Raleigh!

Raleigh! Now that's just a fun word to say... Well, last week's farewell to summer was prophetic as the weather's turned cold and wet here this weekend, and we're experiencing that season called fall, which we completely missed out on last year in Las Vegas. Plan A was to go to Myrtle Beach this weekend, but with the wind and rain and 60 degree temps, we nixed it for Plan B, which was checking out nearby Raleigh.

First we started off with lunch at "The Pit," which was where Bobby Flay did his BBQ short ribs throw-down. It didn't disappoint!

Jon got the Double Combo with beef brisket, fried chicken, coleslaw, and potato salad, complete with a biscuit and hush puppies. It was a tremendous amount of food, but proud to say he cleaned his plate.

I got the meatloaf with carmelized onions and blue cheese (I thought it sounded unique), mac and cheese, and sweet potato fries. It was a very tasty lunch, and a great way to introduce us to Raleigh with some southern barbeque.

Then we made our way over to "Marbles" which is a children's museum ala "The Please Touch Museum" in Philly, so Lucy and Zach were THRILLED! It was an interesting experience for Jon and I to observe how completely opposite our children's interests are (boy vs. girl). Lucy wanted to play at the pretend hospital taking care of the babies.

As well as at the pet hospital being a veterinarian to the sick puppies and kittens.

Zachary started at the "Garage" fueling up cars and changing tires, but soon found his way to the train table...the smallest and most "unexciting" place to play compared to all of the pretend play centers the museum featured, but he was in heaven. I appreciated the sign on the wall that said, "At the train tables again? Repetition promotes confidence and mastery of skills." So there, Mom!

Then Lucy went on board a submarine to make undersea discoveries as a scientist!

And decided to set sail with pirates!

Zachary decided he'd finally leave the choo-choo table in order to be a pirate. That was probably just about the only thing that could get entice him away from Thomas.

Then Lucy was a fashion designer where she got access to all kinds of fabrics and sewing notions to create an outfit for her paper doll.

Zachary was sooooo tired by the time we decided to leave. He is going through another no-sleeping phase where he skips naps and wakes up at the crack of dawn, and he'd been up that morning since 5:45 a.m., and we were pushing 4 p.m. when we left. As soon as he hit the car he was out cold! We swung by Trader Joe's and some other stores we don't have in Pinehurst before heading home, so all in all it was a GREAT day!

Lucy's Debut!

Check out Lucy here in the "Chinger" (chocolate+ginger) post on HowDoesShe.com (in the Cook & Bake section)!

Goodbye to Summer!

Well, I guess summer officially came to a close with the passing of Labor Day. I know we had a GREAT summer, but I can't help but feel it's a little bittersweet since it seemed to go by so fast. Maybe partly because it was spent scattered across 9 states... but that's all those other blog posts I'm sure you've been following.

We continue to adjust to life in North Carolina. We live in a really small town compared to what we were used to in Philly and Las Vegas, Pinehurst is around 20,000 or so, and "country livin'" is not really my thing. Luckily Raleigh is only about an hour away, and the beach, but you can't make day trips outta those every day. We also still know NOBODY even though we've been here 3 weeks--so we're kinda bored. A lot. All part of moving I tell myself, and I often have to remember that I didn't start liking Las Vegas until after Christmas-- it took that long so I gotta give Pinehurst it's fair dues and time to grow on me, right? Right.

At least this last week we had some very welcome visitors to spice things up! My brother Devin, his wife Sarah, and their little girls Sophie and Eva drove down Thursday night before Labor Day, so we could babysit their kids while they continued on to Mississippi to see the Ole Miss v. BYU game in Oxford. Naturally my mother, also a die-hard BYU fan couldn't miss out on the action and flew out for the the 30+ hour road trip. Good thing BYU won!

Friday the BYU friends left bright and early and we stayed home and just let the kids play with each other in the toy room. That night we got brave and ventured out to Chick Fil-A for dinner, and the only way we could coax them away from "Chick Fi-Way!" (chanted the WHOLE ride there) was to bring some ice cream home. This is the little munchkins enjoying their creamy treat OUTSIDE (key-word).

Ha! Ha! Rub-A-Dub-Dub! Four naked cousins in the tub soaking before bed time.

Saturday morning we checked out a local farmer's market, where there was this super cook-a-doodle-doo lady offering face painting for a dollar-- who then tried to cheat me out of like $3, but I've discovered that not all people living in the South are in their right mind. Oh well. The kids LOVED it.

Lucy chose to have Ariel painted on her face to match her shirt, and she didn't wash it off until the last possible moment right before church the next day.

Zachary, surprisingly, also really wanted his face painted and chose his favorite super hero, Spiderman. He held PERFECTLY still and was the cutest thing to watch!

Look out! Here comes the Spiderman!

Eva patiently waited her turn and chose Cinderella. She couldn't wait to tell her mom and dad about it! She also has a vocabulary bigger than me, and kept saying, "Isn't it exquisite Auntie Sara?"

The weekend went by pretty quickly considering we had a 4 year old, 3 year old, 2 year old, and almost 1 year old cooped up together, but the best part about it?? Devin and Sarah now owe US a weekend of free babysitting! They got home late Sunday night, and headed back up to Richmond on Labor Day while my mom was able to stay and spend the week with us in Pinehurst. Besides getting me newly addicted to Pinterest, we also:

Made curtains for Lucy's bedroom, crafted like crazy some fun fall ideas found on Pinterest, cut stuff with the Cricut for wall-projects, including these fun designs to jazz up my Kitchen-Aid mixer and a saying for the kids' bathroom.

.

We also got caught in a tornado on Tuesday, which adds yet another natural disaster to my list since moving to NC. We were in the cross-hairs of another tropical storm where it rained and poured and lightning-ed all day, and even spawned a few twisters that touched down on the golf course nearby. FYI, we were totally oblivious shopping at Michael's for craft supplies and going out to lunch to be bothered to hunker down inside. Oops.:)

And since we are in the South, peaches are EVERYWHERE and along every highway at roadside stands right now, so we bought a bushel and made several batches of peach and raspberry freezer jam on Friday. Yum!

All good things must come to an end, and my mom had to leave Saturday morning. After taking her to the airport we decided to have a little impromptu picnic and walked down to the lake about 1/2 a mile from our house.

There's a really nice beach with sand, umbrellas, and gazebos, etc. which are specifically for people belonging to Pinehurst country club, but since they leave the gate open and no one is EVER there we figured they wouldn't mind if we visited.:)

Goodbye summer!! We loved you!! Bring on the pumpkin patches, spiced cider, and fuzzy sweaters...

Earthquakes, and Hurricanes, and Mosquitoes. Oh My!!

Well, it's been one adventure after another here in North Carolina with all that's been happening in the news lately PLUS being brand new to the area.

On Monday Lucy had her first full day of 4 year old preschool! She will have lots to remember about that day-- a crazy house filled with boxes, getting lost like 15 times on the way there even though it's only 5 miles away, and meeting her nice new teacher Mrs. Gerdes.

She goes to school at a Baptist Church that has some class rooms attached to the side of the building. As soon as we pulled up the first time she was like, "Wow! I go to church at a temple?!?" If anything, having her attend school with the Baptists has been a great invitation to explain a lot of things about our church and what we believe.

Monday evening we learned the hard way NOT to let the kids play with the Slip 'n Slide once the sun starts setting. They were both so excited to have an actual yard with grass that for FHE we let them play outside in the water again because it was so hot, and both ended up COVERED in mosquito bites. I don't think we even had mosquitos in Vegas, so I didn't even think twice about it. I think we counted 18 bites on Zach and just as many on Lucy. It looked like they had the chicken pox. So, lesson learned!

Tuesday afternoon we were sitting in the living room watching TV right after we'd picked Lucy up from preschool, and all of a sudden the house shook like a big gust of wind had hit it, or a train had gone by underneath. The couch started swaying side to side and Jon and I looked at each other like, "Are you feeling this?!?" Only to find out it WAS a real earthquake!! It didn't last very long, but long enough to be pretty freaky.

Wednesday was Jon's first day of work, and if it's any indication of how things will be different around here, they got off 2 hours early to go golfing at Pinehurst, the famous PGA course. One of the dentists at the clinic has a membership at the country club and was able to pull some strings to get everybody on the regularly $100+ course for only $30. Lucky guy!

This weekend we enjoyed lots of rain and wind thanks to Hurrican Irene, but thankfully no power outtages or anything more serious. Luckily we're far enough in from the coast that the worst of it simply didn't reach us. It was one crazy week!!

Welcome to Our Home!

This is mostly for the grandparents who have been asking to see the new digs since we moved in and got most of the boxes cleared away. We actually love our new house-- which is a good thing since it was signed sight unseen. It was one of those friend-of-a-friend kind of things where someone in Vegas knew someone at Pope AFB, who knew someone who was moving out of their house in Pinehurst, etc., so two phone calls and four pictures later we had a deal. We like to live on the edge.:) Anyway, bottom line is we're really pleased with how everything worked out!

Come on in! The house is 2 levels with the main floor front of the house consisting of:

Lucy's butterfly princess room! The rooms are about twice the size of the bedrooms in Vegas so we are loving the extra square footage to spread out.

Zachary's choo-choo room, and a full bathroom for them to share (and for guests) in the same hallway as the bedrooms.

There's also a nice big laundry room off that hallway as well.

The back half of the main floor consists of the kitchen (which yes, is small, but I've had worse).

And this amazing screened in porch (to keep the bugs out) with a ceiling fan to eat out during the nice weather. It actually makes the smaller kitchen worth it. We love eating ouside with no bugs!

Next to the kitchen is a dining room.

And across from the dining room/kitchen area is the living room.

Living Room- View of stairs leading up to the play room and storage room (which are the only upstairs rooms).

View of living room from top of stairs

Master Bathroom (I hate that blue paint!! May have to work on that...) I didn't include a picture of the master bedroom (which is off the living room) because that's where we've been storing all the extra boxes and junk. Not pretty.

Master Closet (twice the size of the one we had in Vegas, hooray!)

Storage Room at the top of the upstairs which has our food storage, holiday decorations, kids' baby clothes, and Jon's camping stuff.

Everyone's favorite room-- the kids' playroom! This is what sold me on the house-- none of the homes in this area had more than 3 bedrooms that was in our price range, except this one which had 3 bedrooms plus a large bonus room above the garage! We did steal one corner for our computer/office area.

View of our side yard from the front of the house.

View of the back yard from the deck off the living room. All in all the yard is only partially fenced and not really landscaped which is kind of a bummer, but it sure beats the rock patch we had in Vegas!