Alive and Well in California

Hello from California! I've been having a lot of technical problems that have annoyed me like crazy, so I've been out of the loop (oh, and moving a few times). I'm hopefully back in touch with the net--as long as I can make peace with it. Sorry I've neglected a lot of friendships in Houston since moving, I'm going to try to get back in touch soon.

Here is a synopsis of what we've been up to the past two months:

• Ran Boston Marathon April 20
• Stayed in hotel a couple of nights during packing in Houston, lots of puke from City and lots of help from friends Pam and Ruth Ann, thank you!
• Moved to the Residence Inn in Mountainview, CA on April 24 for a week (AWESOME PLACE, could live there forever with their free breakfasts!)
• Moved to Apartment in Mountainview, CA for 3.5 weeks. Movers missed a few things and we ended up with just a few boxes in our apartment. Lived very minimally and with only an overhead light in the kitchen and bathrooms, very dark existence. Oh, and limited internet.
• Moved to house in Sunnyvale, CA. Yeah, we're in! Had lots of help from Josh's parents, my little sister Tina, and a few guys from church. Thanks help!
• Partied a bit with Tina in between unpacking--went to San Fran, frozen yogurt at Santana Row (fun shopping place), Santa Cruz beach, Murphey Street in Sunnyvale for delicious Indian...
• Still unpacking.
• Went back to pick something up at the apartment and Hazel started balling, "Don't go back to apartment, no, not apartment, not the apartment!!!" Seriously crying...guess I didn't realize how boring it was there for them!
• Been to lots of festivals, I LOOOVE festivals. Been to a few art festivals. My fav was one where Kashi had a 4 tent set up where you could try a bunch of stuff, even do a yoga session, we skipped (we have two kids remember, and Josh).
  
• Free First Friday open gallery and funky music night in San Jose--very weird, very fun. Josh started saying at one point, "One of these things is not like the other." It took me a minute because I'd just been watching the girls dancing to this techno anti-Bush music (moral quandry, let them dance? I did, they were too cute). Then I looked around and noticed we were the conservative little suburban family, plaid shirt on Josh and everything, amidst the tights jeans on guys I've ever seen, people wearing spacey puffy shirts, crazy make-up and hair...it was kind of fun. I esp liked making a pledge to be more involved in my community by going to the park more. Then I had to open a pledge by popping someone else's balloon, "I'll participate in a march." Yeah, on tea party day maybe.
• Hanging out with Josh's family, the Hansens (he has an aunt and uncle and cousin here), it's been wonderful to be so close and they've helped a lot!
  
• Library, parks, other freebies, and running. Oh, and Josh working. Right, that's why we're here.
  

One of the problems I've had with my blog is that once I download pics, I can't rearrange them, and I've tried and tried. ? So, despite the bad order of things, here are some pictures.

This is my Hazelnut with her new do, I love it and so does she.

Right after I cut it. She looks so cute in this I've never noticed her bangs...it was hard, okay?
She was such a good girl when I cut it.

A week before the cut at the Hansens, this doesn't really show it, but it was so beautiful. It was just looking a little crazy though.

She wanted to dress up one day, which I'm sorry to say we haven't done much in her life yet, so I was a little surprised. And we had a pretty small stash of stuff we were living off of, so this is what we came up with. My creativity really shows doesn't it?

Couldn't leave City out.
I love that it looks like City is doing a model pose. She's looking pretty good! I actually thought Hazel looked really darling in her pants on her head, tempted to wear it out. City looked like a great little old man in his night cap.

Josh bought me a new flash for mother's day. I was so excited because a harsh flash can really mess up a good picture so I'm often holding my hand in front of it so I can get a partial flash. Here is the before and after...but it's the after first since I can't switch the darn things. Doesn't it make a huge difference? This is now probably my fav pic of Josh. Ahh...I'm so in love with him. It was such a spontaneous picture but it captures a lot of his sweetness and good humor.

Here's the "before" picture complete with "when are we going to be done with this" face.
The newest thing the girls are into is "being Mary" after their baths. They just sort of came up with it. Ater every bath they want to "be Mary!" Then they run around the house like this, they are so awesome. I can't stop laughing when they both do it. There happen to be a lot of women here who cover their heads and Hazel always yells out, "It's Mary!!!" when she sees them. She did it to a nun the other day. She also yelled out, "It's Jesus!" when she saw a man with really long hair passing the sacrament in our ward in our first couple of weeks. We tried to distract her, but she kept saying it. I told the guy after and we laughed since he said he's gotten that before, but he came to church a couple of weeks later with his head shaved. But now he's growing a beard, so maybe she'll say he's Moses now.

Oh, here's out sweet apartment too.

Happy bday to Josh! This is our stylin dinner set-up. Play the game, "where's the table?"

Oh, there it is. I'm sure you can imagine how many times we knocked this dumb this over. We had to put the modem on it when we weren't eating, so everytime we wanted to use the table we disconnected the internet. And the folding chairs posed a few problems with Felicity climbing too.

Josh with his throne of presents (hiding under the blanket).

May Day. It's a flower, can't you tell?

Making good use of packing papers.

Thanks to my Mom's suggestion to make it fun for the girls, we had a little moving in party.

We had balloons, those blow things, and cookies (store bought of course, we didn't have any cooking ingredients or utensils for a month).

Here's our lux bed at the Residence Inn. Just trying to remember how they did a good job with red.

Our kitchen at the hotel. I LOOVEd that hotel.

Any song come to mind? Like going to San Francisco with flowers in your hair? We saw this tydy dress at a garage sale and couldn't pass it up. She was so excited because she said it was like a giant snuggly (her little blue thing she sleeps with). She loved feeling like she was wearing her snuggly all day and I loved that she looked like a little hippie. Those are our pretty flowers. Which we'll probably eventually knock that whole thing down, but that's for a different day.

Making the peace sign. I taught her how to say "peace out" at a very young age. She can also do "rock on" and "I love you" with her signs, useful huh?

Packing up and moving out of our apartment. See ya.

First time in OUR house!

Playing with a glass fish bowl they left as a...decoration? It's still there, I need to toss it. Do you like our alien plants in the background? You can't see it here, but there are a million little ones sprouting up, can't wait to tear them all out!

Here she is! Also can't wait to paint. I have to focus on the inside for now though, I just painted the girls room and thanks to buying 3 small samples, I actually only had to paint their room ONCE! I think that is the first time I've ever done that (meaning not messing up the color so bad I'd need to repaint like 9 more times).

Hazel was so excited about the "Dora Party" package my mom sent that she loved her peas that night. Can you believe they were the first kids plates we've owned? We've only used little bowls with them so far. It's so nice to have plates! Now that I know how great they are, we could really use a few more.Excited about Dora plates, book, movie and treats! Thanks Mom!

So much more, but are you even still there? At least I'm getting semi-caught up! Lots of love from the land of Cal-ee-four-nya (said likeSchwarzenegger).

Q: Coming to our area any time soon? We'd love to see you!
Q: What colors would you paint the outside of this house?