3rd Anniversary

We celebrated our third anniversary this weekend with a fun suprise-to-me date. Our actual anniversary is July 1 so we will have 2 days of celebration! Roy hates being surprised so he usually doesn't actually like surprising anyone else, but I conviced him that it would be fun to try. We spent our first anniversary on a boat tour of the Potomac so it seemed fitting that we spent this anniverary doing some manual-labor boating. We enjoyed spending that late afternoon canoeing on Lake Accotink and then going out to dinner. It was so fun! Thanks for a fun date, Roy, and for a fantastic 3 years of marriage!

Hey, Roy!

Last night I was rocking with Abby right before putting her in bed when she told me she wanted a cracker. She can get rather insistent and since she didn't eat tons at dinner, I figured a cracker might do the job. So I called out, "Hey, Roy!" and asked him to grab a cracker and water. Well, while we were waiting for his delivery, Abby started saying, with increasing volume, "Hey, Roy!" I was giggling, which I know encouraged her, but how could you not laugh hearing your 18 month old saying "Hey, Roy!"? Although Roy finds it amusing, he has now made it his mission to teach Abby how to say Michelle. Luckily for me, Roy is a much easier name to say than Michelle.

Jumpin' Joey's

Here are some more cheesy grins from Jumpin' Joey's!

Fearless

We took Abby to a bouncy house heaven in Williamsburg called Jumpin' Joey's. For a girl who is usually pretty cautious when it comes to strangers and new things we thought it would be interesting. She shocked us all and was in heaven. Here's our favorite clip:

Tap Shoes

Abby got a box in the mail from her cousin Miriam and Aunt Samira last week and was thrilled to find shoes. The first thing she pulled out of the box was the red church shoes, which were wonderful beyond belief. After wearing them for several minutes, we unearthed the tap shoes. The red shoes were quickly discarded, especially after she discovered that no amount of shoving would get them on her father's feet. You can see the result of tap shoes on kitchen floor. I have to add that the shoes are 4 sizes too big. Oh, and the dress and hat are other fun treasures from the box. Of course we had to try all our new clothes on immediately. She is all girl!

The Waiting Game

We have been developing a great amount of patience lately when it comes to doing all we can and then waiting on the Lord for good things to happen. Mostly what we're waiting for is for Roy to find a fabulous job. When he started law school, the goal was to get a job in CA afterward. After a little while, we decided VA or CA would both be great places so applications started hitting those two states. He did one internship in each place so we figured that we had the contacts we would need for finding a job. For those of you who talk to us frequently, you'll know that we were anxiously waiting for the first week of June to find out if the Dept of Commerce had a job for him. Well, we're still waiting. And our search has expanded to different states and jobs that we may not have paid much attention to before. So much is hinging on where and what Roy does for work that it should probably make us far more stressed than we actually feel. For some reason, we've both been pretty calm since the first week of June when our questions should have been answered. Roy just keeps applying for jobs and we just keep waiting. So if you've been wondering if we have some big career announcement that we just haven't made yet, don't worry. You will know probably within seconds of me knowing. :)

Funny and Not So Funny All At the Same Time

Abby locked me in her room the other day. About a month ago, Abby locked herself in her room and it took about 10 minutes for Roy and I to get the doorknob unscrewed, ripped off the way-too-many layers of paint, and then push the lock in to actually open the door. Since the doorknob was off already, we swapped it and figured we had just saved her from locking herself in her room again. We didn't think about me. I went in to her room to grab a box, heard the door close, and the Abby started to cry. I went over to the door thinking that she was just mad that the door was closed. She's getting used to the idea of turning the handle to open the door, but our doors have so many layers of paint that they stick. I went to turn the handle and discovered it was locked. I quickly discovered that despite the amount of storage we have in Abby's room, we really don't have much that will unlock a door or unscrew a doorknob. I tried bobby pins, hair clips, pieces of the metal rod in her step-top garbage can, pieces of toy, stiff cards slid in the doorway, anything I could get my hands on. Oh yeah, and my handy cell phone wasn't in my pocket. To make matters worse, right before going into her room, I put grilled cheese sandwiches on the stove. They were more than crisp and the fire alarm was going off. The fire alarm happens to be located right outside Abby's door. So for the child who was already hysterically crying, the fire alarm was the icing on the cake. She sat down by the door and just tried to stick her fingers under so she could touch me. So sad! After evaluating whether or not I could make the 2-story jump from Abby's window to the rain-soaked grass, hoping the neighbors would hear the fire alarm and call maintainence to come resuce me, and trying to use the flimsy garbage can to break off the doorknob, I finally decided none of my ideas was going to work and just started pounding into the door with a hard piece of plastic. Luckily we have the mass-produced apartment doors and I was able to break a fist-sized hole in the door after about 5 minutes. The entire event was thirty minutes, but Abby is now more attached to Michelle and Michelle has a new fear of closing doors.

Saturday is a Special Day

Abby's newest trick:

We're not quite sure if she's attempting a somersault or just being silly. But she has suffered several minor head wounds as a result of attempting this trick outside and losing her balance. She tends to giggle uncontrollably when I put my head back by her legs and say peekaboo. That normally ends in her sitting on my head because she's laughing too hard to keep her original position and then when she realizes she's sitting on my head, she laughs harder. This girl keeps me silly!

Abby was totally spoiled last Saturday, not that it's abnormal for her to be spoiled, but this time we took pictures. We went to a friend's birthday party where Abby got to ride on a carosel and she loved it! I think it helped that her friends were there having fun too, but she was shrieking and doing her loud giggle-scream. It was hilarious!

After we got home from the party, Abby adopted Jakers the goldfish from another friend who is moving away soon. She has a healthy respect for Jakers. If we try to make her go too close to him, she screams, shakes, and runs away. Most of the time she actually ignores him. But every time she is leaving the room, whether it's to go to bed, leave the house, or just go play somewhere else, she waves bye-bye and jabbers a sentence at him. As a side note, I had to work hard to convince Roy that we should adopt Jakers, but he is always the one to ask if we've fed him that day. I think Jakers is wearing him down. When I suggested that she take a picture with him, she was totally game, but when it came down to it, Roy had to get in the picture because she had to stand a little too close for comfort.