Catching Up on the Blogging

We'll start with a video tour of our new house. Naomi put some pictures up the other day, but the walkthrough is really something. It doesn't look much different now, as we're still unpacking, organizing, and adjusting. Peri quickly figured out the door handles, so sometimes, we get a visitor in the middle of the night.

We arrived at our new home with a truckload of stuff, dropped it off, and came back to Pullman to clean out our old place. We got back to Yakima in time for Halloween, which was pretty fun because our neighborhood is Trick-or-Treat central. We ran through five big bags of candy and ended up leaving a note on the door. Most importantly, Peri went Trick-or-Treating for the first time. She was a ladybug!

Peri had a great time, and came back with a bucket full of candy, and a new toothbrush from one of our new neighbors. It also turns out that half of our ward lives in our neighborhood, so that's pretty cool.

While we were unpacking, Peri came across my old friend Billy Bear, and the two became fast friends themselves. That is a very precious thing to me.

In the last few weeks, Naomi has been introducing coloring and drawing to Peri, and I have been coming home to markers and crayons strewn all around the house. She's getting pretty good. Here's her latest work of art.

In truth, we've been too busy to get pictures up on the wall, and Peri decided to mark this one up. The washable marker is no match for the protective glass in the frame. The painting is of a church near Susanville, California, and hung in my grandmother's house for as long as I could remember. I'm pretty happy to be able to hang it in my new home.

Anyways, just to catch you up, we're happy in Yakima, we love our new ward, Naomi's already made "like a million friends," I am really happy with my new job, and things are just great for us. This Thanksgiving, I can say we have so many blessings and can express so much gratitude.  Thanks.

Desert Bus for Hope 6

Last night marked the beginning of Desert Bus 6, a telethon raising money for the Child's Play charity. I wrote a post on DB5 last year, and I want to plug it again this year.

My favorite part of the entire endeavor is that for around a week, Loading Ready Run and Friends can basically build a city populated by great people doing great things for children. There are auctions, giveaways, opportunities to create art and poetry and crafts, music, singing, dancing, comedy, and much more. The sense of community they create is unparalleled, and though I've never met any of these people, I feel as though they are my good friends.

One of the highlights for me from Desert Bus 5 last year was a phone interview with "Stepto", an online policy consultant. The idea came up that we shouldn't just be nice to each other, we should be excellent to each other. I call this Stepto's Law, although it was heavily used in the film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and should thus be called Bill-and-Ted's Law.

So, watch Desert Bus, and be excellent to each other.

Gary

Our New Place

So a few people have been clamoring for me to put up pictures of our new place in Yakima. I only have phone pictures of before we moved in. We're still unpacking and have lots of stuff scattered everywhere, so no pictures of that.

But yes, here they are in all their sad glory:

This is walking in the front door. Sorry for the glare! Those are the dining room windows.

From the entry way over to our master bedroom, where Gary is lounging about. Our bedroom has a bathroom and a walk-in closet that can fit a twin size bed in it and still have room left over.

From the entryway into the hallway toward the second bedroom.

From the hallway to the second bathroom. That is the linen closet and at the end of the hall is the third bedroom. I apparently forgot to take pictures of any of the rooms. Oh well.

This is looking into the living room from the hallway. There are three doors in our living room. The one on the left is the laundry room, the one in the middle goes to the garage. The right one is a coat closet.

This is the kitchen! It is lovely.

And here is the back yard. It is small, but definitely big enough for us to play in. We want to get a play toy for Peri eventually. At least a slide. 

So there you have it! Our new place. It is very large and we don't have enough furniture for it yet. But soon!

Our Friend Melissa Came to Visit!

So about a month ago (is it really only a month?) our dear friend Melissa came to visit us! It was so much fun! We didn't take a huge amount of pictures, but that's okay because we were busy having fun instead!

We did a lot of things together, but nothing really exciting. We just hung out and talked and caught up and basically just gave Melissa a break from Arizona. Oh Arizona. It should be a tourist only state.

But one thing we did get pictures of was when we went bowling! And I made Melissa drive my car! Which really isn't that exciting, but I got a picture of it! It looks like she's going really fast, but really we just got out of the driveway so she can't be going more than 10mph here. But she looks like a speed racer! And she's going to be mad at me for posting it! Bwahahaha!

At the bowling alley. Peri had never been to one before. She didn't bowl, but she had a fun time running around, playing with the balls in the return, and watching us bowl.

She? She's having a good time.

Another picture of Melissa! Proof that she was here!

I forgot to take a picture of our first scores, but Melissa and Gary did pretty close to the same. Gary did a bit better the first round. I did absolutely awful the first round. I may or may not have broken 50. So yay for improvement! Peri got to name Melissa. I think Tukmv really suits her.

We went shopping together and ate at some of our favorite places around Pullman. We went to the Library and Melissa got to chat with someone who actually knew her when she was there! So that was really nice for her. We wanted to go to the temple whilst she was here, but we picked the wrong week for a visit, as the temple was closed for maintenance while she was here. It was pretty lame-sauce. So we're pretty sure she has to come visit again so we can do that.

On our way back to Spokane to take Melissa to the airport (sob) we did eachother's hair! It was fun! We took pictures of that too!

Aren't they pretty?

And something else that was pretty cool, on the last day of her visit, Gary got a call back from his interview saying that he got the job! It was awesome to have a friend there to jump around and squeal with. Even Peri was doing it.

I lobe lobe lobe our friend Melissa, she is a great gal. We miss her loads! And if anyone in Arizona wants a good pal, you should look up Melissa, because she is so awesome!

Peri Likes... again

So here is another photo dump of our cutie little girl. It is hard not to take pictures of her all the time. Thank goodness for phone cameras!

Peri Likes Her Vacuum Cleaner

She likes it so much, that she sometimes wants to take it with her on car rides. It doesn't fit very well in her car seat with her, but she makes it work.

Peri Likes Potty Training

Or she at least likes to sit on the toilet every once in a while. We've been a little lax with it since the move, but she still asks to sit on the potty every once in a while. I think we'll get back into the swing of things after the holidays.

Peri Likes Shaking Things

But the only picture we have is this one of the rattle that our friends got her for her baby shower. She still enjoys shaking it like a maraca every now and then. She also likes to shake bottles with stuff in them. Like pill bottles. If she happens to find one that we left lying around for some reason (big no-no parents...), we let her have a little fun with it before we put it back out of her reach. She also likes the spice bottles.

Peri Likes Photobombing

I think we may have a prodigy on our hands.

Peri Likes Sunglasses

And she looks especially adorable in my hideously large and cheap pair that nevertheless do their job of keeping out the sunlight.