Gabriel's birthday adventure

We are so glad to have some family somewhat nearby (about a 2.75 hour drive). A second cousin of mine Matt and his wife Karolina with their three boys Gavin, Gabriel and Greyson. We got to spend some time with them to celebrate Gabriel's 2nd birthday and visit the zoo.

We put all the kids in the wind tunnel (minus baby Greyson), it was awesome!

The boys are big train fans so we found a duplo Thomas set for Gabriel that was a hit.

Big brother Gavin came over to blow out the candle.

Jaydon turns 9!

Our boy is 9! His last year in single digits, where does the time go!?! He is a great kid. He loves sports, school, reading (Calvin and Hobbes is now a favorite), his family (though he is good at fighting with his sisters at times), traveling, swimming (now that we entered the land of warmth and pools everywhere, games (his cribbage skills are getting really good and he will beat my dad on many an occasion), playing with friends, his Xbox (sports games) and watching sports on tv (still Seahawks and Mariners fans here in the land of San Fran fans).

Birthday morning, getting ready for school

Opening presents in the evening

Sweet kiddo getting sister hugs

And of course since we discovered the awesome ice cream place we had to take a birthday trip.

They had him stand on his seat and sang to him (the video was more than 15 seconds so I couldn't post it here).

We are proud of our young man and look forward to seeing everything he accomplishes as he continues to grow and learn.

Moving to CA

Our move to CA was not as easy as we hoped. There were many snafu's with the relo company and then we had a couple challenges when we first arrived. As you saw in the previous post Kate came down with a high fever and some vomiting before we left NC. She was such a trooper traveling while sick. Once we landed in Sea, I took all three kids with me to a hotel and Jeremy headed up to my Mom's house (he was getting some sleep, picking up Lily and the other stuff we left at my Mom's, then loading his car and making the 13 hour drive to our new home). I was then flying with the kids the next day to Sac and getting the rental car and then seeing our house for the first time. Kate still had a fever when we woke up, but we were able to stay on top of it for the most part with meds. The rental car was only reserved in Jeremy's name (more relo company awfulness) so we had to wait for awhile and deal with that (thankfully we got a car). Then we arrived at the new house and were so excited. Our realtor soon arrived and gave us the keys. The kids and I walked/ran around the house checking it out, when we got to the garage disaster hit. A large storage cupboard 6.5' x 4' fell on Kate (it was not stable and as soon as she just opened a door by the handle it fell. We are so fortunate she somehow got fairly low to the ground so when it hit her it caused her head to smack into the ground on one side and the cupboard itself smacked into the back of her head. I immediately had to look up the nearest urgent care on my phone and haul all 3 kids to the Dr. they immediately sent us on to the nearest ER. Jeremy was still driving down from WA and was able to get to the ER at the time we finished. So we had literally been in our house for less than 20 minutes and I didn't know a single soul before this mess. Other than some really bad bruising and eventual black eye Kate was ok! I left the cupboard where it was on the floor of the garage (this was Tuesday afternoon) our furniture was supposed to arrive Wed, but it didn't, we didn't actually get our furniture until Saturday and it was when the movers arrived and lifted that cupboard up we saw the hole in it. That hole was 1/2 inch above the locked in place shelf, it still makes me a little shaky to think about it but we were 1/2 inch from a much more dire outcome.We kept anticipating the movers each day so it got a little boring hanging out in a vacant house with a sick Kate (she still had a fever and in fact on Friday I took her to the Dr. we found out she had a UTI and needed meds), we did spend the nights in a hotel but Lily had to stay at the house and the kids school is next door so we hung out at the house most of the days. Another bit of disappointing news, the kids school is year round and when I went in to register them Wed found out Jaydon would be on one track (that was in session) and Lucy would be in class that was off track so she would be home for another 3.5 weeks and then Jaydon would be home for 3 weeks. It was an insane start but we survived!

Excitedly taking some pictures in front of our new house before the realtor showed with the keys to get us in.

The terrifying cupboard (Kate is still afraid of cupboards and will bring up this incident in Dec)

Picture after leaving the ER, she still manages to have a little smile!

Fever and head wound won't slow this girl down all the time, she is still a smiley happy kiddo, we are so blessed!

Jaydon's first day of 3rd Grade! Driving from the hotel in the morning above pic and standing in front of his classroom door with a fun sign from his new teacher (who is awesome) in the below pic.

Poor girl, sick and not feeling well in her vacant room

Lily was a champ hanging out in a vacant house with us not being there at night. She even put up with the kids playing with her quite a bit when we were around.

 

We definitely deserved a treat so we found a local ice cream shop, it is pretty amazing!

Fever never really went away but it was back at 104+ when we decided to take her into the Dr.

The awesome part of our new neighborhood - we met the neighbors right next door and they have a 3rd grade boy and a 1st grade girl. Their girl was having a birthday party that weekend and they invited us over for it. We enjoyed being able to hang out, enjoy some wonderful food and the kids got to swim in the pool.

Kate's owie fading a bit but still with a smile on her face.

When we finally got our boxes the girls got to unpack two bins of brand new to them toys that Sarah Angelos gave us before we left. It was amazing and so nice that they were able to have these to keep them entertained while I was trying to unpack.