Chication

Our first ever "chication"was held Oct 1-3 in Kansas City...and I'm hoping this can be an annual event :) We (Mom, Alyssa, Carissa, and I) had ourselves a weekend full of wonderful things. Friday afternoon, Mom, Alyssa and I drove up to KC and picked up Carissa from the airport, which was uneventful (and that in itself is worth noting, considering it was Carissa flying :) We took our things to the hotel..a nice hotel near the plaza, got our things settled, then took a shuttle van to eat at Jackstack BBQ. It was quite tasty. That evening we played games...but the most entertaining part of the evening was getting our (Carissa and my) pull out couch ready to sleep in. Mind you, this is a Hilton we're staying at, its not a hole in the wall cheap-o motel. Well, this couch sofa was just so bad, it was quite comical. The best way to describe it was like laying down on only springs, no mattressy part, just crunchy springs. So, we both tried it out, and it was just hilarious. I called down to the front desk, and told them we had a problem, I asked if we could just get two cots..they explained they couldn't have cots in the hotel..so I asked if we could have a new mattress for the sofa..they said they would bring more mattress pads. A bit later, this man that did not speak english brought a couple rinky dink sheet looking things. I said, "oh dear, here, come and feel the bed. You will see that it is not good." He looked at me funny, and reached to touch it and said "oh, I see"...but he didn't really see, I could tell that was as far as that conversation was going to go. So anyways, we put the extra "mattress pads" on, in addition to the comforter from Mom and Alyssa's bed, and the other extra bedding that was in the room, and snuggled in for a nice cozy night! :)

Saturday morning, we ate the full course continental breakfast and headed off to our spa treatment of an hour long masssage!!! This was quite the treat...thank you MOM! I think we all enjoyed it quite a bit. Ahhh. After that, we went down to the plaza and did some shopping and eating... then went out to a mall and did a bit more shopping..then came back to the plaza to do some more eating..at the Cheesecake Factory!

That night, we didn't have the energy to play games. However, we did have the energy to lay in the super comfy sofa bed and take lots of ridiculous pictures!!! That was probably the funniest part of the whole trip. Who knew that a digital camera could offer so much cheap entertainment? I guess for the purpose of this blog, it's not valid, because the pictures were taken on Mom's camera. It was funny though, just trust me. Mom had told the people at the front desk earlier in the day about our unfortunate mattress situation. Due to the full house they were having, the best they could do was give us a BUNCH of extra blankets to form a "mattress pad". It actually worked fairly well...it was quite the process, but it was much better than the spring crunch to the back. Ahhh..memories.

This is just a glimpse of the process of setting our bed up the second night...

The super comfy bed setup 

Sunday, we ate the breakfast again at the hotel, and then headed off to get a pedicure at the mall. We did a little shopping there and then went to an outlet mall and did a bit more shopping there before our chication time came to an end. We took Carissa back to the airport :( and headed back home.

It was a very fun and memorable time together. I'm glad I have these lovely ladies in my family...and that they are ALL just as crazy if not MORE than me :)

AND...and a BIG THANK YOU to Mom for making this happen! Love you.

How big is Christian??

 SO BIG!!

He LOVES to do this....along with any other reason that gets people to clap for him, this is definitely the favorite though.

He's learning how to walk....

He knows how to tickle ( 'icka, icka, icka')

He climbs up and down the stairs.

He waves bye-bye appropriately now...and also just waves at a person if he's wanting to say hi I guess...but then he waves by putting his hand by his forehead (he's just silly I guess).

He loves to crawl around outside, especially on the deck.

He "reads" books to himself...and loves to be read to, right now his favorite is "Dimity Duck". We usually read that about 3 times through before he's ready to move on to the next one. 

He's much more creative with playing "peek a boo", and loves to talk through the stair banisters or his crib rails...it's pretty entertaining!

He is much more involved with bath time...SPLASHING!

When referring to the dog (at Mom and Dad's), he says "ggah" for go...I'm thinking he hears us tell the dog to "go" quite often.

He loves playing with the push/walk toys...he'll walk them until they run into a wall or obstacle, then walk to the back/front end of it while hanging on to it, and push it the opposite direction...back and forth :)

"bbbmmmbbbmmmm" goes any tractor...crazy how they learn this so fast, its not like we practice that kind of thing. He does like playing with tractors.

He's quite the mess....for real..very messy eater sometimes :)

We LOVE our growing boy!

short and "sweet"...maybe?

Well, I have no pictures of the "new" house...because to put it simply, we don't live there yet. It's a bit of a bummer (I try to downsize my feelings about it..so it makes me feel better). We were supposed to close on the 16th of this month...and again to put it simply and not get into the wonderful "reasons, rules, and explanations" we will be closing hopefully by the 8th of October!
In the meantime we are living with Mom and Dad (which is a pretty big blessing)..otherwise we are "homeless" :)

On a brighter note, our house in Wichita did close on time..thankfully. We've had enough of a headache with the whole process of getting the little things figured out to do that...AKA the irrigation well! That is a whole different novel in itself...but bottom line, they let us close and someone will be filling in the well that WE had to find by digging into the front yard with an excavator. Whew.

Really, when putting it "simply" its not SO bad..and in all reality it really isn't terrible...just inconvenient. We're all healthy and thankful to have a place to stay in the meantime. Oh! And to make it even more on the bright side..Christian is learning to WALK! He took his first couple steps last week, he's not crazy about it yet, but I know he'll get there real soon!!!

I'll be more excited to put up pictures and talk more about the "happier" side of things hopefully soon :)

Moved out...

Thanks to Dad, Ivan, Sam, Brent, and Mom (for watching Christian, so we could actually get it done) we got moved out of our house on Maus Ln.

Angee and Phil wedding

Labor day weekend we went to Perry, KS at Spirit Lake for Phil and Angee Kilmer's wedding. Ben grew up with Phil's family, one of those families you actually consider "family". So Ben was in the wedding. It was a PERFECT weekend for an outside wedding. They had a beautiful setting and perfect weather. Many blessing to the Kilmer's!!

Angee, Phil and Nate

ceremony and reception area

I think the owner's of the lake/land live here...it looked pretty amazing from the outside.

The "unofficial" brothers of the groom....Sam and Ben

door..wide open

YAY!!!

Yep, this is officially what the front of our yard looks like now :)

Just a brief rundown of how this happened...

A week ago today, Ben went to student teach and Christian and I went to Hesston for the inspection at the "hesston house" in the morning. In the afternoon, I went with Mom to pick up the beef that we got (3 coolers full) in Whitewater. I had parked at a building near the interstate and just rode with Mom to the locker and back...then we were going to go our separate ways. Well, after I had loaded all the meat into the trunk I took the diaper bag out and shut it. Little did I know that my keys were going to fall out as I picked up the diaper bag...leaving them locked in the trunk with ALL the meat in 100 degree weather. Mind you..its about 3:45 or so and we had a scheduled showing at 6:00, which was going to work out perfect since we were going to our neighbors (4 houses down) for supper. I was planning on still making pasta salad and picking up the house a little bit more prior to supper. Well...after the men at the building that I was parked in front of tried several times to figure out a way to "break" into my car without scratching it, they finally called a lock smith to help me out. At least Mom was waiting with Christian and me AND we had an air conditioned building to wait in. So the man came, and all was well I suppose. It was 4:30 by then, so I had told Ben to start boiling the water for the pasta salad and informed him of a short list of things that were probably going to need to take place in a short amount of time when I got home.We got home about 4:50..changed Christian, was going to lay him down for a nap since he was getting quite unhappy...4:55 the phone rings..someone wants to show the house at 5. Like as in 5:00, in 5 min...5:00. Umm..well, I told them 5:30 would work. So the next 20 min was well...just nuts. We unloaded an entire freezer full of beef, made the pasta salad, received ANOTHER call to show the house the next day, cleaned up the house a little bit more, and got out the door at 5:25 so the person could come look at the place. Ahhh..so we had an enjoyable supper and came home around 8:30. Shortly after, Ben got a phone call from our realtor telling us that indeed the house was shown twice this evening, and the first guy put an offer on it already!!! 

I just can't even tell you how happy I was when he told me this. I had just been praying that very day that God just takes away any worry or feelings of anxiousness about the whole situation because really I knew it would be alright either way and whatever was really supposed to happen would find a way out. That was just an incredible feeling to have that sensation of seeing how God can work the way that He sees fit. I mean the whole thing is just that very thing....

even finding the house in Hesston...then the offer being accepted by the seller...then the whole discovering the job opening at Newton Med for me...and ALL the things that lined up so that I would take the position there...and now SELLING OUR HOUSE!

So, we signed the contract the next day. The inspection on it was yesterday, and we're meeting with the realtor tonight to go over a few minor things we'll take care of tonight before we close in a couple weeks!!!! 

YAY! 

So now, its a bit crazy around here. I started the Newton job this week and began packing like a mad woman this week...and I'm pretty sure Christian's teething :) BUT...we're all good, and bottom line is God is good and so faithful!

1st Birthday Party!

We had a "barnyard bash" for Christian's 1st birthday! He enjoyed his cupcake, presents, balloons, and guests too!

I'm guessing he'll be a little more excited about actually opening his presents when Christmas comes. Luckily, he has some helpful older cousins that don't mind for now :)

YAY for turning one!!!