A new Ashlawn Elementary Eagle!

Today Natalie met her new teacher and saw her new classroom (and locker!). Seeing the school helped ease her nerves (which needed to be calmed big time). She starts next Tuesday but already has her school t-shirt for Pride Fridays. She will miss Parkview and all the pandas cubs there, but the little eaglets look pretty fun too!

The Home/Smithsonian

Though Natalie said the space museum in McMinnville is "cooler", I have to disagree. It was so fun taking the kids to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and sharing historical stories with them. They learned about Neil Armstrong and Amelia Earhart...saw the Apollo Lunar Spacecraft (incredible) . Their favorite plane of all was the Spirit of St. Louis because they have read and watched movies about it with Grandpa Jonsey...so of course they had to pose in front of it (see below!)

Per requests, I am posting some pics of the apartment too. We still have 1/2 of the living room filled with boxes of the woman who we are borrowing from, so as soon as she picks them up I will make a video tour for y'all! We also have an obnoxious TV system. I have never had more than 15 channels, so even the Comcast remote freaks me out and I can't even figure out how to turn it on sometimes (but I'm not complaining because I will get to watch Walking Dead and The Daily Show on the day they are shown!).

Instead of a gym membership I decided to get a bike trainer for my road bike (excited pic below!)...I figure I can workout with John Stewart...cool.

Steve started work yesterday and got a tour of the Library of Congress today. He's carrying an umbrella now (black to match is new black suits, of course). We are missing him around but I'm figuring out all of the fun local parks, ice cream shops and bus system to fill my time. Natalie gets to meet her teacher, Mrs. Adams, at 2nd grade orientation tomorrow. She's also pretty psyched that she gets a LOCKER!

All is good except the pool closes on Labor Day so I'm trying to get the last bit of my tan before the dark days of winter!

(not sure why I can't put my pics in order from my phone...so enjoy the assortment!)

Cheers!

Figuring it out...

ZipCars. Metro. City Bus. Walking shoes. New cement-worthy running shoes....and new kids light-up Razor scooters. Figuring out how to navigate this city without a car has been our newest challenge today. We found the essentials: Natalie's school, Target, water park, White House... So I think we are all set. Natalie and I took a 3 hour tour of the beltway today, drove to Maryland and stocked up on necessities like cute duvet covers and cutting boards at Ikea. (Yes, Brian Cassidy, Maryland drivers suck) I wish people would quit beeping at me, because this Bellingham girl thinks there is an emergency when I here a car horn! So annoying! We also got to meet PEOPLE tonight at the first Einstein Fellow BBQ. We drove through the heart of DC to a family's home. It was dreamy being around other kids and interesting adults for the first time in a week. Tomorrow we begin registering Natty for 2nd grade and have our last playday with Dad before he starts work on Tuesday. It's all falling into place well! Below are a few pics of our first ZipCar drive (in a Leta-car "Mazda 3"...kids were stoked), Steve's big round chair experience, and the kids on our deck with their new city transportation scooters.

Day 3: The homies trying to make it "Homey"

In an attempt to make Arlington a new "home" we decided to go out and try to make it feel like OURS...which meant we needed to get our regular food at a Trader Joes, get library cards and visit our neighborhood library, visit a bike shop (guess who's idea that was?) and then celebrate with swim lessons in our pool. All went well except for the metro security telling us our kids were out of control and he was afraid they would fall into the tracks! Oops...one major difference I am noticing here is that kids in the northwest seem to be used to a little (or a lot) more freedom to roam and be crazy. I feel like I've been an annoying mom constantly telling my kids to settle down...my poor wild PNW kids! In the end, Sawyer got his first library card and we got our beloved green juice at TJ's!

Exploring the new neighborhood!

We decided to take a day away from organizing the apartment to explore our new surroundings. Steve and I did our first urban running on the hilliest streets we could find (nothin' compared to Governor Rd!). Sawyer's dream has been to see the Hope Diamond at the Museum of Natural History after reading about it in his gem book. So we packed a lunch and took out first metro ride to the capitol mall and the Smithsonian. I am trying to relax about having my kids hands all over the nasty railings in the city! Ew. We also treated ourselves to another night at Fro-Zen-Yo...which could easily become the nightly ritual! Below are a few pics of the day including a pic of our "big round chair"!

Hello DC!

We are here! Wow. We have certainly had a couple days of crazy surprises and interesting moments.  The red-eye plane ride itself proved to be an valuable experience in test parental patience. Natalie cried most of the way, missing her neighbors, Sam, Hailey, etc...and of course explained how a large piece of her heart was "missing" and it was never growing back.  We knew that jeg-lag wasn't going to help this situation either...sweet.  Sawyer slept almost all night wiggling and contorting himself and kicking me so I didn't sleep at all. Steve, on the other hand, was in the next row over and slept nice and soundly, which gave me hope one of us was going to be able to handle this big move to the city!

We had the great opportunity to borrow furniture for our 13th floor apartment, but it was quite shocking when someone else's stuff arrives and you have to unpack it.  I just packed up the whole house at home and then to unload a million boxes was quite overwhelming.  I think Steve thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown as I unwrapped the MASSIVE round chair (which has since become the kids favorite place to chill out).  I chilled out and we are appreciating the generosity of another Einstein fellow who we have still not met yet. 



The apartment itself is pretty dang awesome! The security in the place is incredible with key locks, a 24hr concierge, an amazing pool with a life guard, computer room and party room.  I feel like I'm in a hotel and Sawyer keeps calling it that! We rented a two bedroom and two bath and thank goodness it has a a washer and dryer in the apartment (even if it is in the kitchen).  Our deck is amazing and 22 feet long and I just pray that I get over the sheer panic of having the kids out on it....but it provides fresh air which is what I clearly miss about home already.
Each of us have had our surprises already. Sawyer is surprised how much he loves the elevators and all the places to run and explore. Natalie is surprised that there is a Fro-Yo store (just like Menchies!) in the ground floor of the apartment.  Steve is realizing how cool the Zip-Cars are since we are auto-less and I am shocked how how little the selection of soy milk and other non-dairy milks the stores have. DANG IT!  But over all we are having an memorable move-in experience and can't wait to go visit the Capitol Mall and Smithsonian tomorrow morning!