Oh, the Drama

Abby likes to get dressed immediately after eating breakfast, which isn't always possible since Sam is a little slower than her. Last Sunday, she just couldn't take any more delays and threw her hands over her face and cried, "I cannot believe it!"

Sam wants to walk so badly. Really, he wants to run and I actually wouldn't be surprised if he somehow just skipped crawling and walking to run. He insists on being held facing out so he can see what's going on. Lately, as soon as we start walking, his legs start pedaling as fast as he can go as if he could propel us ahead faster with the effort. The flying legs are accompanied by shrieks and giggles that always make us laugh.

Here We Go Again

If you want to come visit our kids any time soon, you'll now need to go to the opposite end of VA from where we are now. Yep, that's right, it's moving time again at the Zwahlen's house. We found out yesterday that Roy got approval to be transferred. We will be moving to Culpeper very soon (date to still be determined, but it may be in as little as two weeks--AH!). We're excited to be closer to some of Roy's family, close to the Dulles airport (home and Utah, here we come), and closer to just about every park, store, museum, etc that we can possibly think of. Hurray! We counted this morning that this will make the 6th place that Roy and I have lived in our barely-over-4-years of marriage. We'll get good at it someday.

Update: We leave August 31 and Roy starts work September 3 in his new office. Luckily we have a month to prepare for what promises to be an insanely exciting week!

Look at Me!

Making Fun

We don't live in the world's most exciting place, which means we get to learn how to make our own fun. Since Roy had 4 days off this week thanks to his weekend shift, we decided to do some day trips to explore the area. It turned out to be a lot of fun and both kids were awesome.

Natural Tunnel State Park

We started our week by visiting the eighth natural wonder of the world. Thousands of years of water erosion created this tunnel that was then used by the railroad. It was fun to take the chair lift down to the tunnel, play on an old train, visit a 225 year old log cabin, play in the stream, and march (yes, Abby is in charge of our family) across the bridge.

The natural tunnel.

Sweet Sam.

Swimming

If the picture doesn't tell you how excited Abby was to go swimming, let me just share some of the sentences I heard over and over again (probably every minute of the two hours we were there): "Abby is so excited!", "Isn't this great?!?", and my personal favorite, "Abby is happy now!" Sam took a little while to warm up, but got to the point where he would sit on my lap and kick his feet happily. Roy and I joke that this was the best day--there was a cash register mix-up (it said we owed $7,000 for our trip to the pool) so they just let us go in so we didn't have to wait for the manager to come fix things. It was our only free day and we all had a great time. Maybe the best things in life really are free!

Breaks Interstate Park

Breaks is on the border of Kentucky and Virginia, just past a row of towns that are literally nestled between two towering mountains that are a stone's throw apart. I'm not kidding. It was drizzling that day so our trip was shorter than planned, but still had moments of fun. We played on the damp playground, had a picnic lunch in the trunk of our car, and took the kids on a canoe.

Since the canoe was our moment of glory for the day, I can't resist sharing the play-by-play: Abby on the dock literally bouncing up and down with excitement, Sam screaming bloody murder because we put the life jacket on him, Roy and I strategizing about how we are going to pull off this boat ride in drizzling rain. Okay, now we're in the canoe with Sam on my laugh, Abby kneeling on the boat floor, and Roy taking control of the oars. Here's where things got interesting. Sam is still screaming, tears coarsing down his cheeks; Abby seeing something she wants to show us and trying to get up to point it out only to get interrupted by both parents chorusing, "Abby sit on your bottom or your knees right now!"; me holding onto Sam, trying to counter-balance Abby's shifting weight; and Roy paddling. All the sudden, both kids start screaming and we're 10 minutes out on the lake. Abby wants to be on my lap right now and we somehow pull it off and Roy just starts paddling like crazy. Needless to say, our feeling of being awesome parents and exposing our kids to fun adventures during the week quickly dissolved into embarrassment as our arrival back at the dock was announced by not just one, but two, screaming children. Good thing we have a sense of humor and could laugh it off by the time our boat docked.

Good times were had by all! At least, most of the time, fun was had by all.

Bedtime Joys

I think everyone knows that 2-year-olds can be equally as frustrating as they are fun. Abby is more fun than frustrating until the moment she is supposed to be in bed trying to go to sleep. The balance then swings way over to frustrating. The girl does not stay in bed long enough to be relaxed, let alone even think about falling asleep. We end up all being upset (amazing how 2 hours of a toddler's laughing defiance can really put a damper on your night) and then sit in the rocking chair where she falls asleep after 5 minutes. Any ideas for what we can do? I'd love to hear any and every idea!

Magic and Laughter

All the small town around us sure know how to party. Each town has at least one festival during the summer. The city of Norton recently hosted a week-long festival. We crashed the party almost every day. Actually, Abby and her friend got their picture in the paper dancing at the festival kick-off party. The festival was all free--food, bouncy houses, music, cotton candy, train ride. We had the best time! I wish we had fun like that going on every week. :)

We do enjoy hours at the park, especially now that Sam can sort of sit in the swing. He loves it!

During our (way too many) thunderstorms, we usually have a Halloween dress-up party. Poor patient Sam.

My favorite feature of living here is our library. Miss Nancy, the storytime lady, is probably the best person I have ever seen reading books and running storytime for every age. She is amazing with toddlers, fun for the elementary age kids, and teenagers think she's cool so they listen to her. When I say she is heaven-sent and an angel for this area and her job, I am not even close to describing her accurately enough to do her any justice. The woman is an absolute saint. Miss Nancy organized a weekly summer reading incentive program for the area. There are various performances each Wednesday. This last week, she had a great magician come. As you can see, the whole thing was, for lack of a better word, magical.

I put Sam in the bouncer, wallked away, came back and found this.

Happy Father's Day!

I feel that I have been very blessed to be surrounded by good men during my life who have been father figures to me. More importantly, I have an amazing dad who I have been able to create many memories with (playing Forest, hours in the car and practicing for orchestra rehersals, putting together binders for various occasions, the insanely long drive up Grandma's street after spending 12+ hours already in the car, etc). My children also have a wonderful father who they are making memories with (lots of hours at the park, a race to fold arms to say the prayer, jumping on the trampoline, a funny choo-choo train game, and he even plays princesses with Abby). Thanks to all those dads for helping me through life so far. I am especially remembering you today!

A little background on the video. Abby was so excited to go up and sing for her dad for Father's Day in church. We talked about it a lot this last week. So when they asked all the Primary kids to come up, Abby hit the ground running and enthusiastically began shouting, "It's my turn! It's my turn!" She sang every word and had the biggest grin on her face. And after Sacrament Meeting ended, Abby was sure to go up to each of her grown-up friends and tell them she did a great job. She stole the show. And since she's so cute, we had to make a video when we got home. So, to all the dads out there who have been huge influences on my life and on my kid's lives so far, here's a little something to say thanks. And the rest of you can enjoy it too.