Nerves!

Things are wrapping up with the house, but I am so flipping nervous it is driving me insane.  I am stressed that the finishes we've picked will look terrible, anxious about moving again and when we will close and most of all I am really nervous closing.  The what ifs have me stressed to the max and the fear our loan for some reason wont go through is gut wrenching.  I need these next few weeks to fly by!

On a good note, things are finally moving again.  Those dang drywall guys sure do take their sweet @$$ time.  But, it was painted yesterday and when I did a drive by earlier today the cabinets had been delivered and are sitting in the garage.  Our appliances also arrived and are sitting @ Sears waiting for the builder to pick them up!

Avery is finally back into her own routine after our visit to Wasilla.  She is going through a couple of obnoxious phases that both Sam and I hope will pass quickly! Repeating, not in the "that is a new word and still learning way".  She has been speaking in full sentences since the beginning of this year.  Now she is just repeating me and I am not really sure why.  When I ask her to stop repeating me she gets upset and yells either; "Stop repeating ME!" or "I am not repeating you!".  She also has become SUPER physical. She is constantly jumping on us and rough housing.  It is fine when we are playing with her, but it is constant.  So I am trying real hard to keep her engaged, but it is a full time job to keep this girl occupied!  Needless to say, preschool this September cannot come soon enough!

KNOCK ON WOOD, but I think potty training has finally clicked!  Our fingers are crossed, but she is finally letting me know BEFORE she needs to pee that she needs to go.  "My butt" is code for I need to pee and "My tummy" is when she needs to poop.  Not sure where she got this, but she obviously is under the impression she pees from her butt, but whatever she is making it into the toilet.  I wont bother confusing her with an anatomy lesson at the moment ;) 

Just Some Pictures

Playing outside!

Making Grandpa do the hard part ;)

Evan teeing up!

Lillian "cheering" on her big bro!

Lillian looking adorable and Avery being Avery.

Avery getting into Lillian's bubble.

Clapping for the golfers.

Avery wanted to try out some golf.  She DOES NOT have the patience required for this sport!

Kooka teaching Avery naughty habits!

Running in to the sprinkler!

Belly bumping.

Cuties

Avery making a BIG bubble!

Kooka & Avery @ the reindeer farm.

low tiding @ Auke Rec

This morning I wasn't up for going big, but didn't want to waste the lowest tide of the month when it was at a convenient time for us.  So we walked across the street to Auke Rec.  Great decision!  Either I am getting better at spotting critters or everything was out and about!  We saw LOTS of crabs, these eel looking things, lots of sea stars, a couple sun stars, hermit crabs, clams, sea urchins, and even a few anemones!

A REALLY big sea star.

A big shy hermit crab and a brave itty bitty hermit crab that Avery spotted!

 A clam.

Sea Urchins.

Baby Sea Star.

A smaller green anemone.

The blob. Anemone.

After we poked it.

A video of another anemone as we irritated it.

I am not sure what this is.  Maybe an eel?

Crabs.

 A video of a crab.

 A sun star.

We are trying to teach Avery about the difference between low and high tides.  This is mainly so when we go to the beach and it is high to mid tide she isn't upset that the sea stars are not visible.  She is having a lot of fun finding things and learning.  We are so lucky to be living in such a neat place and we are truly falling in love.  We miss CO a lot, but we couldn't have landed in a better spot.

where has May gone?

We have been more than a little busy recently!  This weekend we moved out of the Fritz Cove Rd house and into a furnished place up near Auke Rec.  All our stuff had to go into storage.  We got really lucky and a storage unit opened up just in time.  I spent all week toting boxes along with Avery in my Subaru. I managed to get everything but the big furniture and stuff coming with us to the apartment moved.  I am a moving rock star, but am seriously ready to be DONE MOVING!  I just have about a car load of groceries and some cleaning left to do.  I have a 2 month break until the next move...

I went and bought our appliances on Saturday!  It is done and they will arrive June 27. Sears will hold them if our builder isn't ready for them yet.  I got a deal with the Memorial Day sale and was so happy to know that Sears here honored the online prices!  I saved a whopping $2,351.22 from the said prices vs this weekends sale prices.

Sam turned 30 today!  We celebrated by going to lunch at our favorite place, The Island Pub and hanging out at the beach.  The porpoise were showing off this morning.  I tried real hard to get a decent picture, but they move so fast.  There were at least 20 of them screwing around really close to shore.  It was nuts!  We love our new temporary rental!  Just a stones throw from our favorite beach :)

Below are a few photos I took at the beach.

Avery posing with her "stick"!

Avery spotted a sun star.

Wilson loving life.

Eagle spying on us.

Man swimming with the porpoises.

Avery ready to go...

Barn Yard Fun!

Today was Family Farm Day at Swampy Acres.  Swampy's is a local barn and they have all sorts of animals!  Avery got to see piglets, baby chicks, ducklings, miniature horses, baby bunnies, a goat, peacocks and lots of chickens.  She had a blast.  She took three turns on the pony rides and did so great.  I was shocked how well she did.  She let the people running the show put her helmet on and put her on and take her off the horses and I wasn't allowed to go with so she went around the arena on the horse without me.  For my little "stranger danger" child this is pretty huge.  Maybe it was the excitement of the horse back ride or she is just growing up really fast.  I so wished Sam could have been there to see how brave she was. We might have a horse gal on our hands...

Riding a horse!

Holding a baby chick!

back at it...

Well, I am finally going to say it out load. I am running again.  I actually have a couple of friends here doing it with me so that definitely keeps me going!  I don't know how, but I am actually in pretty good shape (I definitely don't look it though!) and can easily run for an hour strait.  I have done that solo a couple of times now, but usually we are running a little over 4 miles on a great paved trail.  Our options are a little limited with the strollers to deal with.  My friend is awesome and shows up even when it is pouring rain, which means the WORLD to me. It is so nice to have that extra motivation to get your butt moving and has been my vise since my retirement from swimming.  Avery has also been doing pretty good.  She does get bored and my phone isn't always a great distraction, but she hasn't totally lost her cool (knock on wood).  Of course I'd rather run without her, but that is not always an option. I have been at it about 6 weeks now so I went ahead and bought a new app to start tracking my speed and distance.  I usually just guesstimate, but this app seems super cool. ismoothrun I hope it is as good as it's reviews.  It is silly, but I am looking forward to this afternoon to use it for the first time!

Other than that things are just chugging along.  Avery's last day at nursery school was yesterday.  She will just have her gymnastics through the summer and then she will begin preschool twice a week in addition to her gymnastics in September.  She is super talkative and recently gotten EXTREMELY stubborn.  She is 25 lbs and insists on wearing a princess dress at all times.  But, so far obeys the rule that we must get dressed in real clothes to leave the house.

The house is also moving along.  The shower has been installed in the master bath, the tub is now in the other bath, 3 of 4 sides of the house have siding up, the roof has been completely shingled, the side door and main doors are installed, all windows are installed, the electricity is in and hot, garage floor is in and all the insulation in stacked up in the garage ready to be put in as well.  Things are going quick.  I was more than a little irritated to see they installed recessed lighting in my dining room.  Sam and I just decided to cancel the order of the awesome pendant light we had ordered and go with it rather than make them change it. We should be appliance shopping next weekend! Along with moving out of our current rental and into a nice little temporary rental until the house is done.  Which to me seems like they really might be done by the beginning of July!

funny, but seriously gross

The other day Sam, Avery and I went to the mall to look at stuff.  We went to the outdoor gear store and were wandering around. Avery is particularly naughty in this store.  Too much stuff to hide in and play in I guess.  Anyway, she was following me around and I saw her pick up what I thought was just a tag that had fallen off something.  I noticed a lady starring at her and not a nice stare, a what the heck is wrong with that kid and her parents stare.  Then, Avery looks up at me "Mommy look, look I have glasses like you!".  She had a hygienic liner sticker stuck across her eyes.  I almost peed my pants.  So creative and freaking disgusting at the same time.  I was embarrassed so I ripped the sticker off her face, but I really wanted to take a picture.  Fingers are crossed she doesn't contract an STD in her eye.

Overcast, but not raining!

 

Lucky us! It stopped raining long enough for us to get out on a short walk and play date at our favorite park! After this stretch of rain people all over town have been calling this "springtober". October being notoriously the ABSOLUTE shittiest month in weather terms here in Juneau.

Sun is in the forecast! Let's hope the forecasters are correct because we need it!

One of my favorites to date :)

Avery fell asleep in the car after nursery school last Thursday (5/3), so I decided to just drive around rather than going home right away.  I was going to just do a drive by of our house in progress, but I saw something strange up ahead and wanted to check it out.

This is what I saw.

Some kind of weird lighting right?  Look at the the trees right in front of me.  Is that a rainbow?  So I drove on past our new street and decided to drive up to Mendenhall Lake and check it out.

A neat, super low rainbow.  I wish I had had my camera to photograph it, my phone just doesn't do it justice.  It was spectacular and the lighting was simply awesome.  It was mostly cloudy this day, but I saw 2 more rainbows from different areas of town on the same day.  It has literally been raining ever since.  

The rain has been beyond depressing this round and I am looking forward to moving on and out of this cold, dark and damp rental. We have just 17 more nights left in this place!