The beginning of May we finished packing the house (well, I packed and Matt worked for the Guard) and fixed up little things around the house, including cutting the grass. And by cutting the grass, I mean the tiny patch we had in the "backyard" using a pair of scissors. Kaden decided to help Matt one day.
We had to say good-bye to many good friends.
Colin, Isaac, and Sophia (minus Sophia) who Kaden played with every week.
Matthew and Andrew from playgroup
Mema -- our wonderful next-door neighbor
And Julie, another wonderful neighbor
And of course good bye to our first home ...
Then we loaded everything into our huge (26') uhaul, my car, and Matt's car. Luckily Matt's Aunt Debbie, brother Mike, and future sister-in-law Rachel were there to help. That night his mom and sister showed up to help celebrate Matt's graduation from medical school. He's now officially Dr. Matt Weis!! Congrats, honey!
Kaden slept through the graduation, which actually worked out to be perfect, because I could sit and enjoy the graduation, he wasn't all squirmy, and he got to catch up on some much needed sleep.
We then drove all the way from Raleigh to St. Louis with the help of Matt's mom, Sherri, and sister, Nicole. Nicole rode with Kaden and I to help me entertain him, Matt drove the uhaul, and his mom drove his car. We unloaded the uhaul and Matt worked on various projects around the house for the next week while I unpacked all the boxes and set up the house.
Some of the projects that have kept us busy have been:
Building a swing set --
Which could never have been completed without the help of some supervision.
Kaden decided the lawn was a bit long, so he helped us out by giving it a quick trim
We landscaped an area in the backyard
Built a big sandbox
And our largest project...finishing the basement (still a work in progress) into a large playroom/daycare room and a 4th bedroom
The basement has taken many hours and the help of many people (thanks Mom, Dad, Chris, Heather, Hunter, Bri, Amber, Bruce, Sherri, Nicole...) and luckily we are starting to see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Thankfully Kaden is a good boy and entertains himself quite well, as he spent many hours alone (or with supervision other than his parents) while Matt and I worked downstairs or "helping" us.
We did take some time out to enjoy some (microwaved) s'mores
Here are some finished (up until this point) pictures of the house -- I'm sure you can figure out the rooms -- including a new bedroom set, kitchen table, dining room table, desk, coffee table, and end tables. You may also notice the new blinds Matt installed in the living room and kitchen area. The front room (with the desk) will be our office and the toys will be moved downstairs to the playroom in a month.
We also took a wonderful trip to Maui, Hawaii in May -- Kaden stayed with my parents while Matt and I enjoyed some time to ourselves, sans kids. It was great. The scenery is beautiful, water warm, sand perfect. We spent many hours sitting by the pool and ocean reading books and just enjoying ourselves. While there we also did some sight seeing, went to a luau, did the drive to Hana, went to a comedy show, and did a sunset dinner cruise.
(where we sat at the luau)
(pig from the luau)
We saw many waterfalls during the drive to Hana, and even ventured into the COLD water in some of them!
The drive was on a very narrow, windy road with dozens of one-laned bridges
Waves crashing against the lava rock
In a lava tube
Rainbow Eucalyptus trees -- the trunks were striped with red and green
We even saw a few mongoose (mongeese?) while we were there
view from our room:
Our flight home was overnight -- we left Maui at 5:30pm and after connecting in Honolulu, we reached Seattle at 5:30am (and lost a few hours). This was sunrise over the mountains near the Seattle airport.
We also made it up to Stacyville for family pictures, pizza by the pond, and a graduation celebration for Mike & Matt. While there Kaden got to go on several tractor rides with Grandpa Bruce, looked at the animals, jumped on the trampoline, listened to music at Friday Night Out, enjoyed some ice cream, and went fishing. He caught a fish within the first 5 minutes, unlike when he went fishing with Grammie and Papa. Kaden was surprisingly unhappy with his catch and preferred casting and reeling in nothing instead of catching an actual fishy!!
The entire Weis group
with Matt's family
Us
We then came home for a few more days, then Kaden and I went to Centerville while Matt has his orientation week at Barnes. Kaden loved riding horses, watching Haven's softball game, playing pool (or the "ball game" as he called it), playing at the beach at Rathbun Lake, cooking s'mores, and seeing family.
After we got back from Centerville today, I unpacked, then we all went to a BBQ at one of Matt's new co-worker's house. Kaden was a happy guy.
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