New Beginnings

I feel like we've had too many "new beginnings" lately. I'm done with moving. I'm done with huge life challenges. I just want our happy little family to have a quiet few years. I feel optimistic that it will be that way here. We are really enjoying our new place and town although we do miss family. Vancouver seems really big to us. We've only gotten to know the NE side of it. We love our neighborhood and the kids have made lots of friends here. It is getting pretty normal to have up to 6 kids at our house and seems like every day there is a new kid to meet. I love it. I always wanted my house to be the meeting place of my kids' friends. I'm going to have to stock up on otter pops this summer for them! 

Ben is doing great at his new school, hasn't skipped a beat. He's made friends and likes playing basketball, soccer and TMNT at recess (he's Leonardo because he's the leader). H

is class just presented the cutest music program. I'm really impressed with the schools here. They have music and PE 2x a week and although he's in school until 3:35 and I miss him like crazy I know it's good for him. My little video game prodigy doesn't play video games during the week anymore, he's too busy playing with friends or at school or chillin' with his mama that he misses during the day. And it's not like I've restricted him, he just isn't interested. 

Casey is loving the neighborhood friends here too. He has loved having a sidewalk to ride his bike down when we go for walks. Where we lived before it was kinda in the country with no side walks. I do miss the quietness of our last house and hearing the frogs at night.  Casey and I have visited the local library here a few times, (the children's section has nothing on the Albany Public Library's children section) but they do have some fun stuff for him to explore.  We've played at the park down the street a lot and Casey likes to take walks through the dog park and pet all the dogs and play on the logs there. The other day I was getting his jammies on him and looked at his legs. All cut up, scraped and bruised with picked on scabs and dirty stinky feet - the sign of a happy boy. He plays hard. He's the opposite of Benny in that he's not cautious at all and he's a little clumsy. We checked out a coop Montessori Christian Preschool, sounded so great. And it was, I totally recommend Vancouver Downtown Coop Preschool. But it was like almost 20 min away and he would only be going 2 days a week and I would be going to help teach (which would have been fun) but all that plus the cost, it just made more sense to do it at home. So I've started planning a more routine "Mommy school" that will start officially when Bennett gets out of school. 

Jeff is trudging away at his job. It's quite different from his last. He's missing his friends at his last job although he's making new ones he doesn't work in the same office as them so it's tough. Also his trainer whose been training him for the last couple months got a new job and is leaving which makes Jeff really nervous since he hasn't learned everything yet. His trainer had 2 years of training. Jeff has had 2 months.  

Well it's about time we've gotten this blog updated. Hopefully I'll keep on top of it. I'll leave you with some pics. (I've already added all our Make a Wish Trip pics to our external hard drive so I don't have them on here.)