toy added to Ethan's growing collection this weekend is a walker toy. We are hoping to inspire him to start walking soon--Mommy's back needs this child to walk--and it seems to be fun. He laughs and laughs as he runs pushing this little thing into the wall. Then he gets really mad because he can't turn around, so one of us turns him around and he continues running and laughing into the opposite wall. We all enjoy it and hope that soon it will equal walking.

We are not the most exciting family on earth by any stretch of the imagination, but we manage to have a good time.