Spooky Cutie

Halloween hasn't arrived yet, but Griffin has had plenty of opportunities to dress up. His Aunt Rachael got him this fantastic set of skeleton pj's.

They have quickly become his favorite pj's. Luckily, when we packed all of our belongings into boxes for the moving van, we kept these with us. Our boxes have yet to arrive here in Virginia, so last night when our ward had a Halloween party, Griffin went in these pj's.

At the church Halloween party

Griffin as skeleton as Groucho Marx

Griffin love playing with Landon's ties and thought it was hilarious when Landon put one on him. He kept running around the house saying "Dad's tie!"

No, no one is dressed up in this picture, but it's a good one anyway. We went to the National Zoo on Saturday. Griffin liked seeing the panda bears, but he loved the elephants most of all.
We showed up for an afternoon stroll around the zoo, but it was closing early for Halloween festivities, so we only spent an hour or so there. Luckily, the zoo is free here so we'll just have to go back later to see the rest of the animals.

Confessions of a Nomad

I'm sorry.

To all of you whom I did not contact during my life's most recent upheaval, I'm sorry. There have been a million and a half time during the past month that I've thought to myself, "I really need to blog about this!" Sadly, I never did post and so now I can't remember the exact instances that inspired me enough to create a blog post inside my head. Be assured that they were nothing short of blogging brilliance and the world is currently a less enlightened place because of my inaction.

But I digress...

Back to discussing the upheaval: I'm back in Washington, D.C. Well, McLean, VA to be more precise. We are living for the next 6 months in the home of an 86-year-old woman whose late husband was a former British Ambassador. She dislikes east coast winters and so is renting her home to us for 6 months while she goes to New Zealand.

About a month ago Landon submitted his resume for a job out here on a whim. That whimsy turned into 3 weeks of home repairs, placing our home on the market, finding a place to live in the DC area, 1 week of packing, 3 days of driving, and a bucket load of anxiety.

Is your head spinning yet? So is mine.

We're here, we're excited, we're exhausted, and we're happy.

To all of our friends in Denver, thank you! Thank you again and again. To the guys who came over the night before the Open House and helped mow our lawn and paint our banister and paint the bathroom: thank you. To the friends who offered hours of babysitting and countless boxes: thank you. To our neighbor who showed up with a chainsaw and offered to get rid of the dead tree in our backyard: thank you. To the guy who lent us that amazing compressor nail gun and miter saw: thank you. To the friend who showed up the night before we left and helped me figure out how to fit everything into the car: thank you. To the dear friend who offered to rent our house on an as-needed basis: thank you. To that same friend who later agreed to oversee the delayed moving company load our stuff onto the truck so that we could leave on time: thank you. To the friends who brought us dinner when all of my dishes were packed away and I was too frazzled to cook: thank you. To friends who threw a fabulous going-away party for us: thank you. To my sister who made the 26+ hour drive bearable by volunteering as our backseat babysitter: thank you.

We were sad to leave such great friends and we will miss you each. Thanks for everything!

Where did the summer go!?

I really don't know where the summer has gone. I turned around and suddenly August is here, and almost gone. Yikes, I've totally let down Griffin's fan club. So here's the summer rundown...

• We've had 7 guests stay with us this summer.
• We've taken 3 trips to see family.
• Took an 8 hour road trip
• Gone on 1 family camping trip.
• Pounded and patched one hole in our basement wall.
• Made 1 amazing birthday cake
• Saw numerous oddballs in our first trip to Boulder
• Started, abandoned, and restarted potty training.
• Learned how to make delicious bread.
• Watched Nemo, Toy Story, and Bob the Builder countless times.

That about sums it all up. I’m following this up with a few posts to expand on some of the items on this list. Enjoy!

Happy Campers

We've been talking with some friends of ours about doing a camping trip together since April when the weather was just beginning to get warmer. As the summer has zoomed by we simply hadn't ever sat down and made plans. Then suddenly August is upon us and the nights are getting cooler, especially in the mountains. We decided this was the last of the camping weather and we'd better make the best of it. So we went on a last-minute camping trip this weekend. We packed the car Thursday night, I picked up Landon from work on Friday afternoon and we were off to the mountains. His first camping trip, and Griffin loved spending all day outdoors.

Two boys setting up the tent. Griffin really thought he was being a big helper

Griffin and I playing in the little creek near our campsite

Nothing says outdoors like cooking food on sticks. This is my favorite picture from the trip, just look at how happy those two are!

I was pleasantly surprised that Griffin slept way better than Landon or I did on the hard ground in a tent. We loved the friends, the s'mores, the campfire, the creek...and best of all, the telescope! Our friends, the Fredericksons, had brought their enormous telescope (about 4 feet long and 10in diameter) to look at the stars. And I cannot tell you how very very cool it was to look at the moon through that thing. The Sea of Tranquility never looked more tranquil. Incredible! Landon and Nate had a lot of fun trying to find star clusters and galaxies. Julie and I preferred to keep warm by the fire and then come over and look when they'd found something interesting. This was probably one of my favorite camping experiences ever!

Hiding, Seeking, Demolishing

This is what comes, dear friends, of playing hide-and-go-seek with a toddler. Allow me to explain.

Recently Griffin has loved playing this game that closely resembles hide-and-go-seek. He chases us and we run behind a corner, into another room, or behind the couch and then jump out at him when he turns the corner. He squeals in surprise and then runs around so we can do it all over again.

The other day we were playing this game down in our basement when Griffin ran into the basement bedroom and shut the door behind him. He'd done this already several times in the course of the game, but we started getting suspicious when he didn't rattle the door handle to get back out immediately. After about a thirty seconds of playful calling to him, we realized that he'd locked himself in the bedroom.

As has been discussed on this blog before, our home is full of re-po surprises. We had one such surprise when we examined the door handle (which he had never before paid much attention to) and realized that it had a locking mechanism that required a key. A key that we did not own. We spent about 10 minutes trying hangers, credit cards, windows, and careful instructions to Griffin before we finally realized there was only one way to get our son out of there: cut through the drywall.

Meanwhile, Griffin thought all of this was hilarious. "Haha! I've found the best hiding place. Haha! Mom and Dad are so funny wiggling their fingers under the door like they are going to get me. Haha! isn't it exciting to knock on the door with Mom and Dad?" It wasn't until we started pounding a hole in the wall that Griffin went from curious to nervous to scared to hysterical in a matter of 20 seconds.

Once we finally got through the wall and opened the door, Griffin was glad to be out of there. Poor guy! Luckily, it hasn't deterred his enthusiasm for hide-and-go-seek

The cabin

For the 4th of July, we took Griffin on his very first road trip. He did great on the 8 hour drive to Alpine, Wyoming, where Landon's grandpa has a cabin. We met up with Landon's family there and had a much-needed extended weekend. We played games in the woods and rode around on an ATV during the day, and played board games and roasted s'mores at night. Griffin loved seeing his aunts and uncles and playing with his cousin Addie. It was such a fun weekend and I can't wait for the next Huber family cabin trip.

This was a huge mining crane we saw on our drive to the cabin. You can't tell from this picture, but this is the most giant crane I've ever seen in my life...and I've been around my fair share of construction sites. To give you a feel for the size, that spec to the left of the crane is its bucket, the much smaller spec to the right...that's a semi-truck. If a semi looks like a spec, you know that thing's huge.

Here's a picture of everyone who made it to the cabin. Don't be surprised if you see this on a Christmas card sometime in the future.

Griffin learns about dirt

Two cute cousins sharing a snack

I thought these were rather clever self-portraits I took while Landon and I took a sunrise ride around on the ATV. It was freezing cold, especially once we got going fast.

Another self-portrait. We look like characters off of Mario-Cart

Addie and Griffin enjoying an afternoon swing. They were both grinning right before I took this picture. I think they were confused when I made them stop swinging to take the photo.

Griffin and Uncle Bubba

this was the coolest tire swing I've ever seen. It swing back and forth and side to side. Griffin would have spent all day every day in this swing if I would have let him.

Griffin's Grandma Huber was much more patient than I and would push Griffin in the swing to his heart's content.

Take the cake

Last year we were in Greece for Landon's birthday. It was amazing, but I missed out on making him a proper birthday cake. So I felt that this year I had to compensate for last year's cop-out of a pre-made sponge cake and nutella. I think I succeeded, you be the judge: