Apple Picking

A few weeks after we moved in, Luke's parents and Grandma Martha drove up from Virginia to visit us at the end of September. We strolled downtown Saratoga on Friday night and Saturday we went apple picking at an orchard near the Vermont border. It was a pretty drive and the leaves had just barely started to change color. We were blessed with beautiful fall weather and had a fun weekend together!

A few family pictures at the Orchard. It was our first time ever picking apples so it was a lot of fun! We also got cider donuts and apple cider and let the boys go in a bouncy house. A fun and memorable way to start off the fall season!

Ava Updates: 2-4 months

It's been awhile since I've done an update on Ava so here's a fast forwarded version...

6 weeks old

At 6 weeks old she was giving us lots of smiles and was still a very happy content baby. She has this laugh (and cry) that doesn't seem to go through her vocal chords or something, it's so soft and muted. That's the most comments I get from people- that she has the most gentle and soft cute cry, but I think her laugh sounds like an old lady ;)

12 weeks- just under 3 months

I'm sad to realize I have very few pictures of Ava at 3 months since we were so busy with moving! This one above was taken in the hotel while we were house hunting in NY for a weekend. It's funny to me now that I have a picture of her smiling because I can only remember her crying that weekend. Luke and I were convinced Ava hated New York because she was miserable the whole trip. Maybe travelling threw her off a bit, but at least she slept on the flights- her first time flying!

14 weeks (3 months old)

These two pictures were taken on moving day, as we were leaving Colorado. For all that was going on she was a happy baby again, back to normal, and so patient! Thank goodness, or I don't know how I would've survived that time. I love looking back and seeing these gummy smiles and big eyes! She started squealing and cooing more at us around this time too.

Sometime between the week that we moved out of Colorado mid-August to the time we moved into our house in the beginning of September, Ava seemed to grow a ton. I remember noticing a little each day how she seemed to be changing and growing and I would feel sad like I was too busy and already missing it. I still see her as my little baby but it's interesting noticing those slight changes as they grow before your eyes.

 Me and Ava spending time together on the boys first day of school, trying out her exersaucer.

 Once we finally got settled in our house I could start to get Ava on a normal sleep schedule in the day and at night in her crib. I was happy to see she was like my boys and could be put down in her crib and put herself to sleep without crying! So now she sleeps through the night in her crib, I feed her early in the morning and then she sleeps again until late morning, sometimes noon. This is the only way she can get a day nap in, since the afternoons are spent driving around running errands and she has a hard time staying asleep in her car seat. 

As much as I would like Ava to be on a normal nap schedule, it's been hard with Blake needing to get to preschool mid-day. So once we finally get home by 3:30 there were times Ava was so wiped out she'd fall asleep where she was placed. [The phase didn't last long, as now she usually needs to go down in her crib to sleep for a nap in the late afternoon.] I love finding her asleep though because she looks so sweet, and reminds me more of Luke with her eyes closed too.

  

 I also realized after we moved in that I hadn't put Ava down for tummy time in awhile, so I was pleased to see that out of nowhere she could suddenly hold her head well and accidentally started rolling over onto her back too (9/19)! The boys found this very entertaining and love playing with her on the floor and providing her toys.

9/21- First rice cereal

We also finally got Ava on track with eating rice cereal. I feel like this is a hard transition for me, since I find nursing so easy, it's hard for me to remember to take time to sit her down to feed her too! But she loves to be fed and always gets upset when she's done because she wants more! So I'm trying to be better about making sure she gets enough food!

4 months old

Ava is growing so fast but even as I look back and remember what a busy time this has been, I have always felt Ava was such a blessing and I'm so glad that she was already a part of our family while we have made this big transition. She really has been the center of delight and joy in our home! I'm glad she has still stayed my little baby but I'm excited to see her grow up more!

New School Year

This school year has brought on a lot of firsts, especially for Jacob. Jacob is in first grade this year and not only was he starting a new school in a new state, but since he had half day kindergarten in Colorado, this was also his first time attending school full day- unlike all his classmates who attend full day kindergarten here. 

Jacob was feeling understandably nervous about starting school somewhere new and having to make new friends, and then feeling sad about missing his old friends. He also had an extra long summer and was a little out of practice with reading and writing and was nervous about the work load getting harder with full day. Or maybe it was just me that was nervous, but either way, it was a big transition. 

Luke gave Jacob a blessing the night before school started and he seemed very grateful for the prayer on his behalf. It made us all feel better, and we were grateful that we were at least mostly settled in our home, and knew that he would be ok. We had gone to the school and already met his teacher- Mrs. Spoor- and Jacob was brave and confident about where he needed to go and what to do. 

1st Day of School 9/9/15: Jacob (1st) & Blake (Pre-K)

It is nice that the bus stop is right next door, at our neighbor Chloe's house. She is in kindergarten and quickly became friends with Jacob and Blake, so that has been a blessing too that they have a friend right next door. It was Jacob's first time riding a bus to school but he was excited about this part. He went off for school without a problem, and came home happy too!

Blake also started preschool at the Saratoga YMCA on the same day. We moved in too late to get him in the free program, or into the Wilton Y that is closer to us. I also had a hard time letting go of the perfect setup he would've had in Colorado, where I had gotten him signed up for the free preschool program at Jacob's elementary school in the neighborhood. But I've learned to settle and accept that things are different here and it's been a fun preschool for him.  

He attends school in the afternoon on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 12:30-3:00. After the first week, I signed him up for an additional afternoon class on Tuesday and Thursdays from 1-3 so that he could attend school every day, and this second class is specifically designed to be smaller and really prepare for Kindergarten- which Blake desperately needed. I have not regretted it since the first day. The teachers are wonderful and very positive, and Blake has grown and improved so much! [The first day in this class he didn't even know how to hold a pencil and was resistant and stubborn. After 4 months, he can now write his name, and can identify and write all his letters. This was a big deal!] So even though it's been a small sacrifice to drive 20 minutes to take him to school every day, it has been worth it and I'm so glad he's been enjoying preschool!

While the one class focuses more on academics, his other preschool class is fun and has field trips every month, swimming lessons every Wednesday, and other neat activities like learning Spanish and crafts. Since they don't offer transportation, Ava and I have tagged along to each of the field trips as well, so that's been fun! His first field trip in September was to the Horse Racing Museum, which followed with a picnic in Congress Park. 

 Here is him starting swim classes. With 22 kids in the class there are only 4 boys! 

While it's nice to be able to run errands and have time with just Ava while the boys are at school, I miss having them around more, and the days when we could just relax at home. So when we got a day off school shortly after school started, I was happy to spend some time with them, enjoy the warm fall weather, and I took the boys to hang out at Saratoga Lake- a favorite spot now. 

So proud of my boys for adjusting so well into their new routines- Luke and I love watching them grow! We're off to a great start for a big year!

Our Big Move

** So I have disappeared from the blog for the last several months, but I have a good excuse. We unexpectedly and suddenly moved to Saratoga Springs, New York! It has been a whirlwind of busy, but as I'm finally getting settled it's time for me to get caught up! I want to be able to go back and recap everything that has happened but stay in chronological order for my own sanity, so even though I have a lot to catch up on I'll do my best to recap the crazy last few months!**


   To start- I'll explain how this move came about. It was June 9 when I was sitting at swimming lessons during the second week of summer break when I get an email from Luke, who was away on business, and he said he just became aware of this controller position opening in Saratoga Springs, and he was pretty sure he could get it. The person who currently held the position was our friend from Denver- Luke had filled his job in Denver when his family moved to New York, and they went to church with us and so we had kept in touch. They were moving back to Denver now and though we had never considered moving to NY before, it suddenly seemed like it might be just the thing that Luke had been looking for. Even though Luke currently had a great manager position, Luke felt like it was time for him to move on and gain some additional experience.
   Ten days later Luke officially applied for the position and they immediately contacted him and did a phone interview, and flew him out for a face interview the following Monday. Exactly one month from when the idea of this started, Luke was finally offered the position on July 9, and he accepted.
   As soon as he accepted, the whirlwind of craziness began. Not only was there so much to do in terms of packing and getting the house suddenly ready to sell, a two month old baby to take care of along with 2 bored boys, and vacations coming up, but there seemed to be a nonstop flow of emails, calls, and alerts about our relocation and we needed to be informed of the whole confusing process and handle different representatives which covered every single aspect of the move. On one hand, it was nice to know that we had a relocation package and things would be taken care of, but the next few months of being on top of everything was literally exhausting.
   We had barely told anyone that we were thinking about moving either, and once we found out I don't even think I got to tell a lot of my friends in person, everything moved so quickly.
   The next weekend we actually went out of town- we made a road trip to Utah for a Decker reunion. While we were gone we had carpet cleaners come, contractors come do some work on our kitchen wall, and after we got home I had just a few more days of deep cleaning and getting the house staged. By Thursday, July 24 the house went on the market at about 4pm. I was going to wait until Friday but the realtor had stuck a sign in front of our house without me noticing and we were already getting calls. My friends from church were already throwing a goodbye party for me (and another girl moving) that night. Just in the few hours while I was at the party I already received 2 offers. We continued to do showings the next day on Friday, which ended up being 8 more showings that day. Thankfully it was nice enough weather to be at the park all day, and to visit with friends that we were sad to soon leave.

   That Friday evening we went in to our realtor's office to sign something, when they surprised us by saying we had just received our 3rd offer. After talking it over, it was too good to turn down and we accepted the offer that night, and cancelled the next 16 showings that were already booked for the remainder of the weekend.  We couldn't believe that after being on the market for 24 hours we were already done with showings, and had gotten an offer too good to be true. It was an amazing blessing! (And we were lucky the market in Denver was perfect for us as sellers at the most perfect time!) We were able to go home and feel like we could finally relax, just a little.

  But that Sunday, Luke was already leaving for New York- he officially started work Monday, July 27. We were sad to see him go already, but at least we had already done the hard part of getting the house ready. The next step was finding a house in New York, so the very next weekend Luke's parents flew to Denver to watch the boys while me and Ava flew to Saratoga Springs the first weekend in August. I was there from Friday-Tuesday. We looked at my favorite 4 houses as soon as I got in on Friday, maybe 5-6 more on Saturday, and on Monday evening we made an offer on our favorite. On Tuesday, as I was at the airport about to get on the plane home, I got the text from our realtor that they accepted our offer. It was a relief to go home knowing that the weekend had been a success and we were right on track.

Our new home :)

   I know I'm making this process sound so easy but it was a ton of work, and I promise things do get a little crazier.
   I came home and started getting us ready for our next trip- our 15 hour drive to Montana for the bi-annual Schow reunion. It was terrible timing for us but we didn't want to miss it, and was a good opportunity to visit with a lot of family before the move. Luke was supposed to fly home Friday night and we would start driving Saturday but Luke had terrible luck with flight after flight kicking all the passengers off and having them board other planes. He was up all night at airports trying to get home, and finally did Saturday morning. After getting just a few hours of sleep, he then still needed to mow the lawn, go through a stack of urgent paperwork to physically sign and mail off, finish some other errands, and THEN we could start driving all day. Luckily we made it safely to Montana by Sunday evening, and had a wonderful relaxing week, only needing to take care of business and check in on final arrangements a little each day.
   As we finally made the drive home at the end of the week on Friday, things started out fine and then our check engine light came on that evening. We stopped at the next city but no one at the dealership would take a look or talk to us, said that we were probably fine. So we kept driving to get to our destination that night, and an hour later, in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, our car made an awful pop sound and we had no idea what was wrong, but were only 10 miles until the next town and so we were able to crawl in, thank goodness. We luckily had a place to sleep for the night but were still about 6 hours from home. The next morning Luke was able to get the car into a shop but we had a very unusual (and expensive!) part that we needed to replace so we knew that we weren't going to be able to get the car back for awhile, possibly weeks!
   Ok time to cue freak-out: our movers were coming to our house to pack us up in 2 days! We were going to be getting on a plane 5 days from now- how were we going to get home?! And now we were wasting a whole day being stuck in Wyoming. Since it is such a small town we didn't even have anywhere we could rent a car, or U-haul, or even take a bus. For a little while Luke thought he could get a rental car from the biggest town back a half hour. The mechanic from the shop even started giving him a ride, but halfway there, he realized they didn't have a car for him that he could take to Denver.    
   Meanwhile, housekeeping at the hotel was getting frustrated with me because I hadn't checked out of the room yet and it was an hour past time. I'm not sure what the big deal was, we were literally like the only ones at the whole place. Even when I tried to explain our situation, she had no sympathy and basically kicked me and the 3 kids out on the sidewalk with all our luggage while I was trying to feed the baby and get her back to sleep. It took everything in me to not have a breakdown. We had already spent over an hour at the fast food joint across the street (which had no play place). So we walked next door to a Five Below and the kids wandered to the toy aisle while I sat at a desk meant for people applying for work just so I could charge my phone, and make some calls.
  Finally we decided to have Luke's dad who was driving to Utah from the reunion to get dropped off in Butte, and rent a car, and come drive 8 hours to us and help us get home. After just walking around all day, getting dinner, and then ice cream, John got to us by Saturday night but we were too exhausted to drive, so we got a new hotel and then took off early Sunday morning. I was pretty disappointed we weren't going to make it to 9am church- we were supposed to be there to say goodbye to all our friends. We had been gone so much we'd hardly seen anyone, and so it was hard knowing we weren't going to get the chance to see everyone one last time. But we had a rental Tahoe, a better version of our own Tahoe, and we were so lucky to at least get home Sunday and dropped John off at the airport.

  We had just enough time to do the laundry, pack aside the bags we were taking with us, so that the movers could come first thing in the morning. So it was NOT a good time to get a blue pen in the load of laundry with ALL our favorite clothes that we needed to re-pack. I feel like through the whole moving process I had held myself together pretty well, but after the weekend I'd had, and then getting out the laundry and finding nearly all our clothes were ruined with blue ink stains- yeah, I lost it. So many tears, so much stress. But I packed it up anyway, figuring I could work on fixing it at my mom's house- since the kids and I would be stopping there before NY.

   Point is, the movers came first thing Monday morning, and it took them 3 full days to pack us up. We got to still sleep in our house each night, until the last day, which felt like another blessing. Once they finished, we made our final rounds of goodbyes- to the house, our neighbors, and a few friends, and then went to our hotel by the airport, and left Denver Thursday, August 20. (Jacob normally would have been going back to school the day before, but lucky again that school in NY wouldn't start for 2.5 more weeks, and we needed that extra time. Our goal was to be in our new house before the first day of school.)

 

We may be smiling but it was sad saying goodbye to our house and our friends :(

  The kids and I flew to Maryland first to stay with my parents for a week, since we were homeless anyway we figured we might as well kill some time. And good thing we did because Luke turned out to really need the time at work.
   Luke had terrible luck flying in to Albany again, but needed to get back to work on Friday. Oh, did I mention that while the movers were packing our house that he got a call that his boss was quitting and Friday would be her last day? Luke was able to find a flight to get in very late Thursday night, but his bag wasn't as lucky- so he had to go buy new clothes that morning so that he could go to work on Friday. He had been really looking forward to working with his new boss and so he was sad to see her go and was now in a new job with no training or guidance. I know- cue the pity party. It was pretty bad luck though.
   But after a week in MD, the kids and I flew to NY on August 28, and got settled in our temporary townhouse in Cohoes, NY- about a half hour south of Saratoga Springs. We enjoyed having a spacious and accommodating place to stay while we were in limbo- which only turned out to be another week.

At least the townhouse had a community pool for us to enjoy for the week!

  We were able to close on our new house Friday, September 4 and with some begging we were able to get the movers to deliver our truck to our house the next day, even though they don't typically do moves on Saturday. We were relieved to have Labor Day weekend to settle in, and then the boys started school a few days later on Wednesday, September 9. What a blessing that was to get into our new house right in time! 

   Luke's car was shipped from Denver and arrived at our house by Tuesday, the night before school started. Which was a relief that I didn't have to worry about driving Luke to work and still getting Jacob off for his first day. Mostly, I was simply tired of dropping Luke off and picking him up at work for over a week! The Tahoe on the other hand, was repaired in Wyoming after getting the part shipped, and then we arranged to have it shipped from the shop in Wyoming to our house in New York, which took an extra week to get shipped after getting back Luke's car. But it felt good to have it back mid-September and working again, and for the move to feel officially complete.
   Overall, besides a few bumps along the way, everything worked out according to plan! It was such a whirlwind it feels like a weird dream. Like, I blinked and suddenly I have a new life in New York. And as soon as we moved in life picked right back up with school starting for Jacob, and preschool every day for Blake, and Ava suddenly so big! We unpacked quickly and tried to get as settled as possible so that it feels like home, but time has still flown by! I will try to get caught up and post about other things that have been going on but know that we are doing well and adjusting, but still miss our simple Colorado life at times too. I've been so proud of the boys too who have adapted tremendously well and have been so patient and brave with all the new changes. I hope we made the right decision moving here to NY, and maybe time will tell, but for now we are embracing this crazy new adventure and chapter in our lives!