This crazy life

Wednesday night Nick and I went to bed with a feeling of relief that life was getting back on a schedule. Sweets was starting to get into the groove of a bedtime schedule again and we were on track to running smooth. Phew!

Nick got up Thursday morning and went to work. I am sometimes up at 6AM feeding Kailey, but I always go back to sleep until she's ready to get up for the day. While I was sleeping I missed a call from Nick and I also had a text that said, "Call me when you can". I didn't think anything of it, just that he might have to stand duty that night. Well, when I called him he said he got a call and there were not enough ME1's so he had to move this summer. WHAT?!?! We were not supposed to move until next summer. Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad about it, but I thought we'd have another holiday season, another summer for camping and so many other things. But at the drop of a dime things can change. It's inevitable. You just have to roll with it. The crazy part, we had about an hour to decide where we wanted to go. Nick started listing off the places on the list: DC, Bangor, WA, Virginia, Houston, Louisiana, Oregon, NYC. Then we had to talk quickly about where we wanted to go if the options were open. We weren't sure which options we would have though since everyone else got to put in their picks first. We decided we didn't really want to go to Florida or Louisiana. Recently Nick had been watching a lot of shows in Alaska and we'd talked about how it would be cool to go there. But did we want to stay on the east coast or go toward the west coast?

Nick got the call from the detailer and got all of his options. It was either he take a job on a cutter (he'd be gone for 3 months at a time) in Oregon or Virginia, Kodiak, Alaska, Valdez, Alaska, or Bangor, WA. Nick called me and we talked about things quickly and he told me to look into Valdez and Bangor because we'd narrowed it down to those two options.

As soon as I googled Valdez I saw and article about a whole bunch of snow. I read it's one of the snowiest cities in the US and the population is 4000. Whoa! I got a bad feeling in my gut about that, but decided to keep researching. I read a couple other things, but knew I'd already made up my mind. I called Nick and he had just gotten off the phone with his dad. Dad works in Anchorage for part of the year and has a pretty good idea about Alaska. He told Nick, "hell no!" about Valdez. He said it's so snowy. He said we'd be working all summer to prepare for the winter and we'd pretty much be stuck in the house when the snow came. Not fun at all in my opinion. So Bangor, WA it is.

We have no idea when we will be moving. Nick will get his orders within the next month most likely. I'm really excited to be on the coast again, to be near the ocean, and in the mountains. I'm also pretty excited we will be close to family. Nick's parents live about 40 minutes away. It's also a shorter and cheaper flight to California, with no layovers!

I will be pretty sad to leave all of the friends I've made here in Rochester and Syracuse. There's no denying I've laid down some roots in this place. I've decided to really just take it one day at a time and enjoy the time we have left. I want to spend as much time as I can with the people I love and now call family here. I know when we leave it will not be goodbye forever, but it will be harder to leave here than it was to leave California in 2009. I can't really explain why I feel that way. Maybe a part of it is this is where Nick and I came right after we were married and we had only each other. The friends we've made here are both of our friends, not just his or mine. This is the first house we bought together. I know I would be feeling this way even if we were moving next summer, but I wasn't expecting to have to deal with it now.

Breathing deep and drinking up every moment we have left here!

Mom and Dad come to visit

Nick's parents came to see us for about ten days. They arrived around 7PM the day after Christmas. It was the first time they were able to come out to see our house and most of all to visit Sweets. It was a long flight, but they were in really good spirits when they got here. I'm pretty sure we stayed up late talking and catching up on things the first night.

Dad usually makes what Nick's family calls the 12 hour cake. I asked him if he would teach me how to make it while he was here. It was pretty exciting for me. Basically it's a chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream frosting. It's layered with a custard and a mint chocolate frosting. It really does take a long time to make, but the results are well worth it. Unfortunately I didn't think to take any pictures of the cake when it was finished. I asked Nick to take some photo's to document the occasion of me learning to make the cake, and I will post those, but I don't think he took me seriously. Actually, I know he didn't because I remember him dancing around with my phone snapping random pictures. I also wished I had taken some pictures of the assembly of the six layers with the custard and stuff before it was frosted....shame on me!

Dad overseeing the cake making

The frosting before we added the butter.

The whole reason I wanted to make the 12 hour cake, aside from learning how it's done, was because we were having all our neighbors over for dinner to meet the parents. It was nice to have them all here because now they know who we're talking about when we talk about Mary Lou and Mark, and vice versa. The house was full of good cheer, good food and great wine. I put some movies on for the kids down the road and everyone sat around laughing and talking. We ended up putting two tables together to make a "T" shaped table so all of us could sit together. The main dish was a pork roast Nick made stuffed with bacon, kale, mushrooms and some other goodies. There was also some home made mac and cheese, a zucchini casserole, twice baked potatoes and clams casino for snacking on before dinner. After we were all stuffed full of delightful grub we sat around the table some more and chatted it up. Then we busted out the champagne and the 12 hour cake. It was a hit. But then again, the 12 hour cake always goes over really well. Now, if I can make it on my own I'll be in good shape. I have a feeling I'll be calling Dad when I do try.

Kailey really enjoyed her time with her grandparents. She was loved so much while they were here. It was fun to watch her playing and smiling with them. They love her so much, but who wouldn't?! I'm sure she misses mornings walking around with Papa Markie, around and around the house, just looking at stuff until she falls asleep. 

Kailey and Papa Markie

It was so nice to have Mary Lou and Mark here. I feel like I got some good time in with Mark. He and I are always missing each other. Usually when Nick and I go home to Seattle Dad is working a lot so we don't get to see much of him. I got to have some quality time with Mom too while Nick took Dad on a hike.

Our first Christmas



2011

Christmas Eve we went to our friend Katie's house. We have officially been adopted as part of her family. Every year they get together at Katie's house and have pedaheh (pierogi) and a soup that has cabbage and dill. We fit right in among the good food, conversation and wonderful people. There's always a lot of laughter in Katie's house. It's sad to think we will only be here one more Christmas Eve.

Nick's family has a tradition of getting to open one Christmas gift on Christmas Eve. The gift would be a new pair of pajamas. I really love this tradition so Nick and I will carry it on. For the last few years Nick and I have gone out the night before Christmas Eve and picked out jammies. This year we got to pick out Kailey's too! I think we've learned a valuable lesson and decided to do our pj shopping not the day before Christmas eve. Everything was pretty much picked over already, but we all found some pj's (maybe I will be able to sew us some pj's next Christmas). Actually we found Kailey's about a week earlier, thank goodness. It just so happened that we all matched this year...non intentionally, but I was pretty excited about it because I knew it would look sweet in our pictures on Christmas Morning.



Hanna & Kailey



Since we've moved to Rochester Nick and I have enjoyed our nice quiet Christmas Days together. It seems like every other year we are with family, either mine or Nick's and then every other year we are by ourselves. This works out pretty nicely. Don't get me wrong, I really miss my family on Christmas, and it took some getting used to, but I'm excited to hopefully have a home where our families can come to our house and enjoy Christmas. I'm also looking forward to starting our own traditions with Kailey. We put some music on and took showers and then enjoyed the day. I finished my Christmas gift for my best friend (which I still haven't mailed out to her) and Nick worked on dinner ALL day. Kailey, she was hanging out watching and cooing away. Our friends Glen, Meredith and Hanna stopped by to say hello and wish us a Merry Christmas. It was also their first Christmas as a little family. We didn't realize they didn't have plans otherwise we would have done a Christmas Dinner with them, maybe next year.

Nick's dinner was awesome. He made a prime rib dinner with these mashed potato dumplings things that were out of this world. The prime rib was stuffed with spinach and bacon. There was also some carrots and biscuits. The biscuits were all from scratch. They had green onions inside....oh man, we were in heaven. That man really has a gift!





Mashed Potato Dumplings





After dinner we just snuggled up on the couch and watched some Christmas movies we'd DVR'd. But before that I had to have a mini photo session with the babe for her first Christmas:





The unintentional artsy photo.