Friday, December 03, 2010

What in the world is going on?!

This is the question I have been meaning to answer for many of you for weeks now. I'll try to spare you the long list of details, but in short, we are moving again! The job Chris took in New Jersey a few months ago, transitioned into a full time position in Maryland. Chris has been at his new job for a little over a month now, and we are within days of closing on a home. So, we will be saying "goodbye" to our New Jersey apartment next week and saying "hello" to our new home in Maryland. Thankfully, this move should be more permanent.

As we wait for closing day, the boys and I have joined Chris...which means we've been living in a hotel for the last week. Before that we had an enjoyable extended visit with Chris' family. The time is near for this transition to finally be complete. After we close (praying for Wednesday) we will make a quick trip to New Jersey where we will load up a Uhaul and turn in our apartment keys. Once we unpack that load, we'll then make a trip to our storage unit and load up another Uhaul with the rest of our household goods. These will be the items we haven't seen since we lived in Germany! It'll be nice to finally get all of our stuff under one roof...of course that means we have to get our storage items delivered from Georgia...and I think we still have stuff stored at my parents house too. Life in the Army (even after you've gotten out) sometimes means having your belongings spread clear across the USA!
I cannot even begin to express to you how excited we are. For one, Chris has found a secure job. After struggling to find employment in this economy for months, it is a HUGE blessing to finally feel secure in a job again. The new job is basically the same work as he was doing in NJ, but instead of working as a contractor, he's now working for the government.

We are also very excited to be buying our own home. We have always lived on post or rented, so being able to have a house that is ours is a big deal. The restrictions of rental properties are gone! Yehawww! Of course, now we need to dig out the tools since we are solely responsible for our own repairs!

Though there has been plenty of stress and some hiccups in the whole house buying process, we love love love the house! I thank God that we found it! It was no easy feat to find a house with this much space in our price range, but God provided! It's move-in ready and is located in a nice little community. It's a bit of a drive to where Chris works, but it's a doable commute.

Here's a picture I snapped when we were at the house for the home inspection. I have more on facebook if you want to check out the inside.



There is so much more to share about this move, but my kiddo is having a meltdown so I'm going to have to sign off for now. More to come!

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Poricy Park -September Catch-up

We decided to take the boys to another park and chose Poricy Park. It was a perfect park day and we had a picnic and walked the trials with the boys. It was a great little nature outing. The trails were very easy and the boys enjoyed the adventure. Though Chris works long hours, his schedule is nice in that he generally gets a weekday off most weeks. We have found that visiting these places during the week means less crowds...which makes maneuvering around much easier. Here are some pictures of our Poricy Park Adventure!


We stopped at Whole Food Market on the way to the park and got some yummy panini's and bakery desserts...yum!

The Visitor's Center had some fun things for the kids inside.
.
Time to hit the trails!
Luke loves to read the map!
"This way to the Murray Farmhouse and barn..."
The Murray Barn...
The Murray Farmhouse
Checking out something in the garden...
...and here is the object of their curiosity!
More trails!





Heading home..."Daddy...turn right ahead!"

Saturday, October 02, 2010

"Dino" Playground

A few nights ago while walking Riley I glanced across the ball field that stands between our apartment and the kids' favorite little playground and noticed what appeared to be tape or fencing wrapped around the playground. It was getting dark, however, and I couldn't really be sure. I assumed that maybe they were doing some repairs to it. The next morning -when I was again walking Riley (definitely missing a fenced-in backyard!) - I once again investigated. There was indeed an orange fence around it...and something looked very different about the playground...it almost looked...burnt...and the big slide was gone. This called for closer investigation.

Later that day, we all headed across the field to see what was going on with the boys' beloved "dino" playground (which is what the boys call it because of a picture of a dinosaur fossil on the back of the climbing wall...and this of course always spurs them on to play like they're dinosaurs or running from dinosaurs and such when we're there.)
(Picture taken last month)

As we walked across the field, It didn't take long to see that it was indeed -very unfortunately -burnt. The slides and climbing wall were melted into little piles of mangled plastic on the ground and the metal frame was charred and rusted. It reeked of smoke and burnt materials.

What a huge disappointment it was for the boys.

I don't know what happened -if it was accidental or arson - but it really frustrated me. Who plays with fire at a playground?! Thankfully the fire didn't spread to the houses behind the playground.


I walked over the other day and snapped some pictures. I'm also posting pictures of the playground before the fire for comparison. Hopefully a new playground will be put up soon, but I don't know if it'll happen while we're still here.


Here is a picture of the playground taken last month...


And here it is now (same angle, just closer up) - all but one of the slides were completely burned off and the climbing wall was just a ball of melted plastic on the ground.

Here is a closer look at the climbing wall before...



And this is all that's left of it now...

Here is the big slide before...

And here it is...or I guess I should say, here it is *not* now...

Here is one of the side slides before...

And this is all that's left of it now...

This is the only slide to survive the fire, so I'm guessing the fire started on the climbing wall side...

charred stairs...
This little side slide that was a few steps farther then the main playground was not burned...so that's good I guess...
But this....
...this is just sad.