Fun times with Grandma and Grandpa

Our kids at first kept saying they wanted to go home. But home soon became Grandma and Grandpa's house. What helped persuade them was the various activities that Grandma had the kids do. Most of which had to deal with sugar, chocolate, or bribery.

First a painting lesson. Grandma bought Lilly nail polish and Lilly was easily persuaded to make her look beautiful. She will let anyone know who lends a listening ear that she is beautiful and that, "I love me!"






Taden felt quite left out but he knew that nail polish was for girls but he made the exception that "pink is pretty but blue is for boys."





Next Grandma incentivised bath time and bought a pool. Here are a few examples.









One of the niceties of living in paradise is that you live close to beaches. And another nice thing about paradise is that those beaches aren't full of tourists. Here is a video and some pictures of our grand experience complete with some views of paradise.

A 51.5 hour move

In preparation for moving to paradise we had to condense to a 6 x 12 Uhaul. This meant much use of Matt Scott's dumpster at Big O Tires and thrift store runs. My dad bought a flatbed 4 x 8 trailor around the same time that worked perfectly to haul our stuff away We had a tornado hit our town the night before we moved. A couple blocks from our house was hit as demonstrated below. Our house, our trees, and our 6 x 12 Uhaul all remained in place. A sign that it was okay to move I believe.









It turned out to be the longest road trip I have ever taken. Our kids behaved very well. It turned out to take around 51.5 hours driving. My dad helped get us to Utah and then Maranda drove most of the way to Washington.

This is what our Uhaul looked like when we unpacked it. We were greeted by stuffed animals.

A boy turns one and a science center with little girl next to a big ear, astronauts, and a little boy chipmunk

On April 14, Thomas turned one and my dad turned one for the 63rd time. Maranda found an idea to create a birthday cake that looks like the one year old on their birthday. Here is her version of Thomas.









A tradition that Mike's family has is to allow the one year old access to the cake on the ground. Taden just daintily picked at the icing, but Thomas devoured almost the whole piece in around 5 minutes.



We departed Indiana on Thursday the 26th. 51.5 hours in the van we made it to the beautiful state of Washington on Tuesday the 31st. We spent a couple of days with Mike's sister. On Saturday we went up to Portland to visit with Natasha, Grandpa Dave and Ben and we went to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.) Here are some of my favorite snapshots.








One of the highlights was being able to become astronauts. Everyone shows off their own unique personalities. Taden refused to stick his face in it. Grandpa Dave told him to stick his face in so that he cold kiss him. Taden just sticks his head in. (That's the first picture.)













They had a dress up costume in a play zone for Thomas. Here are some of our favorite shots of our cute little chipmunk.