The Idyllic Days of Virginia Summer
Rawley is in some ways your typical little boy, but perhaps this is especially true when it comes to any type of machine, whether great or small, mundane or unusual, he will be very interested in any machine he encounters.
I feel like I should preface this blog with a big of an apology, since it's been almost shy of a year since I last blogged. Shameful, I know. I want to do better though, so here we go. This isn't going to be the most organized entry, and I've decided to focus on just the summer, but hopefully this will whet the appetites of those who don't get to see our little family as often as they'd like but wish they could. (It is very long so brace yourselves, haha.)
We started packing in early April to leave to go to Virginia for an internship Paul had secured in D.C. We were really grateful to Paul's Dad and his wife Debbie for letting us live in their basement during the summer. This photo is from before we left, while we were still in Wymount. We learned to never underestimate the difficulty of moving across the country, because we kept most of our stuff in a storage unit over the summer. This was the first time we'd had to do such extensive packing, because although we'd moved twice before, the first time we were newlyweds with hardly anything to our name (we fit it all in an old Corolla) and the second time we were just moving from apartment to apartment in the same complex. This time, though, it was much more difficult and we barely made it out in our scheduled time. It was stressful, but we managed it one way or another.
The inside of our storage unit - at the very beginning of moving in all our stuff. We actually managed to fill most of the space by the end of it.
Rawley sporting a sticker off a graphics card or something similar.
This was the beginning of the journey over to Virginia from Utah. Rawley wasn't sure if he liked his first tastes of soda.
At a weird little park in Nevada or somewhere.
We had quite a few late nights, but Rawley really loved getting to the hotels with nice big soft beds (although he slept in his pack n' play.)
We planned in a pitstop to Paul's Risk grandparents in Texas on our way back. Their house is beautiful and in such an idyllic setting, plus we were thrilled to see FORESTS again after having not seen any real southern greenery in so long.
**********Blogger kind of is the worst and won't let me embed videos properly. So you'll just have to reference this link to watch any of the videos, sorry. I'll try to put descriptions of the videos through the link.
Rawley thought the reflector was a "flag," mostly because he loves flags and didn't know what it was.
Gotta have some really good steak while in Texas. I had my birthday right before we got to the grandparent's house, and they threw a little party there which was very fun :) I thought we'd gotten pictures of Rawley with this great grandparents, but I couldn't find any :( Somewhere Lizzy has some official nice ones we took, though.
Rawley slept in Paul's Uncle Thomas's closet while we slept in his uncle's old room.
Can I reiterate how exciting it was to see this much spontaneous greenery around?
Rawley likes trying to drive.
We found some horses right by a gas station and took a break. Rawley is significantly less enamored of horses than he is of cats and dogs.
"Byeeee, suckers!"
We went to a steak n' shake for the first time. Rawley liked his hat, and we liked the burgers, but we were less enamored of the shakes.
We went to a highly rated Chinese restaurant, and it was probably the best decorated Chinese restaurant I've ever been in. However, the food was super not good - don't go by appearances I guess!
We had actually hoped to go camping on pretty much the whole way back to Virginia instead of taking hotels, but when you're bone-tired sometimes a real bed instead of an air mattress is called for. We did find one KOA to stay at the night before pulling into our new summer home, so we camped one night together. Hopefully one day we can be a little more rugged and camp more often, but honestly camping with a toddler is pretty difficult at times, and when you're staying in public camping grounds people are often loud and don't respect quiet hours.
Whenever we stopped somewhere on the long trip, we'd let Rawley get out and stretch his legs, since he needed it more than we did.
I freaked out a little when I started to see some of those glorious rolling mountain ranges I'm so accustomed to.
We found a really beautiful restaurant somewhere in Alabama or one of those states to eat at. It was funny because we were dressed in our grungy traveling clothes and were pretty worn out from the journey, and from the outside this place looked too fancy for us. But Paul went in and checked, and their prices were good and they were on the river, so it was a very relaxing and much needed stop (with good food) for us.
While we waited for dinner we took turns escorting Rawley down on the pier.
While we were at our one campsite, Rawley started eating dirt before we really noticed, and this was the result.
Rawley really enjoyed spending a lot of time with all of his grandparents this summer!
Chilling in the weird hammock at the playground.
Rawley enjoyed comfortable laps belonging to all his Risk aunts and uncle.
We saw a lot of rainbows over the summer, which Rawley had never seen before since Utah is far too dry and doesn't rain consistently enough for it. He actually would get really excited and happy every time he saw one.
Not sure why the sky looked like this, but it looked like a bomb or major fire had gone off.
Every kid needs a nerf sword, right?
Rawley loves books, and despite what it looks like here he is very absorbed in it and not sleeping.
I did a fair amount of gardening over the summer, although less than I would have liked to, and Rawley enjoyed "helping." He wasn't very good at weeding though, he kept trying to pull out the real flowers I had planted XD
I'm not sure what he's so excited about, but probably something outside. Rawley was very interested in all the living things in Virginia, which were far more numerous than what Provo has to offer.
I try not to be tooooo negative about Utah, but being back in Virginia for the summer reconfirmed to me that my soul belongs in a green, living place. Utah is dry and dead, and although parts of it are pretty, they are not generally the parts where people live. Virginia is just pretty and overgrown everywhere, and although I will admit the dryness of Utah is kind of preferable to Virginia's humidity, it's something I'm used to and can deal with.
We went to a Vietnam war memorial museum in Ruckersville, and Rawley had a lot of fun with all the trucks and helicopters and such.
Rawley doesn't eat food in a conventional manner all the time. He will often eat apples whole, including the seeds and core. He also sometimes eats strawberries whole, including the leafy tops.
These two really like to roughhouse. I think it's an important part of Rawley's growth and development to be able to do so, even if Daddy gets a little beat up sometimes ;)
There are few things I love more than reading time with these two.
We went to an art festival in Manassas, which is kind of a train centered town.
This was my view for a lot of the summer - blurs of toddler and dog together. We like Reacher a lot although honestly he didn't really know how to act around a toddler and gauge his own size in relation to Rawley's, hence the eye scratch below. But they were still buddies and Rawley liked him a lot and would try to throw the ball for him, but he also was a little scared of such a big dog that bumped into him a lot. Rawley seemed to like Wicket, his Grandma Debbie's cat a little better since she was smaller than him :)
Grandpa cuddles are fun. I need to get more photos of Rawley with all his relations when we get the chance, Paul doesn't take enough pictures of his siblings and family with Rawley, haha.
These are some of my favorite photos from the summer. Rawley really loves Grandma Debbie's little decorative pond in the backyard, and I mucked it out of some leaves and such that had built up over the winter while trying to avoid as many little tadpoles as I could. This is Rawley "helping" with the process. However, on maybe our third day at the house, he managed to fall down into the water of this pond neck deep (in a sitting position) and was greatly disturbed by the experience. I felt bad for him but immediately pulled him out and couldn't control my laughter at his extremely shocked expression, haha.
An extremely classic image of a little blonde boy with his Popsicle, hat, and dog.
I really liked and appreciated living at Brad and Debbie's house over the summer because they had some nice paved walking trails that led into town, which led through some very forested areas. We found mulberries, blackberries (although those weren't quite ready by the time we left, and were kind of inaccessible) and tons of honeysuckle. I particularly liked the mulberries because I'd pick a handful for Rawley and myself and we'd munch on them while walking (and Rawley would come home with face and hands stained black.)
I was shocked in a good way to remember how alive Virginia is, and that the plants have minds of their own, like this honeysuckle overtaking trees. Rawley really liked the concept of honeysuckle once I showed him how to extract the nectar from the tip.
This happened pretty close to when we got to Virginia at first, on Memorial day. We went to the Ruckersville Vietnam Museum, and they had a lot of cool planes, helicopters, cars, etc. out for people to view and some were accessible to ride in. Rawley's smug expression in this picture kind of sums up how he felt about the experience; he loves big machines of any kind.
I think Paul thought that William looked kind of like the dude on the plane?
So many buttons that needed pushing, and levers that needed pulling!
Because Paul specializes in being dramatic when it comes to war scenes, haha.
"What the heck are you doing Dad?"
The most morose pilot
So we went to Remington's local firefighter's carnival/fair, and we had a fair amount of fun while we were there very briefly. We went to a playground for a bit despite the rain because it was still pretty nice and generally we don't mind getting wet. While we were at this playground, however, Paul checked for his wallet in his pocket and couldn't find it anywhere. He also noticed that his pants pocket lining was slightly turned out - the pocket where his wallet had been. After searching and talking to police, we came to the sad conclusion that someone had stolen his wallet. Thankfully he was carrying very little money and they didn't have a chance to use his credit or debit cards, but we learned a sad lesson that day that people around us can't be trusted to not thieve (probably particularly at fairs) and to always be on guard for stuff like that. I think Paul was probably targeted because he had come from work and was wearing nicer clothes than almost anyone at the fair, and clearly had a sort of white collar job.
Border collies look great in the Buchanan clan tartan.
Rawley would often fall asleep in his carseat on the long drives we'd take between grandparents and family. We really love how cute he looks while he's sleeping <3
There were a lot of skinks around the house (outside) but this one happened to get inside somehow. Paul caught it and was very proud of his achievement, Rawley loved chasing the skinks whenever he saw them.
Just a beautiful Virginia evening sunset.
We went to the National Zoo with my parents one day, and Rawley really liked it. He particularly liked this merry go round that had many of the different animals featured in the zoo, and kept wanting to be moved from animal to animal so he could try them all. He also definitely cried when it was time to get off and leave, haha.
Paul said I was like the tiger, haha.
Virginia got a LOT of rain over the summer, which was kind of sad because it meant we couldn't be outside as often as we'd like. It also meant that a large field area near the house flooded several times pretty severely. At one point the water was actually going over this road as well.
A flooded path we would sometimes walk on.
Paul and I tried to take advantage of being back in Virginia and the various babysitters we had by going camping a couple times. I really like camping, but I soon discovered I don't enjoy camping as much near a bunch of other campers that don't go to sleep at reasonable times and talk loudly - the benefits of backpacking somewhere to camp more remotely, I suppose. We'll have to try that sometime when I'm not pregnant. Paul made these steaks for us over the campfire and they were delicious as all getout - let me tell you all, Paul makes a mean steak. Eating steak cooked by my husband over a campfire while looking up at the stars is one of my favorite things!
A perfect little jelly roll. Paul thinks it's funny to tuck Rawley into his blankets like this.
Paul originally said we should caption this 4th of July photo, "When you wish the Communists had won." It was really hot outside on that day, and William hosted a fun cookout, but by the time we got to the event from Remington he was very very hot and kind of wasted feeling. He perked up eventually and had a lot of fun there, and he really liked the hotdogs.
Rawley also really liked the pool table at the independence day party.
Once again, Paul cooks good steaks.
Paul and I went on a third anniversary trip to Trap Pond state park and Chinquoteague island. I will start by saying we probably could have planned the trip better (mostly I planned it) by not having two places to go to that were a couple hours apart, and not camping. The biggest part that was bad was probably the camping, haha. However, we got dinner at a fairly legitimate looking place when we first got in on Thursday, and they gave us a free slice of this really yummy local cake that has a ton of layers and is locally famous called Smith Island cake. The next morning we kayaked around Trap Pond, which is particularly interesting because it has trees growing there with roots submerged in the pond water. Parts of the lake were unfortunately colonized with poisonous algae, so we stayed away from those parts, but it was fun. We learned how to successfully manage a two person kayak by the end, but it was a bit of a struggle initially - we probably won't get a two person kayak in the future but two one person ones ;)
The camping was a little rough because we got in rather later than we had hoped, and had to set up camp in the dark. So we didn't get much sleep the night before, but kayaking was still fun.
So we got to Chinquoteague and picked out a little seafood restaurant, which was right by a little saltwater stream thing. They were very busy that night but it was a fun location to dine - We ended up not loving the food all that much but honestly, I find that I don't like seafood very much when it's not fresh caught straight fish (and before my mission I refused to ever eat that... I've learned better now.)
We woke up really early the next morning (once again - we hardly slept. It was actually really windy that night and that was making a lot of noise, so eventually I retreated to try and sleep in the car and then we decided to just go to the beach early and call it a day, haha) and we drove to the beach. We had a pretty hard time finding the beach head because of poor maps, but we found it eventually. Paul kindly let me borrow his wonderful fleece plaid jacket. We enjoyed a long stroll on the beach barefoot (heh) and had fun watching the sandpipers run around.
We ended up trying to hightail it out of there because we soon discovered that once the sun is up, Chinquoteague's legion of evil bugs is also up. Like, we were almost eaten alive, there were so many bugs attacking us for the few moments we stayed out after the beach. It was genuinely bad enough I can't recommend anyone go to the island during the summer, although I bet once all the bugs are dead it would be a much more relaxing place to be. Also, shoutout to my mom for babysitting and all the help all of Rawley's grandparents gave us with babysitting generally over the summer so Paul and I could have some fun together.
Little sandpiper footprints.
Wicket, Debbie's kitten, was just as curious as you'd expect when Paul occasionally worked from home. Rawley loved her and would talk about her all the time.
We went to the natural history museum with William, and Suzanne. Rawley definitely thought it was cool, although he insisted on being held most of the time because he gets pretty overwhelmed in large crowds.
He definitely is a fan of dinosaurs... and Grandma :)
T-rex time with Uncle William. Mostly Rawley just calls him "Uncle" despite his having one uncle on my side, too.
I'm a super big fan of minerals, gems, and rocks. That was probably my favorite part of the museum - especially the large display they had of antique high value jewelry made from gems from around the world.
This was Rawley on his birthday. We had traveled a little while to get to Grandma Suzanne's house, then he had some fun playing while we waited for people to come to the party, etc. So he ended up taking a much needed nap before we started the festivities, and we eventually had to wake him up from being passed out like this cuddling his sippy cup because it was time to start the party - he was grumpy for probably 15 minutes afterwards, glaring at everyone because we had woken him up from his nap, haha.
He was very excited about the cake, ice cream, and candles! He didn't understand how to do his pinata, so eventually Victoria showed him how (helped him by getting down on the ground with him and helping him use the bat) and he really liked all the candy coming out. He also loved his balloons and the presents he received. We also went to a really fun place in Charlottesville called Chew Chew Town with the family, where they had food delivered to us by a little model train, and everything was train themed. I wish I'd gotten a picture of Rawley being delighted by the train and his food coming on it, but alas, I did not get a photo.
One of our last evenings in Virginia, playing on a local playground.
We drove through Kentucky briefly on the way back to Utah from Virginia and I saw this HUGE KFC center, which was extremely funny to me and I wish we could have stopped because I like KFC.
We tried to stop at one park a day for Rawley's sake on the drive, which he appreciated. When we'd start each day he'd immediately start talking about the park and when we'd get to a park, and then after we'd go to the park each day he'd start talking about the hotel, and wanting to get to the hotel. We went to this park on the second or third day of travel, with about two days ahead of us. After playing at the park, we started to walk down a little walking trail behind this playground. After about 2 minutes of walking, however, it started to become very overgrown, and I felt like we should turn back. I expressed that opinion, and turned around myself, and Paul and Rawley pressed on a bit further. Later that night, Paul began to have very itchy feet, and sure enough - he had some pretty severe poison ivy. Rawley and I managed to be unscathed, which might mean that we just got lucky and didn't brush against any, or perhaps Rawley inherited my apparent non-allergy to poison ivy (my Dad is confirmed non-allergic to it, I've never gotten it so I might have that as well.) Poor Paul was driving for a lot of the rest of the trip with extremely itchy legs and feet. Overall the trip wasn't too bad besides that, and the fact that for a week afterward Rawley kept talking about staying in hotels (I think he really liked them.)
A quick stop at a really weird Subway in the middle of nowhere, Rawley ran up and down the deserted restaurant having a grand old time stretching out his legs.
This little tiny mug cup Rawley's drinking out of came out of his birthday pinata, and he was obsessed with making us fill it up so he could take tiny little drinks.
I think I came out of the bedroom once to find Rawley like this, Paul having no knowledge of how it happened, haha.
Paul took Rawley to an air show in Springville in Utah soon after we moved back.
Rawley really likes big machines, and has expressed an interest in them even before we ever started encouraging him in that interest.
Greatly pleased with the medical helicopter.
Paul looks like a real pilot with those shades his dad gave him.
We were really smart (Paul in particular was) on the drive out to Utah and we got a mount for a Kindle and had Rawley watching movies on it for a large portion of the drive back. A lot of the movies were some of my childhood favorites by a Japanese animator. In one of the movies, a little girl who happens to be a witch named Kiki rides around on a broom making deliveries to townspeople like a mail service. Rawley really liked that movie, and he had a toddler broom we had gotten him so he'd stop insisting on taking the big broom while we swept. He decided to start riding around on it like Kiki after watching the movie.
A picture from back in Virginia, Rawley loves peanut butter like his Daddy and he also loves his Daddy's shoes.
At a Children's discovery museum in Harrisonburg we went to with my mom. Rawley really liked the big ambulance they had parked in there. I didn't make any promises these pictures would be in order, haha.
More of the flooding in Remington. Virginia is my kind of beautiful, and it was truly wonderful to get to live back there over the summer. It was hard, too, because Paul was commuting about 4 hours every day to get to and from his internship in D.C. area. We feel really blessed to have gotten that internship, but it was certainly a somewhat difficult experience too. We definitely plan to live no further than a half hour away from wherever Paul will be working in the future if we can possibly swing it (which with current job prospects for post-college, looks fairly achievable.)
This was a random old house right near Remington called Pre'Isquile. I wanted to do a tour with my friend but apparently you had to schedule beforehand, so maybe I'll have to do it another time. Still, beautiful and romantic property, and I learned while there that old Southern traditional houses tended to have the underside of their porches painted light blue to ward off ghosts and evil spirits.
I'm going to insert a bit of a long tangent here, but it's something that's been interesting to experience over the past little bit since getting pregnant again. I wasn't really sure what to expect with this pregnancy - thankfully it's been easier so far than Rawley's pregnancy, but having a toddler means that I rarely get to rest as much as my body craves with literally growing a person inside of me. Getting enough sleep has become particularly difficult lately with Rawley suddenly deciding over the past week that he didn't want to take naps anymore (which makes him far more irritable and requires a lot more energy to keep him entertained and happy), but thankfully some blackout curtains seem to be helping. The above pictures are a pretty good indicator of how clean things are most of the time, but we're pulling things together here in Wymount where we're currently living. I can't say I was ever really taught to be a great housekeeper growing up, but I'm working on it and hopefully the time I invest in my kids will ultimately help them more than having a perfectly clean house, particularly when I'm pregnant and it feels like I always need more sleep than I'm getting.
Paul probably feels sometimes a little like Rawley in this picture - mostly the long drives over the summer for commuting were stressful for him and now he has homework to do ALL the time. It's kind of sad that in theory BYU should be a very family oriented school, but in reality it's all about academics just like any school.This means he gets home very late from his long class schedule including evening classes (like 7:00 pm) and the 20 hours of work he has per week to have several hours of homework per night. That leaves him very little time to hang out and play with Rawley or socialize with us, which makes me sad because I love him and miss his company a great deal (Rawley definitely does too.) Thankfully things have been getting a bit better now as he has a bit of a break from the endless labs and readings, but IT is not an easy major by any means. It's good that for the most part Paul likes and understands it well! Also thankfully, he'd going to drop down to about 9.5 credits next semester (about half of what he's doing now) both because that's all he has left to take before graduating and because we planned it this way so he could be around more with another baby coming and have a chance to bond and help with said baby (no name yet - honestly we're probably gonna name the next little guy in the hospital.) We're pushing through this semester and making it happen as much as we can, and we definitely know we can make it through this semester until the next, and then until the long awaited graduation! By the time Paul graduates, we will have been in school for 4 years of our marriage.
Not gonna lie, because of how academically centered BYU is, there are times where I think of what "could have been" had we waited a bit longer to have Rawley and just had me graduate and work for a while without any kids. I see some of my peers living in much better housing than us, having more home decor, going on big international trips, etc. because of dual income without kids and sometimes I feel a little bit of a "what if." But, when I look at Rawley I know it was worth it, and that although some fun or cool things have been delayed, I never regret having Rawley when we did, and following inspiration to have children as we did with him will ultimately come with many blessings. With our second son, it's been interesting, because Paul initially felt inspired for us to have Rawley, but this time I was very specifically inspired before Paul that we needed to have another child, and what the timing should be. I also felt specifically inspired while praying that this child would be a boy, and one of our friends even had a dream we were pregnant long before we'd even announced to anyone we were (maybe just chance, but who knows, haha.) Ultimately, I'm glad for inspiration and the focus that God has told us generally and Paul and me specifically to have on our family and children.
As another side note - if any of you in Virginia in particular, but also anyone living on the East Coast know of people who need an information technology graduate to work for them after April, we have already been applying to jobs and are definitely open to references people might have :)
Being a mother is a weird combination of difficult and boring all at the same time. Rawley himself is an interesting and pretty articulate two year old... but he is two years old. He doesn't exactly have conversation to say beyond, "It's a hot day. It's a nice day." I talk to him about a lot of different things, but he often doesn't say much back. This is where housewife loneliness really starts to set in - living back in Wymount terrace makes it a bit better because we see other families that live in the apartments over and try to have people over to play. I say that it's difficult partially because of the loneliness (which is greatly abated when Paul is home; he is pretty much my go to socialization in each day,) but also because Rawley doesn't understand some pretty basic concepts yet. He still will sometimes injure us accidentally (he gave Paul a pretty serious set of scrapes on the inside of his mouth recently that still hasn't healed after two weeks), he doesn't totally understand cleaning up all the time (although he's been getting better at this with some serious effort on our part as parents), and he's started saying "no" more than he used to (but still less than your average toddler I think, he prefers to be helpful most of the time than not.)
We're really grateful that Paul works so hard at his job and schooling, and sometimes it feels silly when he comes home and talks about big coding breakthroughs at work or in his lab projects and I mostly just can say, "Rawley said this funny thing today, we went to this same park and did the same thing we do most days..." but Paul often reminds me that ultimately Rawley and our kids are what deserve our time and attention more than anything else, because from an eternal perspective they are what matters most and will make us happier than any work promotions or having interesting things to say beyond the level of a two year old (although I am taking up reading more books on my kindle now, which gives me some slightly more interesting things to say and know.) Rawley also tells us daily that he loves us, gives us hugs and kisses, gets legitimately concerned when we're sick and will ask if we're okay or sad, and likes it when we're happy. He has a generally positive attitude and likes to help and bring joy to other people. Changing diapers, going to the same parks, reading the same books, eating the same foods... all of it does get tedious, but I'm glad we get to see that Rawley is generally such a happy little boy and is growing well and thriving, even if it means some personal sacrifices along the way.
More fun summer times in Virginia <3
Rawley got super pumped when he saw these bunnies outside in Virginia. We'd often see them when we'd go out on our walks as well.
Blurry toga baby!
More pictures from our trip to the National Zoo with my parents. Rawley was weaned off his binky soon after we got here to Utah, and thankfully he didn't complain too much about it once we explained that he's a big kid now and doesn't need one anymore. A side effect of that seems to be that he's struggling taking naps now, but hopefully we can get him to take consistent naps again soon (he definitely still needs them!) Next step - potty training.
Rawley liked riding on Grandpa's back, which I'm kind of surprised my dad could do for very long because Rawley weighs 30+ pounds now! He's in like the 98th percentile for height, about the 85th for weight, and 99th for head circumference.
This little rodent thing seemed to particularly like Rawley.
I really love these boys - Rawley loves Paul and tries to be like him in many ways. He's also tender-hearted kind of like Paul and really values our praise and takes punishments and disapproval from us pretty hard (which is why we don't ever have to spank him or anything, he really values feeling loves and cherished which we try to help him feel every day.)
If I'm like the tiger, Paul's like the lions.
More cute 4th of July pictures, after he'd perked up a bit. This kid loves watermelon, which is funny because I ate a TON of it while I was pregnant in the third trimester with him.
Rawley LOVES sports. That's not something that we like... actively encourage really, since we're not super sporty ourselves (we both did sports in high school, but we were more musical/theatrical than anything else.) Rawley particularly loves balls, and is very attached to a mini soccer ball we got him - it's practically his security blanket right now. His favorites right now are soccer and basketball. I'm taking him to a rec center toddler tumbling class where they have different stations where they tumble sometimes and play modified versions of various sports, and when they have free time at the end his favorites are always the activities with balls - so far he seems to favor basketball (and doesn't have bad aim for a two year old.) I'm cool with that because I always liked basketball the best and wasn't terrible at stake young women's basktball, and I'm sure Paul hopes Rawley will play soccer.
Rawley really liked to "help" me with gardening over the summer. I planted a goodly number of flowers and such - I really miss being able to garden because we're not really allowed to in Wymount beyond a couple of flower pots. One day we'll have a vegetable garden, but I like flowers the most (probably partially because my mother also loves flowers so much. ) Rawley was good at helping pull up weeds, but he struggled to see any difference between the flowers and weeds sometimes! His favorite part was playing with the hose and drinking out of it.
Rawley and Wicket were buddies. Rawley struggled with Reacher, Brad's border collie a bit more, because Reacher was quite a bit bigger than Rawley and would knock him down pretty often. Wicket was generally smart enough to only get close to Rawley when it was time to play with a string toy, and Rawley thought it was a grand ole' time to play with her too. Right now, when I ask him if he wants a cat or a dog someday, he generally answers cat first, then dog, haha.
The view from my childhood home. Virginia is definitely my favorite place, and we're lucky that it offers a lot of good jobs in Paul's profession because it makes it much more likely we'll move back after he graduates.
Going swimming in the kiddie pool! Rawley LOVES swimming. We only got o use it once unfortunately, but we'll definitely use it again in the future.
On a ride back from visiting Grandma Suzanne, Rawley was really sad because he had burned his hand on a sparkler. He was crying and mad most of the way home, but calmed down and was amazed by this double rainbow when he saw it. He really likes rainbows a lot now, having never seen one before we lived in Virginia.
We like to mess around sometimes!
Rawley loved his birthday balloons.
Present time on his birthday was fun for Rawley.
He never figured out how to play this toy trumpet we gave him, so he'd just make noises with his mouth that sounded like he was playing it, haha. He really likes the trumpet though because he always wants to play Daddy's trumpet whenever he has it out.
Opening presents at Grandpa Brad's house.
Playing trumpet with Daddy!
So this picture begins the interesting story that is a direct result of Paul's long commute to and from D.C. One day when driving home from work, Paul was sideswiped by a large electrical company truck that apparently didn't notice he had hit Paul. Paul got the license plate, and eventually got ahold of the company and they admitted fault in what happened. Thankfully Paul was completely okay. Ultimately, the end result was that Paul worked from home for a little while since the car was no longer street legal, and we considered selling it for scrap and getting a new car - but then we realized that the car had a lot left in it although the body was not kind of ruined, the engine was still fine. So... we replaced the doors ourselves (with some much appreciated help with William and Brad as well who did a lot of the work) and ended up making a "profit" of approximately the full value of the car back after repairs. So initially we were bemoaning our bad luck at getting sideswiped (Paul is a really good driver, so it's unlikely he'd be the cause of an accident like this) but it actually turned out to be a pretty big boon for us (although our car definitely looks a little worse for wear now with different colored doors and a little cosmetic damage, we don't really care too much about that at this point in our lives.)
Rawley really liked "helping" William and Brad with the installation of the new doors. Mostly he just liked hitting a tree with a hammer.
Big mushrooms on one of our walks.
Only packing the essentials.
Some of the end result of my gardening over the summer, from a wildflower mix.
I was actually pretty proud of this dahlia (pretty sure that's what it was.) It was bigger than my hand! I definitely want to plant more of these once I have a real garden, I don't think these are really supposed to be potted plants haha.
Rawley enjoys reading with Grandpa Larsen!
We saw a bunch of trashcan aleycats on our drive out to Utah, which made me happy. They seemed healthy enough which was good. Rawley was happy to see the cats as well.
Paul and Rawley got to go to our good friend Michael's wedding reception in Virginia; I wasn't able to go because of some weird pregnancy pains which thankfully went away. They had fun and we're happy for this couple!
Unpacking is quite the ordeal, especially with a little boy who wants to get in everything!
This is Paul's poison ivy, a few days after it was at its worst.
Rawley really likes pizza, and chicken nuggets are his favorite food. He also loves muffins, popsicles, and chocolate. He does pretty well eating fruit as well, thankfully.
Family pictures with a toddler...
He's pretty good at saying prayers, and he likes family prayer time (he doesn't actually say the prayers himself yet.) He often asks us to "bless my (insert toy.)"
One reason we really want to get out of Utah - the air pollution is terrible here. If it's not the inversions during the winter, it's apparently the summer fires. We legit had to wear masks to not have negative effects from the fire smoke.
Family walks are good when we have the time to take them.
Rawley likes to leave little gifts for Daddy on his side of the bed sometimes when he cuddles with me in the mornings.
The nursery room during stake conference in a family stake is CRAZAY. Paul and I didn't feel like it was fair to Rawley to make him sit for a whole two hours, so he sat through the first hour fine and then went to go play for a while - and so did like all the other toddlers in the stake, haha. Apparently our stake also grows by like 500 members each year because of all the babies born.
Rawley loves bikes. This bike is one that just sits around at the playground for anyone to use, but he talks about bikes all the time and says, "Get you bike someday." We'll see if we can swing getting him one at Christmas :)
Raweley really likes his Larsen cousins!
Sometimes this is approximately how our semester is going - falling asleep on the office floor. We're really glad to be in a three bedroom apartment so we can have our office area that's inaccessible to Rawley when we want it to be.
Hanging out at the duck pond with some other kids, waiting for Daddy to get out of class.
Rawley is excited for a baby brother! He doesn't really understand what that means yet, I don't think, but he's generally good at interacting with babies smaller than him (particularly ones that can't steal away his toys yet) and he talks about his baby brother on occasion and seems excited at the prospect.
I can frequently feel this cute little second Risk baby kicking now, and he's pretty active it seems. We're looking forward to having baby #2 although we know it's going to be hard with a toddler - I think that Rawley is in a good place and a good age to have a sibling. We have high hopes they'll be good little buddies and only wrestle with each other responsibly, and when baby #2 is little older ;)
We spend a fair amount of time at the duck pond.
Potty training, or at least our attempts.
We went to a fun fall festival where they weighed huge pumpkins and some other types of large produce for a contest. I particularly liked this giant cabbage.
This guy was carving a face into a pumpkin which I really appreciated - the art of adding to a work of art like with clay is generally easier than subtracting like with carving - if you mess up it's not possible to fix it like with clay.
And with that, we've finally caught up more or less to present day. I hope to be more consistent with the blogging than I have been in the past little bit (we'll see how consistent I can continue to be once the baby comes, but one step at a time.) We're excited for what the future holds, and despite the bit of griping I did in some earlier paragraphs, we're really pretty happy with where we're at right now and we know we don't have much longer left living the student family life. Here's to making plans for the future and staying positive!
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