Catching Up

Well, it's been a while since our last post... So, here we are with a little update on the last few weeks... I'll give my version, then if Becca wants to tell things her way and fill in whatever I miss, she can go ahead.

AP in Utah

So, I spent the first 10 days of April in Utah, working with my new job. It was a lot of fun, but as always I missed the family. We had just packed up the truck the week before I flew out, so by the time I got there, the truck was just arriving. I dragged most of my family members into helping and even one cousin -- it's good to have family in Utah! :-) We filled up a storage unit in Lehi and after moving all our stuff twice in 7 days, I was glad to put the lock on the door and leave it behind for a few months.




Robby's Birthday

So, I got back just in time for Robby's 5th birthday on Friday April 11th. We planned a day full of his favorite things and had a lot of fun watching him enjoy each "surprise" as we moved through the day. We drove out to his best friend's house in VA to pick him and his sister up to go play at a park. Thankfully the weather was perfect and the kids had fun running around for a couple hours. Then, after giving Robby a few choices (some healthy ones included of course), he quickly chose McDonalds, since his b-day is pretty much the only time he ever gets to go there. We took the friends home, then headed back to the Parsons where we're staying right now. My parents came over for a little visit and brought him some presents, then we headed out to the circus for the night. Robby was so excited that the circus was in town for his birthday. We went with the Papa Parsons and kids.





Annie's Birthday

Okay, the very next week on April 17th was Annie's 2nd birthday. She was so excited and ready for her "happy day" :-) She was so excited to wake up to pink ballons floating all around her. We took her up to Baltimore for the day to a children's museum that had a lot of fun activities. Andrew Parsons came along with us and we all had a good time. As soon as we got back to the house we got things going for her family party. We had talked through a few things with her to see what she wanted to do. Her answers can pretty much all be summed up in one word... "pink". Sometimes we got an extra word to help describe what she wanted. "Annie -- what do you want for your birthday dinner?" "pink pizza!" So, we pretty much decked out the party area in pink for her and she was in heaven. She's so cute how girly she is, despite growing up w/two older brothers.








Kids Circus

With kids it's always a circus, but... inspired by the "real" circus from Robby's birthday, the kids wanted to put on their own. They had some very impressive choreography at times, but most of the acts resembled "clown" acts :-)




Sidekick

Okay, I just love this picture cause Annie is such a cute little helper. If you couldn't tell from her birthday pics, she is very much a daddy's girl -- always hanging out with me. We had a little mulching party at Parsons and Annie was my most dedicated little helper. She kept saying "this is hard, daddy" but she stuck with it. It was so cute. I LOVE having my little girl :-)



Youth Conference

After getting through the birthdays, stake youth conference preparations picked up in a big way. It was the last big thing I had to do for my church calling and it just ended last night. Phew! I probably spent a good 20 hours in the last three days leading up to it, but had a really fun time w/the kids partying all night and then doing a service project painting murals and doing landscaping all day at a DC elementary school. I'll miss this calling working w/the youth... It's like "calling roulette" when you move to a new place... we'll see what we end up with in Utah!

Okay, so those are the bigger things I've been up to. It's been a busy month, but a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to the Pincock family reunion coming up next week at Virginia Beach!

Emerging

It's been a little over a week since the days filled with packing, loading a truck, cleaning a house, and moving to my parents, and I am just now starting to feel up to checking email, returning phone calls, and venturing out. This move felt more exhausting than other (several other!) moves we've had and I needed a break. Andrew is also out of town for ten days right now, so that's probably added to my hermit-ness.
With our activities of late, I haven't been reading very much, and I've noticed. Reading a good book helps to calm me as I lie down with my kids at night, and keeps me from wasting time staying up late watching tv. I haven't been able to figure out the right book for my mood though, but tonight I just found it!
I've had this book sitting in my house for a while, but hadn't picked it up yet. It almost made its way into one of the 20 or so book boxes we packed, but for some reason I kept it out. And tonight I remembered it and began to read. As I nursed Annie to sleep I made it through the first 25 pages, and already I feel peace seeping into my soul. This was just what I was looking for! It is called Mitten Strings For God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry by Katrina Kenison and I have a feeling this is one I'll be going back to several times over the years. It reminds me of one of my most favorite books of all time, Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh which I try to read at least once a year.
A side-note: if you haven't already been there, goodreads is a fun site for finding and sharing great book recommendations.
Well, I'm going to get back to reading, and in a little while I will try to return one or two of the many emails that sit unanswered in my inbox...if I can pull myself away from the book. Here's wishing you a peaceful evening.

Busy Week!

Well, I thought I'd post a few pictures to illustrate our action-packed week!

First we started out last Saturday with an Easter egg hunt with our neighbors...




Then made it to church Sunday and took a few pictures after...


And gave the kids yet another Easter "surprise"...

And colored a few more eggs for fun...



The rest of the week we packed up the house...


Annie saying goodbye to her tricycle...


Loaded up a U-Pack trailer...


Today I took the kids to Chuck E Cheese while Becca was out running a half marathon...



Becca came to meet us straight from the race...


What a week - we're glad we made it through! After crashing at my parents for a few days in Kensington during the move, we're at Parsons now while I travel back and forth to Utah and we have our Pincock family reunion, then we'll be off to Utah in June. It was a big transition week, but a lot of fun too.

It's that time again!

Well, after a nice three and a half year stint back in the D.C. area, we're heading BACK to Utah! We're as surprised as anybody else, since we thought we were back East to stay. Maybe next time (read: there WILL be a next time, there always is a next move... when I'm involved).

So, after a spending a year and a half working on the family business, things came to another transition point and my dad and I decided it made sense for me to pursue some other options for a while.

When we were in Utah last October for Becca's marathon, I had a number of meetings with friends and business acquaintances to see what everyone was up to. A friend of mine had started a great Search Engine Optimization agency in Utah and asked me to come help him take it to the next level. It's got some interesting growth prospects and it's in an industry I love, so I'm really looking forward to it.

I've already starting working from here and will be doing some traveling back and forth over the next couple months, then we'll get out to Utah full-time by around June.

We're sad to leave the D.C. area and will miss our families and friends here, but we'll be back to visit often and back for good at some point... That said, we're really excited about hanging out with our siblings (Robby & Esther, Taba & Ben, Amy & Nathan) out in Utah and other friends and family as well. Our kids are excited to live by their cousins who are also homeschooled, so we should be able to do lots of fun things together.

If you're in Utah - we're excited to be coming your way! We'll let you know when we get settled in a house - probably around June - and somewhere between Orem and Lehi.

Our Puppy Dog!

No, we have not actually bought a dog. This is a travesty to our boys, especially Robby, who desperately love animals, especially dogs. So far we've had the excuse that because we're renting, we aren't allowed pets. However, even if that weren't the case, I just don't know if I'm ready for this commitment.

Well, the boys don't just give up when they really want something. And so, they have trained their little sister to (somewhat) fulfil this need. Annie can now do several tricks on command. She'll sit, bark, fetch, roll over, eat from a bowl on the floor...you get the idea.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this yet. Adorable, yes, but I do feel slightly guilty that my boys are this desperate for something that I won't give them. And hopefully Annie won't have any negative effects from her role playing! :)

How well I remember as a child telling my mom (who didn't want dogs & cats in our house) that as soon as I grew up and lived in my own house, I was going to have a dozen animals. Ah, sad to grow up and face certain realities of life, huh?

Anyone else have pets & kids? I want to hear some advice on positive ways to make this work.

Hip Hip Hooray for Field Trip Day!

So one of the advantages of homeschooling is that we can go on field trips wherever we want whenever we want and stay as long as we want. I love going on field trips, sometimes I think I enjoy them more than the kids! And I think we all learn better when we are actually there, seeing and touching what we're learning about. So I decided that we would take a weekly field trip-every Friday. Most of these field trips we go on by ourselves, but sometimes we'll join other homeschooling families for our fun.

Some of the things we've done include: touring the post office, going behind the scenes at the bank, visiting a violin shop and learning how violins are made, caroling & performing a puppet show at nursing homes, visiting a butterfly exhibit, seeing plays, and of course, taking advantage of the zoo, aquarium, and musueums in the area.

In my quest for a new place to go each week, I've made some great finds. Some places are unexpected. I took the kids to a very small art museum that is only about 5 minutes from where I grew up, but I had never been there before. They have windows where you can watch local artists at work, and their art is displayed on the walls.

I also found a great indoor (i.e. winter survival) play place that was fantastic. It's basically a big warehouse space that has several areas sectioned off for different types of activites. All the walls are very low, so I can see from one end of the building to the other which made it easy to let the boys roam while I played with Annie. And they had all kinds of things for the kids to do: a real (old, but real) fire engine that the kids could climb and drive, including gear to wear; an entire area filled with sand and sand toys for the kids to climb in and get their fill of the beach in February; a puppet theatre & puppets; a real ambulance, dentist chair, and exam table for some pretty realistic 'playing doctor'; a dance floor complete with mirror, ballet bar, tap shoes, and music-I had to beg Annie to stay a little longer so I could keep dancing!; play food, grocery carts, cash registers; slides, jungle gyms...the list goes on. I think kids learn so much through play, and there were plenty of wonderful playing opportunities here. There were so many different areas that none of us got bored, and we only left after 4 1/2 hours because we had to get home!

So...take a closer look around where you live. Talk to some friends, check online, look in the paper. Even if you've grown up there, there just may be a few surprises waiting around the corner. And don't be afraid to try something new, I've been having at least as much fun during these 'children's activities' as my kids!

So what are some field trips you've been on (either as a kid or an adult!)?