Birthday Boy!

A turns 5!!!

Today A celebrates his big #5 birthday. It's bittersweet for mom because he's my baby and it's been hard to let him grow up. Time has definitely flown by, but we have cherished every moment with our little dude. He continues to be a very active, curious, busy, and charismatic little guy. Today we celebrated with extended family: Joseph and Kathryn and Aunt Emilie, Eric, Stephen, and Ashley. We spent a few hours at the pool, then barbecued in our backyard, and partied with Asher. What a great day. And how happy and blessed we are to have such a special boy in our lives. Happy Birthday!!!

We're finally here!

California is awesome! When we arrived it was 69 degrees, sunny, and beautiful. Where we live is simply breathtaking. The community is masterplanned so there are bike trails interwoven throughout all the neighborhoods. You can pretty much get anywhere on a bike trail: schools, parks, shopping, library, etc. Which is good since gas is almost $4 a gallon! Anyway, I can walk T to school every day, and the gym I hope to teach at is like 2 minutes away. We also have pools and hot tubs all over our community we can use. Honestly, I have a feeling that we're never going to want to leave here. Of course Roman's career will dictate where we'll be in the future. We could very well end up in the D.C. area in the next couple of years. But, wherever we end up it will be an adventure as long as we're close as a family. So now I'm busy unpacking the house and got T registered for school yesterday. Next week will be decision time for T's future in gymnastics. They are VERY competitive here in California. In Utah T would be ready for competition level 5. Here she's probably a competitive level 4. But the committment and financial responsibilities are HUGE! I'm not so worried about the financial committment as I am the time she'll have to invest. I'm talking 12 hours a week to start, manadatory meets, mostly on Sundays. It'll only get worse as she progresses along. Anyway, I wish there was a gym here that could teach her skills without competing on Sundays, but there aren't. I have a few ideas up my sleeve. I'll keep you posted. As far as A is concerned. I'm not enrolling him in preschool for the last two months we're here. For two days a week, it's almost $300 bucks in some places! I may regret my decision especially on those days A drives me to banging my head against the wall. I'll just have to be creative I guess. Quality time with Mom. Should be interesting....