Settling In

I started this post a long time ago, and just now got around to adding pictures. Since we are moving again in a week and a half, it's time to get this posted. :)

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We have now spent a week straight in one place, and it feels wonderful. We are thankful to have survived (almost) the month of July. In the 1st three weeks we lived in 5 places, and Emily had 2 high viral fevers (in addition to the one she had the week before we moved) and cut four teeth. All of the above made for a lot of mid-night wakings, and a very tired family. Luckily, we were well taken care of. We had Uncle Alden (or Uncle "All-Done" or "Dada" to Emily) with us for the first week or so, lived with my family for awhile, and had a houseful of friends to help while we were in NY for a wedding. Once we got "home" to Newport last week, my cousin Dianna came for a few days to help with Emily (and babysit so we didn't have to bring her to a board meeting, hooray!) and then Mom Groves & Aunt Becky came for the weekend. I'm not sure what we're going to do with ourselves now that we are on our own again!

A few glimpses of life in rural New Hampshire. Our next-door neighbors are

Sunshine Baptist Church (the owner of our house, kindly allowing us to live here!) and

the Fabulous Fifties Car-Hop Drive In.

Across the street is a river. The town is so small that when I asked for directions to the post office, they were "Drive into town and turn right. It's next to the church." Newport is also the home of the Lil Red Baron mexican restaurant... complete with outdoor seating on plastic tables, next to the campfire. We do have high speed internet and much better cell phone reception than we ever did in Philly. (Two things we had none of last time we lived in NH, so times are changing!)

Large sign in front of the Fabulous Fifties. Emily felt very welcome (look close to see her sweet Harley Davidson tshirt), as do many many motorcyle-riders.
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Stay tuned for pictures of our next (and last...for a year or two) house!

Annabel & Tim!

We spent the weekend before last in the Hamptons celebrating Annabel and Tim's wedding! Aside from Emily having a high fever and being generally miserable the whole time... it was wonderful. :) Really, it was so good to catch up with friends, get to know Tim a little, and see Annabel in person after many months of being an ocean apart. Here are some pictures I stole from Juanita's facebook page.

Bachelorette time

My best matchmaking endeavor: getting my dear cousin & dear friend to be friends!

The happiest Emily was all weekend - playing with Juanita's cat purse. Thanks Jua!

Daddy's girl

Brought to you by the letter "B"

Emily is "talking" more and more these days. She really only has two consonants though, which limits her! She loves the letter B, and is pretty good with D. T& M make an occasional appearances.

Bow-bow (what a doggie says)

Boo! (peekaboo)

Boom! (something hitting the ground, or "I am about to throw this on the ground")

Booo (what a cow says)

Ba (ball)

[Yes, these are 5 distinct words! She also occassionally says "bu" for book and "baba" for bottle]

Daddy, Dada (Daddy, or any other person she knows)

Mum-mum (yum, or 'feed me that')

Aahh-du (all done)

Tiddy (kitty)

Baby (baby doll, or any young child she sees)

Bebe (belly button)

This last one is going to get me in trouble. She likes to pull up my shirt and point to my belly button, and say 'belly button'. Unfortunately, to the untrained ear (ok, any ear), her word for belly button sounds just like "baby". Someone is definitely going to get the wrong idea!

Update:

I can't believe I forgot her favorite word of all... "Hi!" Once she has your attention, she will say this over and over. Lately she will hold up an object to her ear (nail clippers, thermometer, spoon) and say "hi" as if it were a phone. She also says "bye-bye" any time she sees someone holding a bag and looking like might be going out the door.

Steps!

Emily took 4 steps last night, twice. Today she is back to crawling, but the line has been crossed. :)

We move into our NH house tonight.

June Pics

A few pics from June, most of which other people took, are here.

Hopelessly Behind

We aren't really taking pictures these days, but here's a bit of what we've been up to in the last month...at least what I can remember of it. Maybe I'll add more details/pictures later... we'll see.

1.
I finally caved and planned a party for Emily's 1st birthday. :) It was also a good excuse to have all our friends over one last time before we moved. I think every onewe invited came, which made us feel very loved. I managed not to take any pictures, but here is one from a friend of Emily "greeting" her little buddy Gilliam. It was super hot in our little backyard... and when the thunderstorm chased us indoors, it was super hot in our house. But still fun to have all our friends in one place! I can't believe we have a one year old. We also finished nursing sometime around here. I think I would have been more emotional about it, but it got a bit lost in the shuffle. I loved breastfeeding, but it sure is a lot easier to do all this running around when I can just hand Emily a bottle!

Last Weeks.
After Emily's birthday we had a week or so of last days at work and good bye lunches. My relationship to Coventry certainly had it's ups and downs over the years, and it was strange to sit in the parking lot as it sank in that this was the last time I would walk in to work. I will miss it. Overall we had hoped that the last couple weeks in Philly would be a little bit laid back, with time to cookout with friends... but not so much. Emily and I were sick in bed for a few days, and then packing took up every spare minute.

We sold most of our furniture (I love Craigslist) and divided the rest of our belongings into two groups; about half to be stored in the basement and half to move with us to NH. Of course we still underestimated how much stuff we had, so hopefully our renter won't be too upset about the amout of stuff in the basement (there's still lots of space). We managed to move without a UHaul thanks to Alden driving the Groves family van for us and some friends who happened to be vacationing in NH last week bringing some more boxes for us. We are SO lucky to have family around. We worked long (sweaty!) days boxing & packing... and with the help of our family who showed up despite our assurances that we would be ok without help (ha!)... we were still at the house cleaning until late the night before the move. I shudder to think where we would have been without them!

Moving.
We drove north on June 29 - exactly 4 years to the day from when we moved to PA from NH. After a stop in MA to leave our cats with my parents, we arrived in Newport. Since the house we will be living in is currently occupied, we camped in the appartment (also owned by Sunshine Baptist Church) for a couple days before heading to Lake Champlain for a gloriously restorative week of vacation with my family. Then back to the apartment for a quick but great visit with dear college friends Brian & Jocelyn and a TSCC staff meeting, and on to MA to spend a week with my parents there. Next weekend we head to Long Island for Annabel's wedding. Then back to MA for a couple days before we can finally move into "our" house in Newport. Hooray!

For now, I am settling in to watch the World Cup Final with my dad (a HUGE Spain fan), Alasdair & Alden (lived in the Netherlands for a year). Someone in this house will be very happy tonight, and someone will be very sad. I am just hoping for a good game. :)

Catching Up

Things keep happening that I think I should record, and I'm getting behind. I'm sure I'm forgetting something important, but here are a few things from the last couple weeks, complete with pictures, hyperlinks & video!

Another visit from another wonderful, faithful friend. Juanita and I have been friends since we lived in the same building freshman year of college (10 years ago!). She came up to visit Katie (another resident of that same dorm) & I over Memorial Day weekend. Juanita is the kind of person who comes to town and, rather than the standard tourist fair, wants to go to an off-beat museum like this one. Definitely a museum I would have overlooked. :) We had a great weekend, lots of sunshine, adventures, and time to talk.

Emily's neighbor friend Owen turned one - here she is playing at his birthday party. By "friend" I mean that every time she sees him come out of the house, she squeels in delight while he warily backpedals and clings to his mom. Luckily he lives right next door, so we could just carry her wet sandy little self up to the bathtub after the fun.

Alasdair & I have been hard at work getting Twin State Christian Counseling up and running from a legal/business standpoint. After a long (and hot & sticky) day of budgeting and filling out the IRS tax-exemption form (including LOTS of emails with my brother Nick - we are very lucky to have an accountant in the family!), we decided a family dinner out at the Treehouse Cafe was in order. Typical Emily: she climbed out of my arms as soon as we walked in, and crawled right into the middle of where the older kids were running around. She climbed around and played on the slide (while holding a wooden eggplant) while Alasdair & I ate pizza and enjoyed the air conditioning. Oh, and she walked around with a toy shopping cart for a long time!

Oh! And lately, the world is Emily's jungle gym. Today I walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and when I came back, she had crawled across the living room, up the loveseat and onto the radiator by the front window (a favorite spot). Even more exciting: this morning when I work up, I found Emily on the floor in her nursery. Oops. Here she is helping Daddy lower the crib mattress!