A Blur

The past two weeks have been an absolute blur. Since there's no way I could sum it up I'm going to do it in bites.

Week 43

Standing on her own a LOT. Looking for that first step any day!

Loves to play

Peek-a-

BOO!!!

And peeeek-a-

BOOOO!

We do this all day...

I don't mind.

Roy gets a bit tired of it, though.

Later this same day the skies grew cloudy...and ominous...

That's from our backyard.

A few hours later we were in the bathtub, in the dark, Matt piling pillows and blankets on top of us as hail thundered down.

Matt asked above the thundering noise if I was nervous.

I said no.

Then it got very quiet.

And I said yes.

Half a block away ten power lines snapped in half, one landing on top of a gas station, one trapping a family in their home.  

A hotel in Edmond was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. 

One of our favorite restaurants along Lake Hefner was also struck and burned.

It was a bit intense, folks.

Luckily Tatum had fun playing with the weather radio and trying to get her helmet off.

That night I packed for our trip to Orange County in the dark. We left the next day, thanking the Good Sweet Lord we skirted more severe weather!

Tatum was a squirrely twirly wiggly girl on the plane.

But she didn't cry.

No one wanted to throw us off the plane.

A childhood friend got married and we were blessed to lend our hands to prepare the wedding and reception site...

My Jr High youth pastor married them...when he was my pastor he had a long ponytail and it threw me to see him a bit gray and wearing glasses! That means I'm getting older too?!

We got to see lots of friends, family, and family friends. And friendly family. All of which are good.

And I got to do the two things I wanted to before we left.

1.

In-N-Out

2.

Go to the beach.

Tatum dipping her toes in the ocean for the first time!

Twirling

My Mama#2 Charlene

Looking at sand crabs crawling off my hand

I think it was a bit chilly for Tatum as she kept drawing her legs up in oh-so-delicate a fashion.

So there you have it.

We're home, and Tatum now has an ear infection, runny nose, diaper rash and is teething on top of it all.

And life continues to be a blur, which makes me grateful for snapshots of wonderful days like this.

Tatum's Eighth Week

That's an odd word to spell.

Eighth. 

But here she is at eight weeks old! The hi-lighted part shows the route we're taking from Seattle to Edmond, Oklahoma.  

Roy decided since she was a bit fussy on the floor that she needed a kiss to cheer her up...

I'm not sure she appreciated it...

To date we've had 10 get-togethers for people to meet our little Tater Tot, and met nearly 100 people for the first time!

Today we're in Prescott Valley, AZ with Ammah for two days of rest.  Hallelujah!  Those long days in the car are hard on a little one!

Last weekend Matt and I were able to have our first date sans baby! Grandma Beth and Grandpa Dave watched her while we went to lunch and for a walk around the lake.

Tatum did great, but apparently Roy was anxious for us to get back.

Oh, and here are the shots that Matt's cousin, Jacob, took of Tatum. He really is a talented photographer, painter, graphic designer and all around artist.  You can see some more of his photography on his blog, Jacob Reid Design Photography.

We've been so blessed to have so many people SO excited to meet our baby girl! Thank you to everyone who has arranged your schedules to accommodate us, driven long distances to see us, invited us and our very large and bossy dog into your homes and hosted gatherings of people, and loved on us and our Tatum. We have only two more days of driving until we reach our new home!

Tour de Tatum

And the Tour de Tatum has begun!

I'm sitting at my in-laws sipping Mother Lode coffee and finally able to take a few minutes to write.  Over the past few days (week, actually), the words have been piling up inside of me and I write and write in my head without the time to write it out on paper or my computer, and now that I have the time to sit down and write I've forgotten most of what I intended to say! Drat!

Writing is necessary for me.  Like eating dinner or brushing your teeth. I write in my head constantly. Now I just have to remember what I've already written!

Our pods from U-haul were unloaded last Saturday and on Sunday, in true Seattle fashion, it was cold and drizzly all day.  We hired a mover to help us fit everything into our two 5' x 7' x 8' pods.  He arrived on a motorcycle with a pony tail and long beard and looked like someone right out of Hell's Angels.  He also happened to tell Matt he was a hoarder and had to work to make pathways through his house...interesting.  But he was awfully nice, and really did bust his butt to fit as much as possible into the pods.  

Sadly, those pods are not as big as P.O.D.S. ones and we were forced to leave a lot of things behind for donation.  Our coffee table that held all our games, dining chairs I had lovingly painted robin's egg blue, TV from my dad (it was really large and heavy), TV stand I had re-stained, the beautiful bassinet we were given second-hand, and a truck load of other things had to be left for the donation truck since there was no time to try to even sell it.  We even posted it on Craigslist.org for free but there still wasn't any takers in the short amount of time we had.  

Its true its just "stuff."  But even though it was mostly second-hand I still had poured some energy and time into that "stuff," and it was sad to leave it behind knowing once we get to Oklahoma we'll need to spend more time and money to find replacements.  Looks like I'll be garage sale shopping soon! And I think I'll buy some more robin's egg spray paint because I loved our painted Ikea chairs. 

And now, a moment of silence for my chairs:

We originally meant to pull out on Monday morning, but with so much stuff left over we were trying to do the math of whether it was cheaper to try to get a hitch installed on my car and pull a trailer (it was a whole other pod's worth of stuff, basically.  U-Haul lies when they say an apartment can fit in two U-boxes!), or ship it or donate it.  We also hadn't even started cleaning the place and had a goodbye party for Matt that evening.  So we decided to stay one more day. 

The next day we cleaned and hauled more stuff to Goodwill and I crammed as much as I could into every available nook and cranny of the pods.  We had to have some friends come over to help move the TV and base into the car since I probably shouldn't be lifting anything super heavy this soon after delivering a nearly 10 pound baby...

That night, with three full bottles of breastmilk in the fridge we went to our last Seattle dinner at our fav Mexican place, Torero's and I indulged in a "regular" sized margarita for the first time since finding I was pregnant.

So. So. Good.  And appreciated.

The next morning we started loading the car.  But as it goes with a crazy dog and a baby and only one of us being a Tetris master to make everything fit in my car (me), and having used all our bottles of milk so I had to breastfeed every hour or so and finish cleaning the apartment...we didn't finally drive away until 2ish. 

Then the tarp I had tied over the things tied on top of my car wouldn't stay down, and we were so tired and fed up with it we went to FedEx and shipped it to Oklahoma.

Then we finally got on the freeway and pulled off when we saw a sign for Taco Bell and tried to get some lunch, and there was no Taco Bell to be seen! Seattle had to get us lost just one more time!  You can read my first driving experience in Seattle that I wrote nearly three years ago on the Ups and Downs and Waiting post.

That night we stayed in Meford, and the next day headed to Paradise, CA to meet up with some of Matt's family.  

Everyone was so excited to meet our little Tatum, and she did so good being passed around to all the different family members.

Even Roy had a good time the next morning with Belle the dog. 

The next morning while hanging out with Matt's Aunt Teresa and cousin Jacob I got to borrow Jake's 50mm camera lens and drool...

Jacob also took some pictures and as he's light years ahead of me in photography skills I can't wait to see them!

Thursday (was that only yesterday?!) we headed to Matt's parents with a stop in Sacramento to see some more of my family.  The last time I'd seen most of them was our wedding! We had fun catching up, despite Tatum being a little grumpy.

Tatum thought Aunt Candy was pretty funny!

Beth and Dave (my in-laws) are both elementary school teachers, and today we went to their school to show off Tatum. 

And the rest of the day we have just rested.  Well, nursed, did laundry, made a cup of coffee, wrote a paragraph of this blog, held Tatum, changed the laundry, grabbed a bite, wrote another paragraph...you get the picture...

Sorry this was such a long overload, I'll try to do shorter blips for the rest of the trip!