Recap Part VI: The House

Okay, this will be the last instalment in the recap series. I just wanted to share a little list of all the work that we (we ='s me, Cori, Sandy, Ray, Jared and Sara) have done on the house in the 2 short months we've been living there. Here it is:

• 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms painted
• exterior shutters hung
• interior blinds installed
• shower curtain rails installed
• bathroom hardware installed
• 2 decks stained
• lattice hung below both decks
• lots of furniture picked out, purchased, and placed
• 1 BBQ assembled
• landscaping started
• mail box put up
• house numbers installed
• washer and dryer purchased and installed

This is all the stuff we did on our own. We also began the construction on the basement as quickly as we could. Our contractor pulled his building permit the day that Grant was born. It has taken a lot longer than we planned, but he's kept pretty well within the budget we set, so we can't complain. The whole project got set back nearly two weeks while we waited for the fireplace to be installed... Anyway, we're getting close the end, and we are so excited to have that space! Here's a little peek at the progress. It went from empty to being framed in about 4 days.

Then, after all the plumbing was in, all the information and power lines pulled through the walls, and the fireplace finally installed they came and hung the drywall. They finished all the finishing work on the drywall the day before we left to come to NV for Thanksgiving. I took a few pictures that night. So its textured, primed and waiting for us to come home and paint!

This is the bathroom.

This is taken from the guest bedroom. You are all welcome to come and stay! The door on the right goes out to the living area, and the door on the left goes into the bathroom.
This is the main living area. The fireplace is further off to the left.
This is the view coming up the stairs into our upstairs living area.
So, once we have all the painting done, they'll install the finish lumber, flooring, and the rest of the lighting and bathroom fixtures, and voila! I'll finally get the rest of our stuff unpacked, and we can really start decorating.

Well, that's what we've all been up to. You are officially up to date!

Recap Part V: Visitors (AKA Life Savers)

The last couple of months would not have been possible without the unmeasurable help of some amazing family members.

First, my brother Jared came out the weekend we moved into our new house. He lifted boxes, organized the garage, kept me company, helped Cori move the furniture, helped me unpack, and played with Grace. It was a treat for me to be able to talk with him and spend some quality one on one. Isn't he just so handsome? Sorry ladies, he's putting in mission papers.

The day he left, we welcomed my sweet mother-in-law, Sandy. She stayed for a marathon-esque 2 1/2 weeks. It was so wonderful. Especially for Grace. I got to sleep and rest and figure things out with Grant, and Gracie got 200% more undivided attention than usual. Sandy took care of so much around the house--she was always cooking or sweeping or changing laundry. Not to mention all the painting she helped us do the weekend before we had Grant (and putting up with me!). Thanks again, Mom O!
Part way through her stay, her hubby Ray joined us. He also helped so much with things that we wanted to do around the house and with playing with Gracie. This guy knows how to have fun. (Don't be alarmed. That's a non-alchi drink he's got there!) It was really nice having them both here with us.
Just over lapping their stay was my sister's. Sara came and stayed with us for just over 2 weeks as well. It was a little piece of heaven to bum around with her, plan meals with her, go shopping with her, and work around the house with her.

Conspicuous by their absence were my own parents. My mother had a knee replacement surgery just a few weeks before Grant was born, making it pretty much impossible for her to make the transcontinental voyage to stay with us. I missed my mom so much during this time. But lots of phone calls and cards from home helped ease the hurt. We'll look forward to having them stay with us soon.

So there you have it. The great secret to our success. Thanks again all! We couldn't have made it without you!

Recap Part IV: Me

For me, the last couple of months have been exciting, overwhelming, fun, exhausting and memorable. I can say that I am certain that this is where we are meant to be, and that we came at the right time. I can also say--with absolute certainty-- that I will never, EVER move that close to a due date again.

I'm staying busy with the usual daily mommy tasks. Grant is responding well to our routine. I'm so grateful to have some structure and predictability back in my life. The house keeps us hopping too. We have workers at the house for one thing or other every single day. We are currently having the basement finished. We're getting close. But if there isn't someone over to work, our contractor comes over for one reason or other. Then, we've had a laundry list of other visitors. Most recently, the task of finally getting information lines pulled out to our house so we could get our internet, cable and phone service. Oh, and our oven and dryer (both gas operating)started filling our house with the smell of burnt kerosene oil. So there was the visit from the gas inspector Friday, wherein he informed me that the smell was not coming from the gas and that he had no idea what could be causing the problem. So this morning someone is coming to look at the dryer. There's always something, right?

I've also been called into the Relief Society presidency in our branch. I love the sisters that I'm working with and for. There is a special feeling in the branch. The active members have been loving and serving the Lord and each other for so long now. It is a very close family kind of group.

I'm really looking forward to the next couple of months. Holiday time with family will be so welcomed. And then, once the basement is finished I can finish unpacking and organizing everything. And THEN, I'll be able to get to the projects I've been planning in my mind for a little while now: scrapbooks, organizing our digital photos from the last several months, and maybe even getting my sewing machine out. Cori's family has recently started a fitness challenge which is helping me get into the swing of exercising again.

Here are a few pics:

Gracie took this one at Sunset Park the night before we had Grant

Just minutes before going into the OR. It was so weird having a planned C section. Entirely too predictable!

Recap Part III: Cori

The last couple of months have been pretty huge for this guy. After moving our little family across the country, we bought our first home and he started a new job, became the father of 2, and turned 30. He's really loving his new role at work. Cori is a people person, and its very fulfilling for him to be one on one, influencing change, and seeing results from the decisions he is making. He's happy when he comes home and he's excited to go to work the next day.

Aside from work, Cori has kept himself very busy. He is so much help to me at home. He and Grace have breakfast together most mornings before he goes to work giving me another 20-30 minutes to sleep. He has spent time almost every Saturday working on the house. (Details about all we've done around here--with the help of many others--to come shortly) He has also been called into the Branch Presidency as a counselor. Part of this calling includes being the Young Men's president. We love our little branch and this calling has been a special experience for Cori and the rest of us already.





I know I can speak for him when I say that he really loves Michigan. Our only complaint is that we are so far away from family and friends. But he, like myself, has been so impressed with how beautiful the country and the people are here.

Recap Part II: Gracie

Miss Grace has really blossomed into the funnest little kid. We figured she'd have spunk. And she has exceeded our expectations. She's really lots of fun, and a great little buddy for me. Some of Gracie's favorite things of late:

• Coloring. She will sit with a coloring book and her twist-up crayons for a very long (toddler ) time.
• Running and jumping. She loves to play "run away" which consists of her running into another room (laughing hysterically) until you go and find her. Then she runs into another room etc. etc... Did this kid spend to much time in an apartment or what? And she still loves jumping. Every night after our family prayer, she hops to each of us to give kisses. This became quite the little work out while Sandy, Ray and Sara were here. Thats a lot of hopping.
• Jungle Book (Nyungle Book) and Cinderella (Inderehee). Most of the time, she watches Jungle Book standing so she can march like the elephants and dance like Balou and King Louis.
• Counting. She can count to twenty, although she likes to skip the number four for some reason. You can bet that if there is a collection of something somewhere, Gracie will take the time to count it out for you.
• Books. Gracie still loves her Princess ABC book, and all of her Sandra Boynton stories. She will go through her whole book shelf if someone will sit and read with her long enough.
• Helping Mom. Like I said, she is my little buddy. She helps with grant, with the laundry, unloading the dishwasher, cleaning the bathrooms, and putting on make-up. I love it. Every night, we put on our aprons, play some fun music and cook dinner together.

Northern Michigan has a lot of working farms. And we got here just in time for the Festival season. Every weekend there was a Harvest Festival or an Apple Festival going on somewhere. The farms look like something out of a fairy tale. It was so much fun to see the country, eat the great food (Honey Crisp apples, caramel apple pie, apple cider slushies, fresh produce, home made breads) and play with the animals. Gracie especially loved the latter.

This was taken at the Harvest Festival at Friske Farms.

And these are from Old Mill Pond Farm

Check out those trout. The pond was a little over stocked I think.
All in all,our little California girl is adjusting well to her new mid-western home.

We celebrated her 2nd birthday at the begining of October. We all wore Mickey mouse ears, even Grant. The evening started out with a yummy taco salad... Grace loooooves taco salad.
Followed by the Nemo cake made by her aunt Sara.
Then some great presents. By the way, Mom O, Gracie wears her apron on a daily basis, and loves looking through her cook book. She also received a little clothes shopping spree, the poor kid needed it, and...
This great Radio Flyer trike.
I'm excited to get her involved in the things going on in the community this winter. Our library has a lot of things for kids her age, and there is a toddler gym that is open during the winter months.

Recap Part I: Grant

We are all just so in love with this baby! Grant is a perfect little version of his handsome Dad. He spends his days and nights doing the usual new born things: sleeping, eating, sleeping, eating, excreting, sleeping, eating... Grant also spends easily one minute out of every five stretching and grunting. Has anyone else had a baby that does this? He does it asleep, awake, in the middle of feedings... It is loud and ever present, but not without reason.

At birth, Grant was 7 lbs. 11oz and 19 inches. At his 1 month appointment, he was just over 10 lbs and over 22 inches long. The poor little guy is growing at a crazy rate. He's in the 90th + percentile for his length.

Ahhh, that was a good stretch. I love being a mom times 2. Gracie is very helpful and concerned about "Baby Nant." Already, I cannot imagine our little family without him.

The New Place

Yeah! We closed yesterday, and are officially are in more debt than we have ever been before. We got a killer deal on this little place- which is good, because we have big plans for it. It has never been lived in, though its construction began nearly two years ago. The builder still has some things that are being finished up (all well negotiated into our escrow agreement). And then we get to do all the fun suff. We've already started plans to finish the basement and landscape. The main floor is the perfect 3 bed/2 bath space for us right now. I only have a few pictures that I snapped before our stuff got moved in.

The builder was super accommodating and agreed to allow our stuff to be moved in before we closed. (The moving van waited while the house inspection was being completed. Can you believe it?) So the unpacking begins today. My brother Jared arrived yesterday to help out, and we are so grateful.

More to come soon...

The Hasty Departure

Okay- First, thanks all around to all of our well wishers! I've really appreciated the notes and phone calls, and my sincerest apologies to those of you whom I have not called back. Its hard to believe all that has happened in the last 2 1/2 weeks. I think the easiest way to chronicle our adventure will be to deliver it... chronologically. So here we go...

Thursday, August 23: It was officially decided that we would move before the baby comes. That gave us exactly 10 days before I was no longer permitted to travel by plane. The planning began. I started calling doctors in MI and Cori started setting up our relocation.

Saturday, August 25: We spent the day cleaning the apartment, planning., and running errands. Cori conducted at a Court of Honor that night.

Sunday, August 26: It was announced to our ward that we were leaving. So sad. I think we both spent the entire afternoon completely forlorn. So many people in the Crestridge ward are like family to us. That night, the J* family came over to console us. Check out little Westley's curls!

They were just about to leave when we got a suprise visit from the YW in the ward. (I miss you ladies so much! You better keep those emails a-comin'!)
After some pictures and lots and lots of hugs...
and another little surprise...
we were left all alone again. I'm grateful we had such a crazy week ahead, becuase all those good-bye's were pretty rough on this pregnant person. I'm no good at them. I smile and smile and then feel terrible when I'm alone later. Anyway...

Monday, August 27 - Wednesday, August 29: These days involved many trips to my Cali. doctors office (for appointments and vein attempts to obtain my medical records. It was a little ridiculous), visits to FedEx to send checks hither and yon as we set up our temporary housing in MI, lunches out with friends, and lots and lots of phone calls between me and Cori as we were setting up details. I finally got my medical records late Wed. afternoon, and then made another trip to FedEx to fax them to my new doctor, so we could actually set an appointment... good grief.

Thursday, August 30: Our cars were picked up early and loaded up to begin their journey across the country. After getting the rental car, Gracie and I made it back to the apartment just in time to meet the team of guys who would spend the day packing up our stuff. That night I went out to dinner with our Book Club. Such a treat. Later, our little family slept amongst mountains of boxes and the smell of cardboard.

Friday, August 31: The movers showed up and we said good-bye to our things. Once they were loaded, we did a bit more light cleaning and turned our keys into the leasing office. Farewell Highridge Apartments! Our dear friends the C* family not only kept Grace for the afternoon, but then had us over for dinner. We drove out to Anaheim that night and stayed in a hotel next to Disneyland so we could have an early go of it the next day.

Saturday, September 1: The last visit to Disneyland. Cori was so sweet and indulged me here. He hadn't been to Disneyland with Grace since his Mom and Step-dad visited back in March. We spent a good part of the day there doing Gracie things and shopping. Priority number 1 on our agenda was to get on that Finding Nemo ride. Even with our early start, we waited about 90 minutes in line. It was worth it.

She was pretty captivated for the whole sub-tastic journey.
The Carosel was another must.
As well as a visit to Bug's Land at California adventure.
Ah, I am so pregnant.

That evening, we went back to the C*'s house to watch the inagural BYU football game. Cori had to go back to work to get some hard copy files organized, and then we headed up to LAX to return the rental and check into a hotel there.

Sunday, September 2: We caught the early shuttel from the hotel to the airport. 3 connections, and several hours later, we found ourselves disembarking at the Traverse City airport. We stayed in Traverse that night.

Monday, September 3: We made the hour drive to Boyne City. Our wonderful realtor met with us on her holiday, and we spent the afternoon looking at potential future homes. It is so beautiful here.

This is the view from a community park on the shores of Lake Charleviox. I don't think I've seen so many trees in my whole life.

That night we checked into the condo where we've been staying this last week and a half. Its at the ski resort called Boyne Mountain. Its been really nice staying here. We actually considered buying one of these vacation condos as our home. Although the ski in- ski out life is hard to pass up, we've opted for a more traditional home. But more on that in a minute.

Gracie loves the big open spaces around here. She has spent 10 days seriously running around everywhere.
This is the mascot for the big indoor water park they have here at the resort.
Tuesday September 4- today: Its a blur of more house tours, lots of discussion, a couple of doctors visits, the song and dance of offers and counter offers, a trip back to Traverse to return the rental car once our cars arrived, our first Sunday at the Petoskey branch (wow) the selection of our first house, and the signing of the final offer. We close today, so I'll post pictures and details of our home-owning adventures (yes, we already have some!) later tonight or tomorrow.

We are so excited and even more grateful for how things have worked out. We love our new home. And I realize now how miraculous it is that we have done what we have done in the last little while. It really was completely crazy for us to leave California this late in our pregnancy. But things have worked out better than we could have planned, and we should have a little bit of time to settle in before the big arrival.

More to come soon...

What we've been up to

A long long time ago (the first week of August) Cori and I went our separate ways to fulfill some scouting responsibilities. Gracie and I headed to Nevada, where I spent 8 days at Camp Fleichmann on staff for the Wood Badge course that my father directed. My sister was also on staff, and my brother came as a participant. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "Jess, that's great that so many of your family were there, but what possessed you to spend a week of wilderness living while 8 1/2 months pregnant?" I'll address this and the wonders of Wood Badge in my next post.

Gracie got to live it up with her Grammie Marla, her Aunt Thea, the three dogs, and the two horses. We got to spend a couple of days with everyone before heading back to Cali. Sara gave me a much needed pedicure. And the fam even had a little belated birthday celebration for me, where I was gifted a beautiful pink pearl jewelry set from their recent trip to China. They also got a white silk pants suit with embroidered dragons, some fun Olympic stuff and these cute ('toot' in Gracese) shoes for Grace. Oh, and a Tommy Bahama shirt for Cori.

Meanwhile, Cori headed to Camp Chiwanakee with the scouts from our ward for their week of summer camp. They kicked it off with a day of water skiing with our Bishop at Shaver Lake, and then spent 7 days at camp. It was a good experience for everyone. Cori is the extra tough looking guy on the left (in case you couldn't recognize him).

Since returning, we've stayed pretty busy. My sweet friends here, headed up by Kristy C*, threw a terrific baby shower for us. It was an intimate evening of great food, and plenty of friends completely free of any games that would distract us from all of our chatting. We were given so many generous gifts. I was waiting for the representative from Baby Gap to show up to congratulate me for owning their complete line of baby boy stuff. The biggest treat was just being able to spend that time with all these special women who have become so important to me.

Gracie and I have made a couple of trips to Disneyland. (Hopefully, we'll get one more in before we leave next weekend) This is Grace at the little water park outside of Bugs Land in California Adventure park. I was smart and brought her swimmies so she could do what she wanted. She loved running from splashy place to splashy place. I loved standing in the misty shade watching her entertain herself.

And we spent our Saturday afternoon at the beach. Grace LOVES the water. She wants to go as deep as her dad will take her, and loves when the waves "crash" on her head. Anytime the word 'beach' is heard, she pats her head and says (about 50 times) "crash, head... crash, head... crash, head...) As you can see in the picture, Gracie loves the waves the way most people love big drops on roller coasters. The smile seems to say "this feels funny, but I love it." We picked up some of our favorite Mexi-food on the way home. El Burrito Jr is the place to go if you ever visit. We like to get the beach basket. Two burritos, two enchiladas, two chicken tacos, beans and rice, chips and salsa: $13.55. It usually takes us about 3 meals to finish it all. So good.

So, we've got about 8 or 9 days left in our little paradise here. We've got a bit to do to make sure we're ready to go. And now that its finally final that we are leaving, we are both a little melancholy. We love the people we've met here, and we will really miss the area. I'm sure I'll spend some more time writing about this soon...