Day 52: Adventures in Snowland.

Wednesday, November 29th

I have had just about enough of this adventure. After a wonderful, relaxing holiday weekend we were supposed to come home on Tuesday with no problems right?

Wrong.

It all started Monday after the Seahawks game. We left the parking garage at 9:30 and immediately hit traffic on I-5. The freeway was one huge ice rink, cars stopped on the side of the road, and some abandoned in the road. It took us about an hour to go from the south end of Northgate Mall to the north end. Yeah, that's less than a mile. We were stuck behind a bus and next to a semi, and were inundated with the smell of exhaust the whole time. Around the north end of Northgate the semis started spinning their tires. We were in Jesse's Durango (thank God), and he was able to squeak through 4 semis just sitting in the road.

After navigating that mess, we had "clear" roads ahead, but we still had to drive at a snail's pace because of the ice. Pretty soon after the Northgate mess we came up on a jack-knifed articulated bus and broken down semi which Jesse had to squeeze between. The freeway was a mess! We saw a bus backward up an incline, and more broken down cars and semis than I could count. Apparently the other freeways and highways were even worse though, because the news stations didn't really mention I-5.

We came up on more brakelights in Edmonds and decided to get off the road and look for a hotel. Fortunately Hwy 99 was pretty much free and clear and we decided to just push on through. We got in the door at 1:15 am, almost 4 hours after leaving Seattle. From what I hear, we were lucky, though. It took some people 6 or more hours for similar distances.

Tuesday we decided to make the trip back home. It was sunny and nice, and although it was chilly we figured it'd be okay to come back. Our trip up was uneventful for the most part until we got into our town. I slipped a little on the off-ramp and another few times before we got home, but it didn't matter because we were about to be home in our warm apartment and our own beds.

Wrong again.

I walked in the door and realized that our power was out. Crap. I guess it had been out for a while because our fridge stunk and our milk was warm! We called Clint's sister and decided to crash with her for the night. This morning we finally braved our commute back home and I slipped on the ice a little more. Fortunately this time the power was on and we had a chance to buy groceries.

Now we're just enjoying our heater and waiting for the next snowstorm that will be arriving tonight!

I've had as much adventure as I can take for the rest of the year.

Oh, and PS- The game was freakin' awesome, but extremely cold. Like Clint said, this all would've been a lot worse if the Seahawks had lost!

Day 51: Wow, this isn't a dream.

Friday, November 3rd

Colby snuggled me today, which is a rare thing since he's such a busy kid. He laid his head on my chest and just sat there listening to my heartbeat. It's times like these that make my heart feel so full I'm pretty sure it's going to explode, and that would be okay. Day after day I wonder if this life I am leading is a dream. Did I really marry the most wonderful guy on Earth 3 years ago? Did I give birth to my beautiful son 13 months ago? Do I actually get to watch him grow up forever and ever? Do I really live this completely blessed life? Am I that lucky?

I can't believe that Colby is here forever. He's mine! I get to experience all of the wonderful-ness and not-so-wonderful-ness of being a parent to this amazing child. Every day I look at him and have to pinch myself because I can't believe he's real. I can't believe my life is real. It's too awesome to be real. Wow.

I love the little things Colby does to make me happy. I will never forget when Colby was 4 days old. We were having difficulty breastfeeding and he was screaming because he was so hungry. As I held this screaming baby I lost control and just broke down into tears. He suddenly stopped crying and watched me with the sweetest look on his face as if to say, "Mama, what's wrong?" It was in that moment that I felt like I was the most important person in his life and he needed me.

There have been other times that I have been having a bad day and he'll give me a kiss, or want to snuggle me, and it makes me feel so special. I don't care if he doesn't want to say "Mama" as long as I get those little moments where he shows me he loves me.

I can't wait to have another baby, for this love to grow exponentially. I know that Colby is going to be the best big brother and I'm excited to see him take care of his little brothers/sisters.

I love that I have so much to look forward to in life. We're going to buy a house, have more babies, get a dog, travel... I pray to God that my life isn't over until I have done everything in this life that I want to do. I pray that I get to grow old with Clint and that we can watch our children grow up and have their own children, and maybe we could even live long enough to hold our children's children. I want to be that cute old couple that walks hand-in-hand down the street. God willing, we will.

I hope everyone has a safe, fun weekend. Thanks for listening to my sappiness.

Day 50: Long time gone.

Thursday, November 2nd

Man, I haven't written in a while! I have been pretty busy and wasn't even home all last week, so that's why. I guess I'll start at the beginning!

A week ago Sunday I went to the Seahawks game and watched them lose and watched Hasselbeck get injured. Bummer. After the game I met my mom and Colby down the street from Qwest Field and we drove down to Portland where my mom had to go for some conference for work. We stayed at the Embassy Suites and had a really relaxing fun time. Colby loved running around the hotel and thought the glass elevators were awesome. I got a hold of one of the moms I met on BabyCenter and we met up at the mall. It is always SO cool to meet people that I have talked to for so long online. I love it.

Tuesday we drove home and stopped in SeaTac where Clint was staying for a training thing for work. We were trying to surprise him and the front desk even gave me a key to his room, but after waiting around for about an hour he didn't show up and we left. Turns out, he went out to dinner with the guys. Oh well.

Thursday I left Colby with my parents and stayed at the hotel with Clint. We went out for dinner with some of his coworkers and then had some drinks alone in the hotel bar. We were pretty pathetic, though because we were both so tired we had crashed by about 9:30pm. What do ya do?

Colby dressed up as a dragon for Halloween and we trick-or-treated first at Clint's work, and later at the mall. We got so many complements on his costume, which my mom found for $10 at Value Village! Colby had so much fun carrying his little bucket around and getting candy. He got his first taste of chocolate that day and LOVED it.

Wednesday morning Colby had his surgery to unplug his tear ducts. So far, it seems to have gone well. He's back to normal after being knocked out, but he still has some eye gunk in his left eye. The doctor said to watch it and it will probably go away, but if it doesn't she'll give us an eye ointment for nighttimes. If that doesn't work, she may have to go back in and put a stint in the tear duct, but we're hoping that doesn't have to happen. I'm so relieved that the surgery is over and done with. I can't wait for people to stop asking me if my son has been crying all day or if he has an eye infection. My poor kid is so sick of us picking at his eyes, so I'm sure he'll be glad to have them fixed too.

Today we're just hanging out. The weather is pretty icky so I think we'll stay inside. I have plenty of cleaning I could be doing anyway.

So, we got a little excited about a house on some land this past weekend. My dad told us about this manufactured home on 4.23 acres just up the street from them for only $155K! We were hoping to have a chance at getting it, since that's well within our price range, but there are a bunch of red flags with it and we aren't going to pursue it. Clint's friend Chris is a real estate agent and hooked us up with a ton of listings of houses around our price range, and there are a couple that look interesting. They're fixer-uppers, but we know that's pretty much what we're going to have to settle for since we're only living off of Clint's income. I think we're going to wait until Spring to really look at homes, though. Even if Clint does get a transfer, he won't be able to do that until after tax season, so there's no point in us trying to move before then. And, if he can't transfer it'd be a bad situation for him to have to commute all that way every day. Definitely not fun for him.

I'm so excited thinking about getting a house. I can't wait to have some semblance of a yard where I can go out on the back porch and watch Colby play in the dirt and grass. I can't wait to be able to paint and decorate and have pictures and things on my walls. I can't wait to be able to turn the TV up to a normal volume without worrying that my neighbors are going to be bothered. I can't wait to not be able to hear my neighbors getting it on. (Did I mention they're probably in their 70s?)

Ugh, I absolutely cannot wait.

I have decided to challenge myself. I want to read 10 books before December 31st, and I have already finished 5 books!

1. Milkrun by Sarah Mlynowski (Funny!)
2. The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown (Page-turner.)
3. Welcome to My Planet by Shannon Olson (Not my favorite, but okay.)
4. Children of God Go Bowling by Shannon Olson (Much better than the first.)
5. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides (Creepy, interesting, intriguing. I'm still not sure if I loved it, but I definitely didn't hate it.)

And I'm working on 2!

1. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
2. Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

Man, I love reading.

Anyway, I'd better get to that cleaning. Oh, and I have fallen off the horse as far as exercising goes, so I'm really going to try and get back into that. Wish me luck!