We are still here!

We are still here, you wouldn't know if from my blogging though. Our computer crashed and then I got busy with Christmas preparations and here we are...
Let's see, what did you miss?
Car: We finally bought a second car. Yay!
Piper walks: she looks way to tiny but she motors!
Thanksgiving: We had a wonderful time visiting long time friends in Nashville.
My birthday: I turned 25. I'm in my mid-twenties. Yikes! Our friends from Nashville came down and watched the kids for most of the day so that Andy and I could go out. First date in 3 months! Woohoo! I also got a Phil and Ted's double stroller. It's amazing.
Piper's birthday: She is one now! My friend Emilie made a tutu for her, which she wore for her party. She looked so cute. She demolished her cake; dug in with both both hands and snorted it. It was that good.

Right now we are anxiously awaiting my parents and sister's arrival on Sunday. They will be here for two weeks! We are all so excited.

Here we are cutting down our Christmas tree:
(I do not know what to do about this kid's smile. I honestly think he doesn't know how to smile. I have tried giving him lessons, but as you can see it has done little good.)

Eating birthday cake:

My beautiful little one year old:

Bonus Material

Here is some extras for ya'll. Pictures of our apartment and also a video of Piper:

Pumpkin Patch

I don't know what it is about pictures in a pumpkin patch. Maybe it is the crisp that makes the baby's noses all red and shiny, or maybe it is the beauty of the fall colors, or maybe its just my cute kids....but going to a pumpkin patch always makes for the cutest pictures! I love it!

This afternoon we went to a great farm with our friends the Robinsons. There was so much fun stuff for the kids: animals, corn box (like a sand box only with corn), slides, swings, and lots of pumpkins! It was so much fun!

Here are my beautiful babies:

This picture doesn't really capture the beauty of the area. The trees are gorgeous. It is like a sea of orange, red and yellow. This is also a picture of a cotton field. I had never seem one before.

We got a big pumpkin for carving, a pumpkin for making pies and two little pumpkins for the kids. They were both quite tickled with the "baby pumpkins". Rosie insisted on holding hers and licking it.

A few videos

Adventures

We have done some exploring in the last couple weeks. We went to the Space and Rocket Center here in Huntsville. It was pretty cool. Carter really liked. We can see the rockets from the freeway as we drive by and every time he says, "There we are..." and has to rehash the whole outing. I think that it was a hit.

We went on a short train ride with the North Alabama Railroad. It was a very old train. Carter was a little disappointed that it didn't go "really really fast".

Then yesterday went to to Harmony Safari Zoo. It was really fun. It is a drive through zoo where you can feed the animals from your car. Carter got a huge kick out of it. Piper Rose on the other hand hated it. Hated it. She was terrified after turning around and seeing a very wet, bugged eyed emu staring at her only three inches from her face. She spent the whole trip with her head on my chest and would not be moved.

This is what the scenery looks like around here. It is very very green. The leaves on the trees are starting to change colors now. It is going to be gorgeous.

Sweet Home Alabama

(Come on, you knew that title was coming...)

We live in Alabama. I still am not used to how that sounds. Nor am I used to how thick the air is here. Or how much people around hear love to chat! They'll talk your ear off if you let them. The rivers are brown. The nights are stay hot. The dirt is red. There is no traffic. The bugs are LOUD. There are Super Targets. There are no coffee shops. (Perhaps the 90 degree weather and 100% humidity deters people, who knows?) Everyone goes to church. And there are a lot of what Carter calls "brown people". (Gulp. I am not sure what to do with this very astute observation. He is not wrong, however, we may need to work on our terminology.)

Thanks to my Mom and Dad and father in law, we are all unpacked. I really like our apartment. We did a little bit of sight-seeing before Andy had to go to work. We visited Monte Sano state park and Burritt's Mueseum. There is a little green belt near our house that we tried out. We are still operating off of one car for the next couple weeks, so I am a little house bound for now.

Andy doesn't have too much to report as far as work goes. He has an little cubby hole that he sits in and reads policy manuals. He is pretty much like Milton off of Office Space. Thankfully, this is only a temporary desk and they have tons of work, so he will not have to read manuals forever.

We will try out Sojourn church together on Sunday. It is an Acts 29 church right here in Huntsville. Yay, for that!

So, all in all, we are good. Thank you all for your prayers. God is good, and we continue to see his mercies even in all of this.

Going for a walk on the green way

The lovely Indian Creek. I don't think we will be swimming in that water.

Checking out some animals at the Burritt Museum

This is not our house (real estate is cheap around here, but not that cheap). It is the Burritt Mansion

A little update

So, Andy, his Dad and my Dad drove to Alabama this week. They made it in yesterday morning. They did the drive in a little more than two days. They got in Tuesday morning and by the evening had picked out our new apartment. This is the link if you want to check it out. Our floor plan is the Fremont. They are brand new and only five minutes from Andy's work.
http://www.livearchstreet.com/Default.aspx

The POD will be delivered tomorrow. The guys will upload it and I will show up after all the work is hopefully done! :) My mom and I (with the kids of course) fly out on Friday afternoon. We are armed with Toy Story dvds and every snack imaginable. Hopefully the flight will be uneventful!

Our time in Boise has been great. Crazy but great. We miss our friends. I cry every time we go to a park and Carter asks if James and Charlie are coming, or when he gets in his little car at Nana's house and says his driving Darren's big red truck...I am hoping this gets easier.
But, all things considered we are doing well and feel ready for the great state of Alabama!

Gone.

Not to be overly dramatic, but Monday we drove away from Seattle, knowing that we won't be back for quite some time. As we looked back over our shoulders and watched the skyline disappear it was so surreal to know we are not coming back. Though I was sad to say goodbye to the city, I was heartbroken to say goodbye to our friends. They were more than just friends, they were our family. I am not going to "were" because you don't lose your family. I know we will stay in touch. Our friends made our three years in Seattle wonderful. We thank Jesus for you all. We love you guys! And you had better come visit us. We'll deep fat fry something:)

Update

I have lots of picture to post. We have been on a couple fun outings. We went camping with our friends/family in Coeur d' Alene, Id. We got to go sailing, ride bikes, and go on lots of "walky-walks" (as Carter calls them). This weekend we tried out a new zoo with our friends the Heavilands.

Other news, for those who don't know is that we are most likely moving to Huntsville, Al. It is pretty crazy, but we are thankful that we finally have a job. Quite frankly, I don't want to go. But I know that Jesus has a plan for us and I am trying to trust Him. I just wish I could take all our friends with us.

Here are some cute pictures (as usual) of our little darlings:

So, I brought my camera on the camping trip, but forgot to charge the battery, so unfortunately we didn't get to many of the trip. But here we are enjoying ice cream after our 9 mile bike ride, getting our second wind for the the trip back.

Carter spent a lot of time in the dirt. He got really dirty. He loved it.

Carter and Andy went on a little outing with their buddy Darren to watch the Seahawk's practice. Carter thought it was fun for about 30min. Then he had to go throw his little football around too.
We had fun at the Point Defiance Zoo. One of the cool things is that they let you feed the little budgies. Carter got quite a kick out of it.

I love this picture. This is pretty much why I don't want to move to Alabama. Carter has some pretty good buddies here.