All Done Settling In?

Greeting everyone- we are wrapping our first weekend that was not dominated by "settling in".  Don't get me wrong now.  There was a little picture hanging going on but otherwise, we kind of just enjoyed it.  

We are supposed to have an extra wet winter this year and I think it is already starting.  We had rain last weekend and yet another softball practice rained out on Tuesday.  Mom kind of hates to say this because we have had such a drought for the last few years, but she is kind of tired of the wet.  We did eventually dry out and cool way off this week and ended up with an amazing week/weekend weather wise.  We even broke out the jackets for our morning commute.

So, we have discovered a small downside to our big oak trees.  Remember the acorns I talked about last week?  Well, they are coming down by the millions now.  All night long.  It's gotten so bad that mom is now sleeping in the guest room.  She and I spent Saturday morning raking up the millions on the ground and now we wait for the millions yet to fall.  Maybe next year, we hire a landscaper for a few weeks.......

On Friday, my school had our Grandparents Day.  We have it every two years and this year Grandpa Vern was able to make it.  We had such fun together and only caused a little bit of trouble.  Because that is what Grandpa and I do together.

Friday night, mom and dad headed out to see Phantom of the Opera and my favorite preschool teacher came over to babysit.  She helped mom out by taking a few acorns for her preschool class and also by making me work on my book report.  Apparently there are certain advantages to having a teacher do the babysitting.

Saturday night, I had my softball games.  Dad has been assistant coaching this year but Saturday, the head coach couldn't be there so dad took over the duties.  Unfortunately, we couldn't deliver him a win on either game.  He did point out that we weren't shut out.  So there's that.

On Sunday, dad and Mr. Mike went mountain biking so Madeline came over for a while.  Mom made us go out for a bike ride because it was such a beautiful day.  Our neighborhood really does it up for Halloween so we stopped by one of the better places.  It's "The Pirate House"!  The home owners spent weeks getting this ready and it's looking pretty spectacular.

Then we rode over to say hi to the donkey we named Eeyore.  We brought him some carrots, which he very much appreciated.

We are wrapping up our weekend watching Jurassic World 3D and getting ready for the week.  We are off to Disneyland for Halloween next Friday!

Slumber Parties AAAAAND More Settling In.

Well.  This was an awesomely exhausting weekend for me.  We had fall break from school this weekend so we only had school for a half day Wednesday and we were off Thursday and Friday.  I went to my friend Lily's house Wednesday after school so I didn't have to hang out at mom's work.  I wasn't quite so lucky on Thursday and ended up having to go with her for a half day.  At least I was constructive and got a bunch of homework done.  I was rescued for the afternoon by my best friend Claire's birthday party.  Mom took me to her house over her lunch hour and I proceeded to have the greatest time with some super fun girls.  You may remember the hugely awesome water slide from their party last year- and it was back!  It was a little chilly this year because it was rainy but we had a good time anyway.

Mom picked me up from that party about 10 which was just enough time for me to take a much needed nap before I headed out to my second slumber party.  This party was equally as fun and the girls were equally as awesome.  At this party, we stayed up until 2 AM and were up and running at 7. The moms were super excited about that!  In this picture, I'm the one in the middle on my iPod.  Mom asked why I was on my iPod when all my friends were clearly not.  I said we were googling ways to get to sleep because none of us was tired.......

We were super busy too- we picked and carved pumpkins, made halloween masks and colored aprons. Mom picked me up from this party about 10 as well and I came home and crashed for 3 hours and then asked to go to bed early.  Imagine that.  I was supposed to have two softball games but they got cancelled because of rain and that was very, very good thing.  I would have been a wreck out there.

While I was away partying, mom and dad were busy still settling in some more.  Dad did take a break though to enjoy the cooler fall weather on our patio.

They also bought some more furniture to almost finish off our project room.  They bought what we are calling our "Bavarian Beer Hall Table".  It a big, heavy, solid wood table with two benches- perfect for drinking beer and eating bratwurst.  We ate out lunch on it today and loved it.  This room is almost done, all but two of the boxes are done and we just have pictures to hang.  It really feels like home now!

 We finally made to "the club" for dinner tonight.  Our neighborhood has a semi-private club and restaurant and I have been dying to go to "the club" ever since we moved in.  The food is OK and it makes for a nice family night out so it was a nice way to end our weekend.

 On a non-related note, mom and dad have been hearing random things dropping on our roof and rolling around in the middle of the night.  They couldn't figure out what is was- maybe an owl or squirrel dropping stuff and running around.  After some investigating, they decided in was acorns.  We have 6 huge oak trees on our property so we have lots of acorns to spare.  It is amazing how much noise this little thing can make.  And they only seem to drop at 2AM- isn't that fun??!

Hope everyone has a fabulous week!

The Man Cave

We continue with the settling in process.  People seem to be impressed at how fast we are getting unpacked but it is seeming like an eternity to us.  We still have a few boxes left but we need to get some bookshelves to have places to put things so that is mom's excuse for not finishing that up.  Dad has been working hard though and got his Man Cave all set up and even mom has to admit she likes it.  Dad is pretty psyched because he used to have just a closet and now he has a whole big room.

While dad was working away at that, I was busy playing with my friend Lily who came over for a bit on Sunday and mom was busy puttering around in the kitchen.  Even though it is still 95 degrees here, she was in a fall mood and was craving apple pie so she hauled out her trusty apple pie recipe (the one in her head) and got to baking.  It looks pretty good, we'll see how it tastes.

So, even though it is still fairly warm during the day, the early evenings are beautiful.  AND the golf course is closed for re-seeding so we took advantage and headed out on our bikes to ride the cart path.  ( Our new house is in a golf course neighborhood).  It was a gorgeous night and we saw a huge blue heron and several coyotes just lounging around on the golf course.  It was a great ending to a good, productive weekend.

More Settling In

Every week seems to get a little bit better- we have most of the boxes unpacked and we have settled back into a routine.  If you know anything about mom, she likes her routine!

We started last week with a bang.  On Sunday, our neighbor down the street had a "Supermoon Eclipse" party and it was totally fun.  He lives on the 16th green of the golf course, so while the adults were doing adult things, a bunch of us kids were running around on the golf course with our flash lights, playing games and just generally being kids.  It was exactly the kind of thing we moved into this neighborhood for.  We were completely exhausted the next day, which unfortunately was Monday, but we soldiered through the day and went to bed early and woke up Tuesday feeling fresh and bright.

I had a surprise softball game on Thursday and it was ugly.  We lost 19-1 and I stunk it up on the pitcher's mound.  But in my defense, all of our pitchers stunk it up and the other team was really, really good.  

We got that night out of the way and on Friday, we headed up to Pine Top for the Tour of the White Mountains mountain bike race.  We met Nana D, Mr. Walker, my friend Madeline and her parents, Mike and Audrey up there.   After years of watching the dad's do the racing, the mom's decided to give it a go this year too.  While most of the group was doing the 35 miler, Ms. Audrey and mom suffered through the 9 miler.  It sounds like the 35 miler was really rough and bumpy and everyone came back from that ride a little worse for the wear.  The 9 miler was just enough for the newbies.  While the adults were out burning up the trails, there was a pack of us girls running amok and having a great time.  We even found someone with a parrot who was willing to let us walk around with it on our shoulders.  We all had a great time and everyone came out relatively unscathed.

We are looking forward to a relatively relaxing week and it should be good!  Have a great week!