Like she said...

My sister Roxie recently blogged about putting off blogging because she had so much to write and it would take forever to do write it all down. I find myself in the same boat. I have lots to write about and lots of things to do so here is an abridged version of what we've been up to in the last month.

#1--Gabrielle turned 3 last month. We had her birthday party--with a princess theme--and had a very nice time. The weather was beautiful so we could sit outside and lots of family came to help celebrate. Auntie Roxie even came in from NYC! She got lots of very nice gifts and plays with/uses/watches them all of the time. Here is a picture of some new friends that came with one of her gifts. She loves to look each morning to see if they've come for breakfast.

#2--I got a new job for next year. I've known about this news for a while but since I hadn't told my students yet, I wanted to keep it under wraps. I wasn't looking for a new position, but Bellevue Public Schools called and asked me to come for an interview so I went. Working in Bellevue has always been my goal but after 5 years and no interviews I had kind of thought it was out of reach for me. Anyway, I'll be working at two elementary schools and one of the middle schools. Even with the traveling, my round trip for the day will be fewer miles than the trip up to McMillan. I will miss the Mac--especially the staff--but I couldn't pass up the chance to work closer to home and be on the same schedule that the kids will be on in a few short years.

#3--The air conditioner in my car stopped working last week just when it started to get warm. Plus the last time it was in for an oil change the mechanic told us the struts needed replacing and that would be $1000--and our mechanic is a good guy, not one to make up repairs. So instead of putting what could be several thousand dollars into that car we decided to trade it off and get a new one instead. We had been talking about getting something bigger anyway and with interest rates being relatively low this was the right time to do it. We'd sort of been soured by the used-car buying experience and opted for new this time around. Between the incentives that GMC offers for military members, the rebate for trading in a non-GMC vehicle, and the amount they gave us on the trade for the 300M, the price was about the same as a used vehicle and this way we have all of the warranties that come with a new car. Anyway, here is a picture of our new car. It's a GMC Acadia in case you're interested. No, the gas mileage isn't great, but for a vehicle that comfortably seats 7 passengers and still has room for groceries in the back, there aren't many other vehicles with better mileage. I'd loved to have done the green thing and get a hybrid, but they were way out of our price range. Anyway, I love my new car and would be happy to give anyone a full demonstration of it's super cool features when you're in town.

#4--The kids are growing like weeds and never cease to surprise us on a daily basis. Colin is learning lots of new words and trying them out whenever possible. His favorite new demand is, "Now!" He uses this one when requesting juice, help, food, etc. I think we'll work on patience this summer. Gabby is becoming more of a little girl everyday. Her speech is pretty understandable by most people and she will try to say about everything you ask her to repeat. I really like to hear her say refridgerator. It comes out like "fidgyator." She still has a hard time with putting the "s" sound next to a hard consonant--like steps, stool, school, scary, spicy, etc. She just drops the "s" sound on those words and we get teps, tool, cool, cary, picy, and so on. I already checked with the speech person at school and this is all very normal.

#5--I didn't really blog in April at all because it was a crazy month. Between Matt going on 2 TDYs and only being home a total of 12 days in the month and taking care of 2 kids and a dog,I was pretty well bushed by the end of a day. I'm hoping to do a better job of keeping up with it this summer. We'll see how that goes...