North Carolina Part I- Graduation

Ah, we are home from NC. It was a great trip both with family and old friends. I am glad to be home as this was just the first trip of many this summer. We flew from Seattle to Charlotte NC, Corbin's longest flight yet. He was a trooper. But I was tired. It's hard to keep that little guy in one small place for 5 hours. And by myself. I was really glad to see my parents in Houston for the second flight and have some help. The whole trip Corbin did so awesome going with the flow. Some days he hardly got any naps, or one nap, and even 2 on some days! We met my grandparents in Charlotte and drove to Asheville. The family that Jed and Kara nanny for have this amazing apartment/office/meditation center right in downtown Asheville that they let us stay in. It was amazing! Corbin and I had our own room with a master bath that became his bedroom :-), a balcony on the street where we could listen to music being played down the street, and some great people watching. And fans in every room. Corbin was in heaven!

We spent Friday hanging out, letting Corbin nap, and going to the UNCA Botanical Gardens. Corbin had fun crawling around in the grass and mud.

Then on Friday night Jed raced in the Town Mt. Climb. We went and cheered him on. He ended up finishing 4th.

On Saturday, Jed walked in the graduation ceremony. He graduated from University of North Carolina Asheville, Summa Cum Laude, in Health and Wellness. He just got accepted into Teach For America in Denver. So in July he and Kara are moving to Denver. He still has to get a job in a specifc school but the hardest part was getting into the super competetive Teach for America program! The graduation was pretty cool as far as college graduations go. Doc Watson got an honorary degree and sang three songs! It was pretty cool. He was one of the first people Jed and I saw in concert when Jed was 5! And the key note speaker was from Evergreen State College and sang the fighting song about the Gooey Duck! Ha! And it was outside and gorgeous out. Corbin and I played on the grass and walked around while it was all going on.

We of course missed Adam while we were gone. But we got to Skype with him a few times. Corbin just lit up when he saw him and waved! It was so cute.

Jed and Kara had a wedding to go to on Saturday night, so we had his party on Sunday at our friend Becca's house. Becca is also from Andover, and is Kelcey's sister. So it's kinda cool that we got to see her too.

Jed and Alex in a game of Corn Hole.

Becca has a whole basket full of dog dress up clothes. She thought it would be fun to show it to Corbin...

It was great to see my parents and grandparents. And celebrate Jed's graduation. Even though I went to Asheville to visit Kelcey a long time ago, I hadn't been since Jed has lived there. It was fun to see where he lives, meet some of his friends, and hang out in a pretty cool city.

Corbin turned 11 months while we were there. He also took his first steps on his own. Three of them!!! They were mini steps but they were steps. At some point I will write an 11 month post too.

Next up, Part II- visiting Lili and the Loomer gang!

Cheating

I have been really busy getting ready for my trip to North Carolina to visit Jed & Kara and the Loomer gang, so I didn't write a Mothers Day weekend post... so I am cheating and sending you to Meghan's blog for a peak at our weekend on the Island. She got some great shots of our beach walk and Corbin playing in the grass :-) Enjoy!

Happy Mothers' Day!

Happy Mothers' Day!!!!!!

Play time!

Brody came over to play today!

This is a longer video, if you are not into that sort of thing :-) 3ish minutes. But I think it's pretty cute...of course.

Corbin is testing his naps out these days. He is getting ready to transition to one nap a day. He only had one yesteday. Then he was ready for a nap this morning at 8:30. He threw a mini tantrum and head butted his head on the floor. Then slept for 2 hours. Then when Brody was over he did the same thing. So up to the crib we went. Brody left and Corbin was still awake in his crib. So after he had been there for 30 minutes and obviously wasn't going to sleep I went and got him. He decide to bring blue softy back down stairs with him. And then proceeded to carry him around while he was playing.

He is currently playing in his crib again. He keeps looking like he is going to go to sleep but then sleep does not happen. He has now been up for 4 1/2 hours...you think he would be tired... who knows.

Things in dirt

We went all-in with the gardening this weekend. It's always nice when you feel like you got a lot accomplished, and then you can look outside and actually see accomplishments. We did a fair amount of reconfiguring this year. I'm going with a longer and taller hoop house for the tomatoes/peppers/basil (not in yet). We're trying out a squash-under-and-amongst-the-corn strategy, and have less rows and more "patches." We'll see how it goes.

On the west side of the garden there was a little slope, wasting a lot of space. Saturday I busted out a barrier so we could take that space and use it.

We got five yards of dirt delivered on Friday. It seemed like not much at first, and now we've moved about half of it, and it seems like a ton.

I'm all about starts. Because they're like headstarts. And because I'm too lazy to start my own. The only veggies we'll start by seed are greens and potatoes.

Lots of rocks with nowhere to go. So now we have another little bed. The wall is not the fanciest, sturdiest, or prettiest, but it's working all right, and the bed will be nice to have. Erin planted flowers there.

Chard, spinach, and salad starts we got two weeks ago and which are very very happy to be in the ground.

Erin planted a bunch of flowers. The veggies we got in the ground were beans, peas, squash, zucchini, chard, salad mix, kale, spinach, broccoli, red potatoes, purple potatoes, red onion, yellow onion, shallots, leeks, parsley, rosemary. Still to plant are cucumbers and corn. Still to acquire are tomatoes, peppers, basil, and who knows.

Whew. Happy May!

Tulips

We are lucky to live near one of the most beautiful festivals, the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. Just a half hour down the freeway we can view this!
It's pretty amazing! So this past Friday we decided to take a mom and baby trip down to see them. The mom's plan. Get cute pictures of the babies in the flowers. The babies plan, who knows. We went down with our friends Daylen & Luca and Aimee & Alden. Corbin's best bud, Brody was sick, so they couldn't come. We missed them though! Maybe we can photo shop them in :-)

We left at nap time, thinking that they could sleep in the car on the way down. Corbin and Alden decided to play and talk the whole time instead of nap. Alden is 3 days younger than Corbin and his mom is a school counselor too. They were pretty cute. I am going to try to upload a cute video that Aimee took of the day. Alden ended up falling asleep 5 minutes before we got there, Corbin was trying but just didn't quite get there. So after about an hour of getting all the babies fed, changed, awake, sunscreen, etc. we finally got into the fields. We could not have asked for a better day. About 70 degrees with a light breeze! Awesome! The tulips were at their peak!

Corbin fell asleep after we got some pictures, which I was glad to have him get a least a little shut eye, but it made it so I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted. Like I said, my plan and his plan are often different :-) We also decided that we need another person along who doesn't have a baby, water bottle, blanket, pack, and more to take the pictures for us! Ha!

And of course, I am so bad at picking the perfect picture to put on, so you get to see a whole bunch of them.

Mt. Baker in the background!

The Olympic Mts. in the other direction!

Amazingly enough we only had one tulip destruction. And no dirt eaten. Although I can't say the same thing for Alden :-)

My sleepy little guy.

The awesome mama's and babes; me, Aimee & Alden and Daylen & Luca.

It was a pretty great day! We did miss Becky and Brody though. We got some good lunch, did some high chair improvisation with strollers. And of course no sleep on the way home either, which was ok, because transferring the baby and car seat and hoping for more sleep would have been almost impossible. The sun is on it's way out this next week to give us some rain for our garden. We worked hard in the garden today. We got 5 yards of dirt delivered on Thursday and now we will be shoveling it to it's various home for the next couple of weeks. Hopefully we can plant some starts in the ground tomorrow before it rains too hard.

Oh and Corbin has a 5th tooth. Top right eye tooth. And he is working on a molar. Ouch!

What's for dinner?

Ready for planting

The garden is almost ready! For planting that is. We borrowed the broad fork (a giant fork for tilling up the soil) from Jill and Paul this weekend, had some sunshine, and time while Corbin took a LONG afternoon nap and got tons done! We even moved the HUGE concrete blocks that were in the garden for no reason. They were huge! And deep. But now they are gone! Now all we need is a load or two of compost and some plants! And to keep those weeds at bay.