National Air and Space Museum

This memorial day we had a chance to go to the National Air and Space Museum with Wendy (Craig's sister) and her kids. It was great. Ethan loved it to say the least. He slept for the drive over and woke to see his favorite cousin Callan smiling over his stroller. That was enough to make his afternoon but when he realized we were going to see hundreds of airplanes he couldn't contain himself. He laughed and pointed up at all the airplanes the entire visit.  We thought he would enjoy the museum but we had no idea how much!

A funny quark

Ethan has a collection of funny quarks, but here is one that just makes me laugh. To start, he loves his blankie. He doesn't love to to just cuddle with it though, he loves to rip holes in it and tear the batting out. Then he loves to rub the fuzz all over his face while he sucks his thumb. I have recently noticed he has a hard time doing all the little boy things he loves to do with one hand holding a ball of fuzz and the other thumb in his mouth so his solution has been to store a ball of fuzz in his ear. This way he has at least one hand free but has his "blankie" of sorts ready just an ears shot away.

Here is a little bit of Ethan being Ethan. Diapers come off faster than they go on around here and poor blankie is always being torn to shreds. 

It's a........well, it's not a duck!

We are having a baby! 

I am due October 6th...of course always give or take:) Today was our big ultrasound to find out the gender but our little one was shy and didn't want to give out the surprise. We are kind of assuming it's a girl because we never saw any evidence of a boy, but the baby also never opened it's legs at all! I walked the halls a couple times to get this child to move around but we have a stubborn little baby apparently! So I guess we are going the old fashion route because the technician said she simply couldn't tell us! The important news is everything looked healthy and we are very excited.

Here is a shot of our beautiful/handsome baby:)

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!