SHHHH....It's A Secret

Here's a little secret, I'm going to share with you. I've fallen IN LOVE!! Yes that's right. After 10 years of marriage and 3 kids I've fallen absolutely, unequivocally, emphatically IN LOVE. Here's the 411...

I LOVE it here. I absolutely LOVE it here. I really do. It took some time, but I really LOVE it here. I LOVE the trees. It is soooo green here. Driving along the streets, the county roads, even the freeways, nothing but huge beautifully green trees. All sorts of shades of green. Different sizes and shapes and hues. But GREEN GREEN GREEN. I LOVE trees. It reminds me of when I visited Washington state and you drive down the freeway and all you see are dense trees.

Wild flowers everywhere. Yup wild flowers. No one really has sprinkler systems because they're not really needed here so flowers grow everywhere. And they are not tumbleweed wild flowers. They are daffodils and buttercup flowers. Everywhere. I LOVE wild flowers.

I LOVE the wild animals. Not so much the spiders that come with them. But I LOVE seeing squirrels daily, red robins, Sparrows, Beavers. Just lots and lots of wild animals. I also LOVE the humidity. It's great having moist skin, naturally soft water, and warm thunderstorms.

I LOVE the sounds and smells that comes with the wild and dense trees. Not just the smell of pine, but of nature. The smells are so vivid. We went to take a tour of a preschool yesterday (we've decided it's the one) and I could just smell all the plant life that was everywhere. We can hear the birds. It's twitterpated time of the year so birds are flying everywhere. Baby birds are chirping, frogs are croaking.

I LOVE the history. We pass by The Fredericksburg Battlefields to and from Lorins school. It's just grown over trees and bushes and a couple of really old buildings, but you can feel it's history. Lorin learned about George Washington in school a little while ago. Well guess what his birth home and child hood home are 3 miles away. Mike and I went on a date Friday Night and we went to Amy's Cafe Down on the River for dinner. It's this restaurant in an old colonial style building that's over 250 years old right off the Rappahanock River.

I LOVE the school system here. Lorin's school is amazing, her teacher was teacher of the year last year for the district, so that helps too. They have extra curricular activities that I don't remember getting in school.

I LOVE our ward. It's the best!! The most amazing people that have more knowledge of the Gospel and the Scriptures and they're converts.

I SEMI-LOVE Mike's job. It's actually a LOVE/HATE. But it's becoming more LOVE then HATE. It's been an adjustment. About 90% of the new agents from Mike's class weren't married and Mike had the most kids. This is more of a career that people aspire too and then get settled with the family. So with our already settled family it's been more of an adjustment. But I have to say it's turning out to be great.

So YES I do LOVE it here, but don't tell our families. ;) they are still holding out that we'll move back to the west coast.

We must live in trees

Let me just say nature is EVERYWHERE here. It probably has something to do with the millions of trees. But There is so much wildlife everywhere. Everytime we get in the car to go somewhere we see new roadkill. Squirrels run around the yard and pay no attention to us. Beside squirrels we've seen Beavers, raccoons, possums, deer, just about every kind of bird, lizards, no snakes yet(thank goodness). In front of our house there are these two big bushes and we found a nest in one of them. At first there was 4 blue eggs. Mike and I would watch them daily and not tell the kids cause we wanted the eggs to live :) But after a couple days and a couple of rejected eggs the last egg hatched the other day. Momma bird is usually close around. She fly's off whenever we come or go but she's always close. This is the little baby bird the morning after it hatched. It's kinda ugly, but it's been fun to see it get bigger and bigger in just a week.

Up To Date

So we moved AGAIN!! Yes again. This would be our third move since Jan. Our first move was out here into a temporary apartment. It was fully furnished and a great transitional place. Then after one month we moved into an apartment by the home we're building. The plan was to be there 6 months and then move into our newly built home. Unfurtunately we had to learn a lesson called "welcome to Mike's new job". We had a problem with the apartments we were at. They were really nice apartments. One of the nicer complexes in the city, however, with apartments comes some rif-raf. And if it weren't for what Mike does the rif-raf wouldn't be a problem because they would care less about us. But Mike has this car that screams GUESS WHAT I DO FOR A LIVING.

Anyhoo, a conflict of interest later and a weeks notice to move, we found a home that offered a short term lease and it is still in our ward. It ended up being a blessing in disguise because it a HOUSE. With a huge backyard, at the end of a cul-de-sac and great neighbors.

The kids like it so much better, there are a couple girls around Lorins age and Christian and Kaki get doted on by the cute gparents that live next to us. School is traditional here so Lorin is going to be off for 3 months. We have to start planning summer trips. She loves school still, after going to 3 different schools in one year that's a good thing.