I think Scooter is depressed. Yes, Scooter the cat. She just hasn’t been the same since we moved her here to Kansas. I don’t think she likes it. In fact, I think she might be suicidal. She hardly ever wants to come in the house, we try and coax her in and try to love on her a little, but she really doesn’t want to have it. And she can’t be outside (neighborhood rules), not that she wants to go outside anyway, the only place she wants to be is in the garage. So for now, since half our stuff is still in the garage and we can’t fit cars in, we let her be out there. But I check on her all the time because during the day the garage gets super super hot. And the crazy cat, I find her sleeping on blankets. She’s not even trying to cool off by laying on the cement floor. Suicidal I tell ya, I think she has a death wish. Today I forced her to come inside because Jayden wanted to play with his toys in the driveway and I couldn’t have her running down the road. She immediately ran and hid under my bed in our room and refuses to come out, after she did some major scratching damage on some of my furniture to let me know how unhappy she was that I made her come inside. Jayden is adjusting way better than the darn cat.

Yesterday was my 30th birthday. I’d have to say I pretty much made out like a bandit, I’ve been buying new things all week. I got to move into a new house, I got a new washer and dryer, and a new refrigerator. Those weren’t really for my birthday, they were more of a coincidence thing, but still I’m pretending that Royal’s been buying me presents all week long. Royal did buy me a sweet new camera though, which I’ve been wanting for quite awhile and I really didn’t think I was going to get with all the expenses of moving and whatnot. Now all I have to do is learn how to freaking use the thing. (Ummmm Jordan, can you come visit and give me a lesson????) We got up yesterday and headed out to El Dorado State Park. It is only about 20 mins away and has a huge lake. So, we (we being me, Royal, Jayden, Nana, Papa, Grandma, and Grandpa all crammed into the Pilot) drove around the park, found the swimming areas, play areas and all the different camping spots, and ate lunch.

Later in the afternoon, after Jayden’s nap, we found a splash park for Jayden to run around in. We have a pool in neighborhood, but supposedly it was being fixed yesterday, bad timing as it was around 90 degrees. We can’t really use the pool right now anyway, the home owners association won’t give us a key to it since we don’t technically own our house yet. We’re living in it, but haven’t closed on it because the builders haven’t finished the basement yet. So, off to a splash park we went. Jayden had a pretty darn good time.

After the splash park, we headed off to supposedly the best new pizza place in Wichita. Royal got pulled over on the way, but hallelujia we didn’t get a ticket. The pizza was really good and now I have a fridge full of leftovers to eat for lunch! On the way home, Jayden and Papa enjoyed a toothpick.

After Jayden went to bed, we ate cheesecake and played Party Farkel (a dice game), which I lost at horribly. All in all, it was a pretty good birthday. It felt weird to not be around my brothers and sisters, or any of my friends, but at least I wasn’t all alone. AND I was given a gift certificate to the yarn store (thanks Mikal and Carrie!) in Wichita, so now I have to go try and find the store and spend it!

My mom gave me these cool wall stickers for my birthday to put up in our new house. I put up all the squiggly ones and then Jayden saw what I was doing and he wanted to put stickers up too. So Jayden put up all the other stickers. I would give him a sticker, he’d decide where he wanted it, then I had to lift him up so he could stick it on the wall. I think he did a pretty good job.

All I can say is I had the worst flights ever getting here. It probably didn’t help that I was working off of about 3 hours sleep, but still even on 12 hours sleep it would of been horrible.
So, I wake Jayden up at 4am and we head to the airport, which by the way, Jayden only slept about 20 mins in the car on the way up, and I had had a really hard time getting him to go to sleep the night before. He was too excited about riding on a “big big airplane”. We get to the airport with plenty of time, but we decide to curbside check our bags, just so we didn’t have to haul 3 suitcases and all our carry-ons and my stroller with Jayden in it inside. The guy checking our bags hands us our boarding passes and tells me that I’ll have to get our seats changed at the gate because they put us in an exit row and you can’t have 2 year olds in the exit row. OK, when I bought the tickets online, I had to specify that I was flying with a 2 year old, why the heck would they assign me those seats????? So, Jayden, mom, and I get through security without much hassle. I managed to find the family security point, that was just for families with kids and so we cruised on through. I was thinking that maybe we were off to a great start, little did I know that this was pretty much the best part of the trip and things were just going to get progressively worse from here. I get to the gate and grab our 3 tickets and head up to the counter. The lady takes our tickets and says she’ll get me and Jayden new seats together outside of the exit row, but mom didn’t have a seat on the plane yet, so she couldn’t reassign her. We wait around, and finally our names get paged and she hands me mine and Jayden’s new seat assignments which happen to be an aisle and a window seat in the same row, but mom still doesn’t have a seat. So, the plane starts boarding, Jayden and I get on and I tell mom to have someone get me if she can’t get on. Luckily, mom gets a seat right in the row in front of us and I ask the guy who was suppose to be sitting in between Jayden and I if he would mind switching seats with my mom. He was really nice and had no problem with it, so luckily the 3 of us got to sit in the same row on the flight from Seattle to Denver. Jayden did about as well as I thought he would. He was kind of all over the place, wanted to escape out of the row and run down the aisles, jump on the seats, pat the guys hair in front of us, and pretty much half way into the flight kept telling me he was all done flying on the airplane. We make it to Denver and find where our connecting flight is. Jayden and I then go on a hunt for food, then sit and wait at the gate for the next flight. Jayden almost falls asleep sitting in his stroller at the gate, so I was pretty sure I could get him to sleep on the plane as long as I could flip up the arm rest and get him to lay down on my lap for 2 seconds. Finally it’s time for us to get on the plane, I take out our boarding passes, Jayden and I are in row 4, mom is in row 14. Not sure why they couldn’t get us closer together. Another thing that peeves me about United, is that they don’t let families with kids board first. You have to wait for your section to board and try to get down to the plane and collapse your stroller while keeping control of your child and bags along with the mob of people getting on the plane that for some reason feel like they need to practically run and are acting panicky like they aren’t going to be able to find their seat and stow their carryons in the overhead bins and the plane might leave without them. Jayden and I get down to the plane, and once Jayden sees it, is not excited at all about getting on. He keeps telling me, “no more big airplanes”. The pilot thinks he’s cute and tries to tell him to not be afraid. Jayden wasn’t afraid, he was tired and cranky and did not want to be cooped up for another 90 mins on a big loud airplane. So, I haul Jayden and our bags onto the plane, get to our row to discover that Jayden and I are sitting across the freaking aisle from each other. I’m on the aisle seat and he’s in the middle seat on the other side. Fan-freaking-tastic. I throw our bags into my seat, pick Jayden back up and fight my way up the stream of people who are glaring at me for going the wrong way on the airplane, because remember all they are thinking about is making sure they hurry up to get in their seat. I find a flight attendent explain that this just isn’t going to work, and she quickly fixes the situation. Now Jayden and I are together, but we’re in the bulkhead row. Which means all my bags that have food, water, books, computer, toys, and anything else that might entertain Jayden have to be stowed up above. It also means that the armrest would not go up because our trays are stored in there, which means I couldn’t create a big seat that I could lay Jayden down on. Jayden starts fighting me before the plane even takes off. I’m afraid I was that mother. I was the mother with the out of control child on the plane who was making everyone hate the fact that they were on that plane and wish they could all strangle my child. However, all Jayden wanted to do was run down the aisle. Not really an option, and he wouldn’t stay in his seat, so for the majority of the flight, I forced him to sit on my lap and I pinned him down with my arms. You can guess how well he took that. There was a lot of crying, yelling, repeated no’s being thrown my way. I’m totally fried at this point. We tried watching a movie, reading books, singing songs, playing his favorite games, eating crackers, listening to my iPod, nothing worked. Everything was NO! And if he wasn’t yelling or throwing a fit, he was still talking nonstop. Nonstop about airplanes, dad, nana, papa, grandpa, grandma, Jayden’s new house, etc… The poor kid was just super tired. The people in first class kept turning around glaring at me and shaking their heads. About 3/4 of the way through the flight, the women next to me goes, ‘god! doesn’t that kid ever shut up!’ I start crying and just say, ‘What would you like me to do?’ I mean at least I was keeping him from kicking and jumping on her. On an airplane there just aren’t a lot of options, you just have to make it to the end. We finally land in Wichita. Jayden is ecstatic to get off the plane. He pretty much runs. However, we have to wait at the bottom of the ramp for our stroller. Since we were one of the first ones off, we stood there as all these people funneled off the plane, glaring at me and my kid, a couple of them saying, ‘there’s the kid’. Mom finally gets off the plane and I was like, ‘did you hear Jayden that whole time?’ She goes, ‘I heard someone, I was hoping it wasn’t him’. No such luck, all the other kids on the plane obviously had got their naps in. My stroller finally shows up, I quickly set it up, strap Jayden in and head off to baggage claim. Jayden was asleep before we even got up the ramp and into the airport. We didn’t have to wait long for our bags, Royal was right outside with the car, Jayden was so asleep in his stroller that he didn’t even wake up when I took him out and strapped him into his carseat. I was glad to be done flying, but I pretty much just wanted to go sit in a dark room and not come out for a long time.

By the time Royal had picked us up from the airport the moving truck had already been to the house and completely unloaded, so it was really nice to not have to haul boxes after flying all that time, which in turn means I didn’t acquire any new bruises, hallelujia. At least now, it’s been a few days and I feel much better, with that horrible flight behind me. But I can tell you I am NOT looking foward to flying back to Washington in September.

The weather here is freaking hot. Not as hot as poor Kaylee, but still hot. We went to a farmers market today, and tomorrow we’re going to try and go to El Dorado State Park and then a splash park for Jayden in the afternoon. My parents and Royal’s parents are still here and the house is still in shambles, so I still feel a little crazy like I don’t have a house, but I think I’ll be okay. :) I can’t wait to have more visitors!!! Come on, you know you always wanted to visit Kansas…

I’ve only got a few hours before I have to get up and get off to the airport. Royal and my dad left on Sunday along with Royal’s parents to drive our cars across the country. They arrived in Wichita today! My guess is they are tired of driving, but I’m so thankful I didn’t have to do it with them and with a 2 year old to boot. :)

I’ve loved being able to stay out here at the lake for the last week and hang out with my family and friends one last time. I am sad to be leaving, but at least I know when I will be coming back for a visit. September isn’t too far away, right???

My next post will be from Kansas! I’m not sure when it will be, as we won’t have cable/internet for the next few weeks, I may have to find a coffee shop somewhere, because lets face it, I really can hardly go a day without checking my email. But maybe I’ll have some pictures of some wheat fields or something. Hopefully not a tornado. :)

Well, it looks like the streak has been broken! They say they are 75% sure that I’m having a girl! So, go out there and start buying pink! I was a little early in getting my ultrasound done, so they weren’t sure they would be able to tell the gender, but if I would of waited until I got to Wichita I would of had to wait until August and I didn’t want to wait that long and I’m guessing none of my family wanted to wait that long either. :) With Jayden it was pretty darn obvious that he was a boy, and yesterday I didn’t see anything that looked remotely like what Jayden showed. So, I suppose this one could be hiding, but for right now I’m having a girl. And even if I think it’s a girl all the way until November and then it pops out a boy, I have boxes and boxes and boxes of boy clothes, so I’m totally prepared…at least prepared in the clothing department…

Every time I’ve moved, I swear the next time I am going to hire someone else to do it. This time was no different. All my friends who are in the military kept saying to me, ‘you’re packing your own boxes? you’re moving yourself?’ Sadly, the government isn’t paying for my move, we have an allowance that NIAR has given us, but it wouldn’t cover the 8K+ it would take to move us. I kept trying to tell Royal it was worth it, let’s just spend our own money, it would make it so much easier. But we didn’t have the extra money for that laying around and really I don’t want to go in big debt just to make my life easier. So, we compromised. I found a company that would drive our stuff for us, we just had to pack it and load it onto the truck. I’ve spent the last 2 weeks packing and packing and packing and then doing some more packing. I am so sick of packing. On Friday the moving trailer showed up and then on Saturday, I spent 12 hours packing the rest of our stuff while Royal took care of Jayden. Finally Sunday rolled around, the big loading day. Just about everything was packed up and ready to go. The first order of business was getting the piano onto the truck, and that’s where the drama starts. Fireball, Royal’s dad, is a great helper, but he does things really fast and without thinking and you sometimes have to reign him in, hence the nickname Fireball. He wasn’t there 5 minutes before he inflicted some major trauma on one of our walls. While pushing a chair out of the way to get the piano out the door, he managed to nail it on one of our rounded corners and in doing so, bent the metal piece that goes around it. Bent it so good, it created a good 4 inch crack in the wall and we couldn’t bend it back in place without more cracking happening.

So off goes Norma (Royal’s mom) to Home Depot. We ended up glueing it, then putting these tiny tiny screws in the wall to hold it down. Then spackling it, sanding it, and after I went back to Home Depot to buy paint (because we didn’t have any left over from when we painted the walls), we painted it and all that is left now is a small dent in the corner that you’d have to look for. However, it got Royal’s blood boiling right away, and Royal sometimes has little patience with his dad and some of the things he does, so lets just say there was a bit of tension. A little while later, I was in the kitchen packing up the rest of our lamps, Royal and his brother Gabe were carrying a heavy dresser down the stair, and I hear a crash and Royal yelling like he just severed a finger on the railing. I go to the bottom of the stairs where Gabe is just standing there waiting for Royal to get it together. Luckily all digits were intact, but Royal had bent over and when he stood up, he managed to crack his head on the lip of the dresser. Not good, not good.
Later Royal asks me to take apart the bed frames. No problem. Jayden at this point is following me around and wants to use the screwdriver on things, so this is a good project for us. Jayden is using his screwdriver on the footboard, so after I get one of the bed rails out, I ask Royal to come hold the footboard while I take out the other rail, so it doesn’t fall on Jayden. I take the rail out of the footboard, and push the headboard up against the wall and then take the other side of the rail out of the headboard. I turn around to hand Royal the rail and the stupid headboard comes crashing down on me. Nails me in the back of my right hip then continues on it’s way to the floor while hitting my left calf. I pretty much think I’m broken. Once I stop crying and stand back up I tell Royal, ‘I’m freaking done with this whole packing crap’ Sadly, it was only 11am at that point and we didn’t finish loading the truck until 3:30. Here is some of the damage. My leg actually hurts worse than my back, but this one is bruising up much better. And I keep wonder why the heck didn’t Royal catch the stupid thing before it fell????

Royal and I went back to the house yesterday to clean it and make sure all of our stuff was out. I had to wrap my poor bruised leg up just to give it some compression so it would stop throbbing and I could walk around. It took us all day, but it’s finished. We grabbed Scooter and we’re now living out at the lake with my parents and the Wagners. Our trailer got picked up this morning, so all our stuff is on its way to Wichita, and we’ll meet it there next Wednesday. I’m sad about leaving, but I know I’ll be back and it’s hot and sunny in Wichita right now, which is way better than all this cold and rain.

Bye little house. I’m really gonna miss that huge yard, but I bet Royal won’t miss mowing it all the time.

I know, I know, I’m a total slacker. So, here’s a few things that have been going on. Royal and I finally went and got a new vacuum, which Jayden had been looking forward to for days, and I think I’d been looking forward to for months. (You know you are old when you are excited about a vacuum cleaner that actually works.) If you have been around Jayden, you know he is obsessed with his little vacuum. He vacuums ALL the time, and anytime you go into stores with vacuums you have to avoid the aisle unless you want to spend hours there. Jayden was really excited about the new vacuum once we got it home, he could hardly wait to get it out of the box, he kept trying to rip it open and peek inside. I finally got it out an put together, something that would of been much easier if Jayden hadn’t kept trying to run off with it.

It was all good, until he decided to turn it on. It was a bit louder than our old vacuum and Jayden decided it was too scary. I kept trying to tell him that it was the sound of the vacuum cleaner actually sucking things up. He didn’t buy it. He’s now very happy to have his little “quiet” vacuum to run around the house, which is not really that quiet.

Jayden has also been helping me pack a lot. He decided today was the day that he needed to pack himself. He wanted to make sure we didn’t forget to pack him and ship him to Wichita too.

As many of you know, the Wagner’s are in town. They came by yesterday to visit with me and Jayden. Here’s my favorite little Wyatt (The Wyatt as Jayden calls him), with his new pair of glasses. :)

One more thing is, I’m having an ultrasound done next Thursday (12th) to find out if we are having a girl or boy! Will I break the McComb girl streak of producing nothing but boys??? We’ll see!!!! :)