So I am a city girl. There, I said it. I’ve lived in Las Vegas since I was 12 (so 23 years) and Las Vegas just isn’t nature-ee. I mean, there is nature, you just have to look for it, and I rarely did. Here, in Bend, nature is everywhere. Like, seriously, everywhere.
My backyard is pretty awesome. And maybe I say that because my Vegas backyard was like [ ] this big, but I absolutely love my new yard. My long term plan is to have a garden with lots of yummy veggies for us to grow and eat. Last week the twinzies and I went out for our first ever weeding party. Now, laugh if you must, but I know nothing about gardening, weeding, grooming, landscaping, or anything else yard related. City girl, remember. =)
So the twinzies and I head out with our two garden tools, a small hand shovel and hand rake (they had their plastic shovels and rakes). For two hours we pulled weeds, moved old branches, piled up TONS of old leaves, and much to my horror, discovered MANY MANY MANY gross bugs.
So I will admit I was very proud of myself for continuing on after I saw (from left to right - and these might be the totally wrong names of the bugs, but since I have no clue what they are this is what I call them): a centipede, beetle, very long worm (like as long as my forearm), millipede, roly poly (one of the few bugs I don’t mind), snail, some weird grasshopper, SPIDERS GALORE, and poop. Yes, there was dried up poop everywhere and when I went digging it turned up fresh poop. Very fragrant to say the least. Or as Heaten said, “poooo-eeee Mama”.
Oh yeah, and some weird larvae of some sort.
We even found some weird mushroom thing that looks more like a you know what (since this is my kids blog I better keep it PG rated). =)
Despite the gross bugs I kept on trucking and made three pretty large piles of debris. Go me right? Ha, I barely made a dent in the corner of the area. Like barely.
Heaten LOVED being outside “working” and was so proud that he was helping his Mama in the garden.
Shenzie liked it too, but she was more interested in trying to kill all of the bugs we found. She is an expert bug killer!
I see many, many hours more of digging, pulling, and getting creeped the f out by the bugs…….but, I live in nature now so I might as well start embracing it!!!
*Just a little disclaimer before I get in big trouble from Grandma’s for using such foul language around the house. This was NOT from me. =) And for the record I have never heard either kid ever say this - this was completely random. Heaten only says God Dammit when using his “Ant Sprayer” which is a piece of side walk chalk. I couldn’t help myself from laughing hysterically every time it came out of his mouth. It was just too funny!!!
When we decided to move to Bend I told Shenzie and Heaten they would finally get their big kid beds (converted crib into toddler beds). Shenzie was especially excited about this, Heaten was more eh, give me my trains! One of the first things I did when the Uhaul was unloaded was setup the twinzies big kid beds and get their rooms as normal as possible to make the transition smoother.
Night One:
Shenzie sleeps in her big girl bed all night and LOVES it. No problems, she goes right to sleep and stays in bed until 7 when “it’s light out”. Heaten woke in the middle of the night and spent the rest of the night in our bed (not fun having all three of us piled in a queen size bed).
Night Two:
Shenzie goes right to bed with no problems and sleeps all night. Heaten asks for his crib back so I put it back together and life seems good. That is, until he spends the next 10 minutes crying for his big boy bed back. My answer - Nope. He is just not ready to stay in bed and wants to sleep in our bed (which isn’t going to happen).
Night Three:
Shenzie and Heaten go right to bed. No crying, no muss. That is until Jeff and I hear pitter patter upstairs while watching tv. Shenzie has learned she can get out of bed and run around. Hahahahaha.
Night Four:
More pitter patter from Shenzie, but as long as she doesn’t wake Heaten up I’m ok with it. She eventually goes to sleep on her own.
Night Five:
Once again Shenzie is such a big girl and stays in her room, only coming out once. The awesome thing is when she comes out she just peeks around, making no noise and goes right back into her bedroom. Heaten had a mini nap and was not tired for bed AT ALL. I don’t know where he got it from but last night he was scared of the “mean man outside”. He told me there was a mean man outside that was going to get him in his room. When I explained that all of the mean men were sleeping and we looked out the window into the darkness he assured me the mean man was out there. I told him the mean man couldn’t get up to his room because it was so high and all of the doors were locked. Heaten assured me that the mean man would break the door and come up the stairs. I’m pretty sure he was genuinely scared which sucks, and I’m not sure where the mean man even came from?? I brought him downstairs to check all of the locks and show him how big and strong Daddy was to fight the mean man. Heaten told me that Mommy is strong too so for good measure I threw a few air punches to show him how strong I am. =) After seeing Daddy’s mad Kung Fu skills he finally went to bed.
Last Night:
Hear pitter patter upstairs. Do not investigate. Should have investigated. Shenzie decided it was a good idea at 9:30 to have a tea party in her room and soaked the floor and her entire pj’s with water. How we didn’t hear the water running is beyond me. Teapot now has a new home in my closet. =)
So far they haven’t had real naps since moving and I’m pretty sure we’re done. Heaten still falls asleep in the car if we’re out at nap time or occasionally on my bed while having quiet time with a movie. He still needs his sleep, but refuses to nap in his crib so little catnaps will have to do for now.
*Their rooms are still a little barren. We still need to paint and decorate. Slowly but surely we are getting there. =)
*Our yard is my own little slice of heaven. I’m used to our teeny tiny backyard in Las Vegas. Here the kids have TONS of room to run, play, yell, and scream.
*I can’t wait to start my garden. Well, once I do some research since I’ve never ever in my whole life planted anything that I planned on eating later. =) The photo below is my future garden.
*Strawberrries randomly grow outside my office window. Can’t wait to eat them!!
*We have a pet frog out back. He is really small and cute. We also have two cats that love our backyard, but run away as fast as they can when they see the twinzies coming their way.
*Weather! The weather is crazy. One minute it will be sunny and nice and (I’m not even exaggerating), the next minute it is raining and 10 degrees cooler.
*So far we’ve had bright sunny days, sprinkles, pouring rain, snow, and hail. The weather keeps things interesting for sure!
*Bend is beautiful. The trees, the waterfalls, the rivers, the parks, the houses, the mountains. Paradise.
The not so awesome:
*The drivers are kinda crazy. Jeff said they drive like me so apparently I drive crazy too.
*The speed limits are s.l.o.w. 35 on the main roads, 45 on the freeway in town, and 55 on the freeway out of town. I’m used to 70-80 on the freeway and find myself constantly wanting to go faster.
*For some reason I had it in my head that a smaller city would = less traffic. Nope. There is much more traffic than I thought there would be.
*I also thought for some reason that a smaller city would have TONS of nice people. Nope. So far I haven’t found strangers to be any nicer than those in Las Vegas.
*Our internet is MUCH slower at uploading photos which SUCKS! The positive to slower internet is saving $100 a month.
So far life in Bend is pretty awesome and I can’t wait to explore the city!!
Holy Hell! We did it! We’re all packed up, Uhaul loaded, and ready to begin our journey early tomorrow morning. We had a HUGE amount of help (THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE) and they were the BOMB! I thought it would take an entire day to load our entire house into the Uhaul, hell, maybe even longer. Nope, two hours later and it was done. TWO HOURS - My brother in law Dave and my Dad are apparently master loaders and filled every nook and cranny of the truck. So much so that the back doors almost don’t close because it is so full, jam packed from floor to ceiling, and let me tell you, the truck is BIG!
My plan to sleep in the empty house didn’t quite work out so we’re shacked up at my parents for the night. Poor Jeff is in there (currently 10pm) trying to get Heaten to sleep while Shenzie is cute as can be all curled up in the middle of the king sized bed, facing the wrong way, snoring up a storm.
So wish us luck on our “adventure” to our new town, driving 16-20 hours with 3 year old crazy people. It should be interesting, very interesting indeed. =)
So YAY! I didn’t even know I was a nominee for Best Family Photographer in Las Vegas until my sister sent me the link. I’m not sure how I got up there, but I’m super excited about it!! If you don’t mind registering I would love your vote. Registration is easy and you can vote daily until the contest ends on June 17th. Head on over here to vote!!
Thanks a bunch!!!
Our move is finally here so I’ll be MIA for a few weeks while we get setup in our new house in Bend, Oregon. See you soon!!!
So it is no secret that I do not like Las Vegas. Well, that is kind of a lie. I actually don’t mind Las Vegas, and growing up here was pretty great. Everything you ever need or want 24/7, great restaurants, fun clubs, the strip, etc. When we had the twinzies we knew we didn’t want to raise them here for a bunch of reasons. Bad school system, loud, mean, dirty, crime filled, crazy drivers everywhere, gangs, violence, HOT, no community, etc. We recently had a bunch of crime in my immediate area (several people murdered - as in shot in the face murdered - just a few blocks from here). The killing and crimes were in broad daylight and I was honestly scared to leave my house with the kids for walks or bike rides. That is just insane and not somewhere I want to be.
Ok, so that entire story was not really necessary to say - WE’RE BLOWING THIS POPSICLE STAND!!!! Yep, we are finally, FINALLY moving. This Sunday to be exact. We’ve been tossing the idea of leaving Las Vegas around for a few years, and have researched moving to Canada (Trail/Nelson, BC) quite extensively. When my good friend Julie mentioned how awesome Bend, Oregon was and that the housing market was super cheap we started researching the city, and BAM, it got bumped to first place! I wanted a city that was not too tiny, but not larger than about 125,000. Bend has 80,000 so perfect. The schools got above average ratings, the city is beautiful, clean, and green. I’m certain the people will be much nicer than the rudeness that is Las Vegas. We worked with an awesome Realtor (Kelly Johnson if you’re in the market for a home in Central Oregon). She showed us houses online and we actually bid on a house, only having saw photos. We were up against 10 other bidders and won!! I flew there to see the house and luckily, it is perfect! The house is nice (bigger than ours now), the yard is big and beautiful, and it is in a great neighborhood. It has a garden which I can’t wait to plant, and right up the street is Tar*get, which is probably my favorite store!
So anyway, this last month has been crazy insane with work and trying to get the loan in place for the house, renting our current house, packing, working, working, working, being crazy, getting gray hairs, and then more crazy. I’m not a big secret keeper. I try to be, but I just suck at keeping secrets. I couldn’t say anything about moving until certain people were notified and man, that sucked! We leave this Sunday for the (UGH) 16 hour drive with the twinzies. I’m not too happy about the drive, I’m actually dreading it, but at least we’ll be in our new home!!
It is very bittersweet to leave. I’m so excited for us to move, but so sad to leave my family. My entire family is here, all of my sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews, Grandma and Grandpa, everyone . I’m so sad to leave them all, especially when all of the cousins are so close in age and love each other so much. I plan on coming back fairly often for work (I’ll be here in July, September, October, and maybe November) so at least I’ll get to see them all often.
Mt. Bachelor is only 20 minutes away and Jeff promised me if we moved to somewhere snowy he would go snowboarding with me, so YAY, this winter I get to snowboard again!!! And I hope to put the twiznies in ski lessons. Bend is a very outdoorsy type of city and I’m really glad we’ll get to enjoy it. The downside is the snow. Las Vegas really has no weather, it is just hot. Winter’s are very mild, spring and fall are awesome, and summer is just HOT. But, no snow. No rain. No real weather. Bend has both snow and rain (although not as much as most of Oregon since it is the high desert). I don’t drive well in weather (I don’t know how to drive in snow at all), so I’m a little nervous about living in a place with weather, and real winters with real snow. But Jeff assures me the twinzies will love it and that it won’t be as bad as I’m imagining. Lets hope he’s right!
So YAY!, that was the super secret project I kept alluding to, since you now know I can’t keep a secret!
The other night while playing with my nieces I started twisting Marlee’s hair in a bun. She sat quietly and let me play with her hair, twisting it, pony tailing it, running my fingers thru it. Sometimes its the little things. It was such a sweet moment for me and very rare since Shenzie never lets me play with her hair, as in NEVER. While I love her curls, they are a lot of work!!
On bath days I condition her hair with my conditioner and pull a wide tooth comb loosely thru while she cries OWWWWWWW! After bath I spray in a detangler and also a leave in conditioner. I then pull the wide comb thru again, getting out all of the knots. Poor girls HATES it. No matter how hard I try to be gentle , I always end up hurting her. After naps and bedtime her hair looks like a big knotted mop, and OMG forget about trying to brush it when it is dry. This is when I try my hardest to convince her to let me put it in a pony or piggies (of which the answer is mainly NO, I WEAR IT DOWN). So we leave the house many days with ratty tatty hair and mismatched clothes since she insists on dressing herself. I’m sure most people think she is an orphan. =)
Fresh from the bath with nice, non ratty tatty hair, =)
