On a hike within a short drive from our new townhouse.
Things have been a little bit crazy for us since I last wrote a post, including social distancing because of COVID and a huge move! In February, we felt somewhat resigned to living in the first townhouse we moved to in Virginia, despite the fact that Paul really wanted a different job and the house we were living in had a lot of issues with dust, possibly mold. and generally being old (something major was breaking about every other month, felt like) which was negatively effecting our health. Our landlady also died while we were living there (she was in her 90's) so that made everything more complicated for us trying to move out.
These boys have us in a fairly constant state of chaos that we manage alright. They basically just make messes, snuggle, play, happy scream, and laugh ;)
In February Paul had been applying to lots of different places for a new job, and he had a small handful of interviews and leads but nothing super promising. At one point, he applied to a job, but the hiring manager for the company got back to him and said he sounded like a good fit for a different job located further into northern VA, but because housing costs are higher there we made it clear the the hiring manager that we wouldn't be willing to move without a fairly good salary to make up for the higher living cost. We even gave her specific numbers, thinking that surely they were too high considering that Paul had only been graduated from college for under a year and only had one "real" job under his belt. Our hopes were not high, but then they decided to do an interview with Paul on March 19. Initially it was scheduled to be an in-person interview, but then with COVID concerns the company told him they'd just do a phone call interview. As he was in the interview (which I happened to overhear most of because it was during the boys' naptimes), it was clear that although he had a fair amount of knowledge appropriate for the job, he was perhaps somewhat underqualified/didn't have all the knowledge they were looking for. After the interview, Paul and I both looked at each other and said, "Well, that was a good test run for interviews and knowing what they'll ask in the future for other jobs. We very much doubt this one will pan out." We put that job out of our minds, because we thought surely they weren't going to hire him for that particular job based on the interview. We also stopped applying to other places at right around that time, because we came to the conclusion we didn't really want to risk switching jobs right then during the beginning stages of a pandemic.
Chick Fil-a is one of our favorite places. It pleases the whole family, and at least before COVID it has the added bonus of a playplace.
On April 2nd, though, after no contact from the company, Paul got an email from them in his inbox. When he saw it, I'm pretty sure he grabbed my arm and said, "There's an email from the company in my inbox. I don't want to open it. I know it's just a rejection letter, but I don't want to open it and actually read the rejection." So he waited for most of a day to open the email, until I urged him that he just needed to open it and see what it said, even though it was probably a rejection letter. He eventually agreed and opened it. We read it together at the same time. "WHAT. THE. HECK. NO WAAAAAY!!!!" We did a little bit of gaping at the email, at each other, and general extreme excitement. It was an acceptance letter! We couldn't believe it! After a little more general excitement, we knew we immediately had to start looking for a new place to live closer up near Ashburn and that we wouldn't have long to pull a move together. We accepted the job offer, and had a bit of issues with telling our new landlady we were moving out, but nothing too major since our lease was nearing its end.
There's nothing better than baby snuggles. Seriously. Charlie is super cuddly and he loves snuggles. He's my little cuddle bug, particularly after his naptime we always enjoy snuggles while he's a little bit grumpy still.
We felt the pressure immediately to get the ball rolling, and set up having Paul's siblings and their spouses help us move. We also started constantly touring places to rent around the Ashburn area. After seeing around 5 places though, none of them really felt like the right fit for various reasons. The next place we toured was actually right next to another place for rent we had toured, but this townhouse was bigger and much better proportioned for our needs. We were impressed with the neighborhood, and liked the surroundings. We applied and were accepted, which was very exciting. We weren't able to tour the townhouse we moved into in Marshall because we were in Provo, so it was good we were able to tour it in person this time around. Lizzy, Milton, William, and Jessica really helped us so much with the actual move out from Marshall with loading and unloading boxes and furniture. Later some ward members in our new ward also helped take boxes up stairs while wearing masks. As we moved out some members helped us with various things in our previous ward as well.
We definitely miss our friends in our ward when we lived in Marshall. Before the pandemic hit we were going to weekly playdates and yoga at the church.
Rawley really loved all the fun toys at one of our friends houses like their air hokey table, and always loved hanging out with the nice people there.
Charlie loved walking towards Daddy when he was first starting. Charlie started at around the same time as Rawley did, about 14 months old
Rawley, unimpressed with needing to wear a mask during COVID, but he's actually pretty obedient about doing so
"You're gonna do WHAT to my hair??"
First haircut for Charlie
Trying to orchestrate a move really quickly was difficult, and there were many trips to Ashburn as we toured various places trying to find the right place, all the while we were packing up boxes like mad while still trying to keep the boys happy. We were so so grateful that some of Paul's siblings and their spouses came to help us move all the boxes into the moving van and into our new house!
We really love our new place! As we toured it and were moving in, the boys were clearly pleased with the extra room in our new townhouse. This place is definitely newer and nicer than where we were living before, and has a lot of perks like a soaking tub which I frequently use after going running and exercising, 4 bathrooms (one of those is a half bath), a super nice kitchen, and a basement which is lovely. That's basically been converted into the play room for the boys, since their actual rooms are kind of on the small side. Our master bedroom is very nice and has space for our office in it as well, plus lots of light and windows.
Here the boys are exploring the new house for the first time during a walkthrough. They were both very excited!
The front of the townhouse we're renting. Note the two little boys observing from our windows <3
The view from outside Rawley's bedroom window
Our bedroom in its current state, with our office in the little sunroom. We're probably going to switch things up as we work everything out, but for now we like this setup
Snuggles with Daddy in the living room <3
Our kitchen leads into our dining room
I love the granite countertops and lights in our kitchen, and all the glorious space!
Our living room. It's very spacious and long, but we opted to put the TV in the nook across from the chairs so it wouldn't get tipped backwards over the banister entryway on the stairs, and/or that the kids wouldn't climb on the couch and flip themselves over the back
One of our favorite areas to play in is a large field right behind this hill that is zoned for a future church, but I kind of doubt it's really gonna ever have anything go in there (and they keep it mowed so kids can play on it.) It was fun in the first month or so to explore all the different places we could walk to on the many paths around here from our house.
One day I turned my back on Charlie in the bathroom for a split second, and suddenly I see he's putting my soap in his mouth from the shower. He started crying as soon as he realized his mouth was foaming up and didn't smell good!
Baby burrito snuggles are a win
One of our favorite areas that's a very close walk to us has a nice pond with a paved trail all around it and a gazebo the boys like sitting in. There's often geese, turtles, and sometimes herons there for us to observe. I also saw a deer there one time during one of my runs through the area, and a really fat groundhog a different time. Despite the fact that this is Northern Virginia, they've done a pretty good job of trying to keep large swaths of land around here natural still.
The boys like eating onion grass 💁
Charlie munching up food on our little back patio
The boys have a lot of fun together, and Rawley is a creative little boy when it comes to coming up with fun games like looking like a superhero with muscles 😁
Dancing means grabbing!
Another nice spot on one of our walks, where they have a manmade stream with little waterfalls right by a long paved path.
Another part of the trail with a natural stream
Hanging out in the basement, which is definitely the boys play room now
A nice picnicking spot near where we live
Wearing Daddy's hat for fun
Snuggles with Charlie are super super nice. He's so cuddly!
Rawley liked assisting Daddy to make my birthday cake.
This is a frequent occurrence in our household
Charlie likes wearing bowties and regular ties. He's a dapper little dude
I got the boys a free bubble machine, and it was VERY popular.
They're good brothers <3 and good little buddies for each other.
Some notes about Rawley - here's some of his favorites at 4 years old:
Favorite color: Blue, red, and green (he couldn't pick just one)
Favorite thing to do: Play in the bubbles from the bubble machine
Favorite movie: Toystory
Favorite song: The Imperial March (from Star Wars)
Favorite animal: Lobster (he says he really likes them because they can stay so long underwater because they live there, and they have cool pincers 💁
Rawley loves going hiking, going on walks, and he likes playing WITH Charlie, and often will wait to do whatever it is he wants to do at the park until Charlie is ready to play with him.
We enjoy going on hikes together! We've been doing pretty well at hiking every week.
Grandma Debbie and Popop (Brad) sent the boys a really fun splash pad that they love!
The coolest scarf apparently
The fun gazebo at the pond park we like to go to
Walking around in the field by our house
MONSTER BABY
The azaleas right outside our front door bloomed very nicely in May
Rawley is a very good and precocious little boy. He can count to ten and knows a lot of his letters and numbers by name. We're working on getting him to read now as well as we start a preschool curriculum with him.
Zoning out at dinnertime
We went on a nice hike near a river in Leesburg.
The boys got SUPER muddy there playing on the bank of the river.
Lots of wild raspberries and honeysuckle were really fun for all of us over the spring and into the summer.
We also would occasionally pick wildflowers growing along the various paths we would take and make some cute bouquets. Rawley helped me snip them :)
Rawley helped me plant these zinnias and carnations, which are blooming nicely now.
Honeysuckle overgrowing a tree
Charlie likes climbing up to the landing on these stairs, then going sideways and making cute faces and sounds at me. He used to hang out like that for several minutes, I guess it was comfy :)
They look really grumpy but we had a good ride despite it being hot; I pushed them both most of the way.
Rawley particularly enjoyed the sprinklers by the trail on the way back home.
Wild roses growing along a different part of the trail system
We went fishing with Lizzy (Paul's sister) and her husband Milton one Saturday. We had a blast; it had been a very long time since many of us had ever been fishing, and Rawley was super hyped about the cool star wars fishing pole Lizzy and Milton gave him.
At first, Rawley was a little impatient, but we told him that fishing is essentially a waiting game.
Then, after maybe 15 minutes or so, he caught one!
We actually all ended up catching several fish, which was a nice change from what I experienced fishing as a kid 😂 Milton was really nice and he was helping all of us the whole time since most of the rest of us just had limited fishing experience.
Charlie ONLY wanted to walk around the whole time, so there was always one of us on baby watching duty so he wouldn't fall into the lake or get into some other mischief.
Hanging out and talking with uncle Milton.
See the turtle? He was hanging out just near the shoreline for a long time, and even tried to go after the hooks a couple times (but we made sure he didn't get hooked on a line.)
Charlie really enjoyed the park/playground that was near the lake. It was a really nice area.
Hanging out again on the stairs <3
Snuggly baby in Daddy's jacket
Playing with some water guns we got the boys in the nearby field
Another bouquet from the local wildflowers.
Baby burrito!
Charlie can now say lots of words, but here's a rough progression of the words he's learned:
Go
I love you
(sounds more like 'i... yew' or 'lub yew')
Boof
(we say that sometimes when we play hit him with something soft)
Byebye
Dada
Mama
(He often thumps his little hand on his own chest and says "Mama!" I think that's because when I was trying to teach him all of our names, I introduced myself that way, and I guess he liked it better than saying his own name 😂)
Dog
(Charlie really, really likes dogs. He is laser focused on them whenever he sees them, and loves petting the ones he's allowed to.)
Bark
No
Thank you
(This is my absolute favorite thing he says. He steals things from us like our phones, the remote, anything we want from him, and he'll hand it back to us and say, "Dhank... yew" with a really cute little guttural stop in between the two words
Shoe
Sock
Cat
Meow
Goodnight
Eyes
Thirsty
Water (wawa)
There's probably a few I'm forgetting, and he frequently repeats words after us pretty well without really understanding what they mean, but that's what he's using effectively right now.
We go outside every day it's nice; despite having a very little yard here we have lots of nature to enjoy together!
Discovering the light switches for the first time... great mischief initiated!
On a different hike, one that we discovered is actually within walking distance of our house.
Both our boys love climbing and scrambling.
The boys like swords and sticks, pretty typical 😂
Taking a walk as a family. We like how accessible it is to just go out and take a walk or a run, and even walk to various playgrounds in the area.
This would be their boyband picture.
I got Rawley a target shooter for his nerf gun for free. He loves practicing with it, and he actually has pretty good aim, both with the gun and with throwing balls and such.
In case you couldn't tell, we get a LOT of outside time here, and we go through a LOT of sunscreen.
"MOM look at me I'm in the toybox!"
Charlie particularly loves swinging, but both boys like it. I was obsessed with swinging as a child.
Turtle just chilling on a rock on my run. I now have a favorite spot on this hiking area near the reservoir within walking distance of our house; it has a nice little bubbling stream that goes deep underneath some rocks and it makes really nice sounds.
Rawley always likes sitting on these rocks
Just two cute little gremlins... or as Rawley says, "Here come your little gremblins!"
Chilling on some of the big rocks on one of our favorite trails.
We love getting out together as a family; Virginia is so beautiful!
Getting max squished by the boys. This happens to Paul and me at least once per day.
Sometimes Paul cooks steak, and he does a really good job. Being married to a man who is a good griller is one of the perks that I didn't know I really wanted in a realationship. 😉 Charlie tried his first piece, and he LOVED it. This is his face as he began DEMANDING more steak.
The boys both love snuggling in this very beat up old jacket of Paul's. He definitely used to wear it back in high school, and I told him that he wasn't allowed to wear it anymore because it was covered in holes and stuff and I got him a new one that was sort of similar. Somehow, though, instead of it getting thrown away or burned, the boys ended up appropriating it.
He loves mangoes!
We had a little relatively impromptu 4th of July get together with Milton, Lizzy, and Suzanne, and we skyped all the rest of Paul's siblings at the same time. Charlie and Rawley really enjoyed the fireworks we set off in our driveway, and Charlie also really likes flags.
Rawley was actually able to see a number of displays from his window since we have third story bedrooms. He stayed up late that night just watching the fireworks go off, and he talked about how much he loved the 4th of July for weeks after that.
Often when we sit down, Charlie comes over and sits/leans himself right up against our legs, very intentionally, and he stays there for a long time. It's ADORABLE. Seriously, we can't get over his cuteness.
Lookin' good my dudes.
This is the playground we most often walk to. It's a good one because it's pretty appropriate for their age, and it is just long enough to be a good long walk for Rawley to get his wiggles out but not so long as to be way too exhausting.
Everybody grab the baby!
Chilling in one of the gazebos
Peekaboo!
We got a new (to us) chair and the boys loved sitting in it. They like new exciting things. But really, that's Mama's chair 😉
Super excited about a new park!
Charlie is actually really tan. I put sunscreen on him always, he hasn't gotten burned or anything, but somehow he is just always pretty tan. I think he must just have higher skin pigmentation than the rest of us; he was after all born with Mongolian spot indicative of that.
Sticks are the best!
I could snuggle this little one all day long happily.
These boys rae all about cookie dough, courtesy of Paul who makes most of the cookies in our house.
We went to Grandma Suzie's house for a fun party for Rawley's fourth birthday, and she graciously babysat the boys while Paul and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary for a day and a half.
Rawley had a lot of fun opening presents and doing a pinata. My parents came to observe and chat while they socially distanced from us.
We went to a nice restaurant in Stanardsville for our anniversary celebration for breakfast called the Lafayette Inn (we stayed somewhere else for two nights.) The food was really good and it was really nice of them to let us eat there because they were technically closed to the public during those hours but served us anyway. It's a really cute old building in Paul's hometown.
It's even a bit cuter because Paul and I almost went on a date to that restaurant many years ago when we were first dating, but it was closed because they have kind of limited operating hours. So, realized relationship dream I suppose.
We saw this picture of an eagle at an antiques store connected to the place we ate lunch at (which is another place that was super delicious and fun, right in Ruckersville, next to where Paul's from.) We thought this eagle's expression was hilarious.
We went on a hike for part of our anniversary celebration, and on part of the hike we saw two rattlesnakes chilling on a rock just off the trail (some other people pointed them out to us.) I have definitely never seen a rattlesnake before in Virginia or anywhere else.
We were continuing our longstanding tradition of hiking. Here's a picture from our first date where Paul asked me on the date. Here's a picture from that; we were so young (18 and 19)! I don't think we had any idea what was headed for us in our future when we took that picture 😂
So, just for the record, here's some rough numbers that might help capture a snapshot of our marriage:
We've moved 6 times total in the past 5 years
We've walked about 3,500 miles to, from, and around BYU campus from our various apartments (that's the equivalent of walking across the whole USA and then 700 more miles into the ocean :0 )
We've most likely changed over 10,800 diapers (thank goodness Paul thinks it's important to help with parenting details like that too!)
We've eaten a whole lot of chocolate (yet another thing we can bond about)
I've been pregnant or nursing for 39 out of the 60 months of our marriage
We've played a lot of hours of video games together
We've had about 150 credits worth of classes taken between us at BYU while married (and before that, we had fun taking some classes together when we were engaged)
We've lost countless hours of sleep to crying kids during the nights, particularly in the early months
We've shared about 6,000 kisses between all of us over the last 5 years (Charlie and Rawley get SO many forehead and cheek kisses every day, plus all the ones Paul and I give each other!)
It was very foggy in the woods on the morning we hiked. I'd never seen Shenandoah Park looking like that before.
A quick blurry hiking snapshot. I have a lot I could say about our relationship, but I'll keep it kind of simple for now. Our love has grown, changed, and evolved over time, but I'm still so glad that we started to fall for each other our senior year of high school and that our friendship and relationship has only gotten better with time. We've enjoyed all of the twists and turns these last 5 years (and more ) have given us, but we are so glad we get to be together for all of it.
We celebrated Rawley's actual birthday day by going to a new park that was recently built in the area. They have these cool large slides, a zip line, a huge climbing gym, and two playgrounds. Northern Virginia really is something else!
Much happier than his face in the picture shows 😅
Very focused, with Daddy's help
Shooting down the zip line with Daddy in hot pursuit!
This boys have so much fun! The boys love playing on the slide Grandma Larsen gave them.
Snuggly for his current favorite movie, the Sword and the Stone. He also really likes Onward.
Paul got me this super plush seal pillow as an anniversary present, it's totally perfect! I got him cologne that NASA helped develop that smells like space.
And then, we kind of came to the conclusion that it would be really fun to have a mini playground in the basement since we had the room for it. I started looking out on Facebook for people selling them, and I happened to see someone selling one for super cheap at 20 bucks (I've also gotten most of our furniture off of Facebook listings 😆) and we were the first ones to message the seller about it (she had over 56 other messages after us.) Paul very kindly drove to pick it up and we (Paul, me, and Rawley) spent a while washing it all off since it had been outdoors and we were putting it inside. The boys were absolutely thrilled to bits about it and so happy for the new addition to the basement!
Greatly pleased with the results
I've been taking time occasionally do clay art still, but I'm also focusing more on doing digital art now with a drawing tablet I got as well. I'm planning to work on a webcomic that I've had an idea for for years,but haven't had the tools to do so - but now I do!
The result of the zinnias and carnations Rawley and I planted in the spring. The red flowers on the left are some flowers I bought on mother's day that were half dead, but they look great now with continuous blooms so I'm pleased with my green thumb.
Hanging out on the swings as always
We are really happy here in Brambleton, and although the pandemic is raging, we at least are pleased for all the extra space we have to live and play in now, plus all the good outdoor spaces here for us to play in safely while social distancing. Paul is working from home (and will be for the foreseeable future) which has been a great boon to us. It makes it much easier for me to go running 3 times a week while Charlie naps, and with him not having a commute time we get to see much more of him which the boys LOVE, and I also love! There are definitely downsides to the pandemic, and we have our ups and downs, but ultimately we are finding good things in each day.
