Yes, I Got a Cheesesteak

Some of you have inquired whether I got my cheesesteak or not. As a matter of fact, I did. My lovely husband planned it for Valentine's Day. There is basically one place to get them in town here, and that's at the gourmet hotdog stand in Old Town, whose storefront is about ten feet wide. There was a slight scare when I placed the order for pick up on the phone when the lady said, "You're calling just in time - I only have enough to make two more cheesesteaks tonight." So I turn to Erik and I says, "She can only make two cheesesteaks - what are you going to eat?" 

*Bada bump* 

 I'll be here all week folks; don't forget to tip your writer. 

Name Change

So I suppose it is time to change the name of the blog. This requires some mental power. Hmm. Hmmmmmmmm. *switch to lean on fist from other side.* Hmmm...

First things first: farewell, Japan. The wonderful gaijin memories are always there and the blog posts are, too. But my life is no longer about trying squid tentacles and walking amongst the cherry blossoms. Time to give it up.

I still have exciting things to write about - like changes in diaper sizes, picking out appliances, how to remove residual spaghetti sauce from a toddler's eyebrow, etc. I mean you, as the reader, must be coming back for some reason. Oh yeah, because you're related to us and you want to see pics of Landon. Well you'll just have to deal with the extra stuff in that case.

I am transitioning to the label Granola because I think it is a fair word to describe life in the Northwest. In our few weeks here, we've already broken out the hiking pack several times and we buy scones and breads from the downtown farmers market. We wear our Marmot jackets full time and don't feel like posers in doing so. Squirrels skip along with us on afternoon walks through tall pines. I wear a wool blend ear warmer head band. Landon eats organic chicken nuggets. So yep, Granola it is!

"Hiking in the woods, laaa laaa la la."

15 Months (and a little more)

Right, so documentation of my son's fun little moments has taken a hit these past couple months while we've been living out of suitcases across the holidays and home buying adventures. I can sum it all up easily enough, though: he's still cute. So it may be a blur of what happened when between the one year and 15 month mark, but I do know he acquired the following developmental nuggets:

- Eating better with his own spoon and bowl. And by "better" I mean about 10% of the food makes it into his mouth versus the 3% hit rate he was getting before. [He is still running about a 90% contact rate with eyes, nostrils and hair.]

- Loves wiggling his way into (and thankfully out of) cabinets. The boy can't resist a cabinet door.

- Two front toofies are starting to make their way down. His peers are getting molars now, but at least Landon's teeth are still showing up to the party, albeit fashionably late.

- He is much better at pointing at objects to help communicate. For example, pointing at the coat rack and bringing over shoes to essentially say "Get off yer keysters and take me outside, people!"

- Still really enjoys Jack's Big Music Show and also thoroughly delights in watching Oswald (blue octopus show). We have an Oswald book where Landon will point and say "Aahwohl!"... ummm, we are talking melt-your-heart cuteness here, folks.

- Climbing, climbing, climbing. Chairs, end tables, sofas, boxes. If it has height and a hard surface underneath prime for noggin-knocking, he's on it.

There a million other little changes, but yeah, don't worry: he's still cute.

Matching up objects and slots of different sizes and circumferences. If a pot needs a lid, L's your man.

 

Hanging out by the cabinets to kill time in our temporary digs, waiting for our new home. L obviously has not had a haircut as of 15 months. The time will come, but we like his shaggy little 'do for now!

Craving

I was so insistent on having a cheesesteak the last couple days that I felt like throwing something in frustration each hour that passed without a mammoth beef and cheese and carb-loving-torpedo-white-bread-roll mess in my hand. (California style WITH lettuce and mayo.) Now that I've written that out, it has fed the fuel of the craving even more and it's making me a tad on edge. *mascara running down face, futile punch at nearby wall*

I don't remember having such insane cravings while pregnant with Landon. Or maybe I did but because I was footloose and fancy free sans child, I just took care of them right away. (Whataburger and McDonald's runs could be clocked in under 5 minutes from our South Texas homes.)

So hear this, cheesesteak: I'm coming for you. You. Me. No napkins. Just ugly finger-licking consumption.

The Emotional Range of Mortgages

Erik and I essentially jinxed ourselves last week after ignorantly remarking that buying a home wasn't nearly as stressful as people make it out to be. "This has been a cake walk! Giggle, giggle. Let's buy another one! Put the top down on our imaginary convertible, Erik, so my chiffon scarf can flutter in the breeze!" Within a few days of our rose-colored thoughts, little things - and I involuntarily twitch while I say "little" - started popping up. And of course they all came and went, headaches were had, and then we were back to just good ol' waiting. So that's where we are now: waiting. Fingers crossed to close at the end of next week - maybe we'll have some luck tossed from the sky on my mom's upcoming birthday of February 17th.

Let's just say that I was heartbroken to see how the lending process has become a red tape mess after the backlash of the horrible mortgage years. I was understanding of the paperwork process and we were diligent to dot our i's and cross our t's, but sometimes you just have to take a few lumps and bumps in the process. And blessedly, we have saved our pennies and we were able to roll with the punches. But it makes me think about less fortunate families that are also honest and hardworking - how do they reasonably buy homes in all of this mess? It just makes me want to listen to a lot of Ani DiFranco and carry a picket.

All said and done, the process and closing is on mark to occur within our four-week timeline goal, so in the grand scheme of things, I can still pat ourselves on the back and do a little shuffle while singing, "go us, go us... go, go, go us." That is, of course, hoping that no new blips occur. [Oh blergh, hopefully I didn't just jinx ourselves again with a "go us" shuffle. Please oh please, tell me it's still okay to do a "go us" shuffle!]

Wish us luck for a closing next week!

Still Nomadic But Hopefully Not For Long!

A lot has been going on the last couple weeks, but we are still nomadic and my camera has been taking a shnooze in my suitcase since we have arrived in Anacortes, WA. It randomly snowed for five days straight upon our arrival, which is very unusual for the area. It did not help us with house hunting, but we pushed through it and used Google Earth to get aerial views of homes to help supplement our walkthroughs ("Aaah, so there is a lawn back there. Ooh, and a garden, too!"). We did buy a house and are currently pending inspection, appraisal, all that jazz. I will share more details on that in posts to come, but I'm excited because it's the perfect little neighborhood for our growing family.

We are currently staying with our good friends Emily and Sergio, which - coincidentally - live in the home two doors down from the home we just purchased. Hilarity shall ensue, I'm sure. They have a little girl a few months younger than Landon and they have been co-habitating nicely for the most part while we stay here. He's a tad brutish at times towards sweet Vivian, but I consider it an interesting social experiment on the male verus female relationship. It turns out that even as young toddlers, men are from mars and women are from venus.

Stay tuned for housing updates! We hope to close within the next month!

Christmas Times Four

The joy of being home for the holidays is multiplied many times over as we have multiple celebrations to attend when visiting. Our cross to bear is that our families live within an hour of each other which means we don't really have an excuse to NOT bounce back and forth. This can be quite overwhelming and exhausting, but I always try reframe it as a blessing... is it really a problem to have so much family that loves you and wants to see you? I take a few breaths and remember this between the eye-twitching moments.

Christmas number one was spent at Grandma Marian's:

Uncle Bobo seems unimpressed with the speed in which Landon opens presents. 

But Uncle Bobo does score with one of the best gifts, an empty Cheez-It box.

Landon mistakes Pequena dog for one of his plush toys.

Hooray for all the craziness!

The next morning was spent at Grandpa Jim's house (where the heat runs a little higher so it was a shirtless Christmas morning for the little guy):

Another empty box? Wonderful!

The next day it was back down to Maryland to Papa Dude's to hang out with the extended Halvorson clan:

Yay, we're all looking at the camera in this one!

Papa Dude photobombs our pic with Great Grandma Halvorson.

Would you believe we hit the road again a couple days later to head back up to Pennsylvania for another celebration? This time at Aunt Jill and Uncle Bob's; despite her best efforts, Landon proved most baby-proofing efforts futile as he found other things such as pulling register covers out of her floors and stuffing blankets down the HVAC chutes. Gosh, I love that little guy. *Sigh*

Landon finds a stash of party paper goods in a corner cabinet. Exaltation ensues.

There's a lot of cool stuff here!!!!

Aaaand then we were back to normal hanging-around-the-house moments, like catching a nap in Daddy's arms.

Snore.

This is officially our last week here on the East coast; Landon and I will be flying on Friday evening to Washington to converge with Erik to head to our new home town. I cannot wait for the day when we are in our new home, boxes are unpacked and life is normal. Even if it's boring - I'll take boring.

Hope your Christmas was wonderful whether you sat on your buns in your own home or party hardied at four or more holiday functions.

Snow Day

It snowed last week while we were at grandpa's house so we took our little Texas nugget outside to experience the cold white flurries. Yeah, he didn't even notice them. This kid has no concept of hot and cold weather... just that he's annoyed by the constraints of additional clothing and accessories.

Cue music: "You're going to make it after aaalllll."

That rusty gazebo looks perfect for some tetanus - let's head that way, Mom!

Nature show voice: "And here we can follow the tracks of a homosapien of the 14 month old toddler variety. He stealthily approaches hazards such as creeks and horse shoe pits, yet survives. Fascinating."

Surprise! It's a... Surprise!

There is no big news to report on baby número dos - I am going into my 16th week and am happy to be rid of the nausea, which wasn't that horrific anyways. [As a side note, my beloved Moby carrier wrap is quickly becoming max capacity with this rapidly growing baby bump in combination with a rapidly growing toddler... I have to find a way to stretch that magical sleeping machine thing out!] 

Anyhoodles, we are a bit in limbo since I had my last appt at 12 weeks before I left TX and am waiting until I get up to WA to see my new doctor which will be around 18 weeks. The one thing I wanted to do differently this time was select a doctor who was engaged in my care and had enough heart to ask how my son is doing and who would remember to call me Kate instead of Katherine. I am excited because I had a bunch of glowing personal reviews to work off of this time around. 

The other thing we are doing differently is that we decided to not find out the gender of the baby this time around. Say what? Yep. There are not many things in life that can surprise us, so why not embrace it and have some fun. This was not an easy decision for my type A planning personality, but once we said "Yeah, let's do this!" I started to get really excited... In a good way. I figured there isn't much planning to do anyways. If it's a boy, we'll officially pull out all of Landon's old clothes and if it's a girl, well, I'll probably still pull out a good amount of Landon's old clothes. Nursery planning? Pssh, you know I was just going to paint it green anyways.

What's my guess? Well the pregnancy has progressed very similarly to Landon's thus far, so I'm tempted to say there is another human with a wiener on the way, but we've got a ways to go before final guesses are tallied.

Happy New Years and All That Jazz

Things have been a little nutso as we have been - and continue to be nomadic - in between our move from TX to WA over the holidays. Erik was here with us in MD for Christmas and New Years (in which we spent our fourth anniversary eating unsexy amounts of Indian food) and that was a blur of family, friends, toys, meltdowns, giggles and any other craziness you could think of. Erik is now back in TX with the movers and to scrub-a-dub-dub the ol' homestead to prepare for the next round of flight students who will soon be musing "Wow, is that peanut butter shmeared on the baseboard? Have you been finding Cheerios everywhere, too?" Sorry, dudes. 

I am way behind on posts such as Erik's soft winging and official winging, our Christmas photos, updates on the baby planning (hello, glorious second trimester!) and house hunting, etc. I'll belatedly post about all that once I find a computer to upload some photos. In the meantime, I have a couple grainy gems from my iPhone. 

Taking a carriage ride through Frederick with daddy and friends. 

L quickly learned how to open and empty the adult beverage fridge at Grandma's, but at least he is very orderly about where he sets the contents and he knows what kind of beer I like.