I haven't really blogged since we've moved to Maryland so this is what's been happening.
Birthdays
Ethan had a great 2nd birthday this past September back in Utah. Aunt Christina came over and we had Ethan's favorite dinner, Swedish Meatballs with a lot of mashed potatoes. He had a cute cake with race cars on it & the car theme carried over into presents. Ethan got many cars and race tracks from everybody! Katie's 5th birthday was in October. We moved once again on her birthday, 2 yrs in a row. She had been wanting a pillow pet "so bad," we surprised her with one in her seat when we all piled in the car to start our journey from Utah. Grandma Bigelow was with us going to Maryland and gave Katie a present everyday of the trip. Grandma Padilla had a birthday cake waiting for Katie when we arrived. Katie was very excited! We celebrated birthday cake and presents with the Padilla's. Katie made sure we knew that we are not allowed to move on her next birthday! Mike's 28th birthday was in November. Mike gets cheesecake on his birthday every year, not a traditional birthday cake. Every year we've been together I've gone to the store to buy him a cheesecake. I've contemplated making him one but if it didn't turn out right, I didn't want to "ruin" the fun. This year was different. I didn't make the annual trip to the store to buy a cheesecake, I bought ingredients to make one. I got a great recipe from Mike's mom and now the tradition is to make a cheesecake every year. It was fabulous! Alicia's 26th birthday was in March. Mike's parents watched the kids so Mike and I could go on a date. We had Chinese food, one of my favorite foods, headed to Baltimore's Inner Harbor, then we ventured down to Silver Spring and had a great time at the outdoor mall. We ended the day with cake and ice cream at the Padilla's. Mike surprised me with a double jogging stroller. It was a wonderful day.
Holidays
For Halloween we went with Grandma & Grandpa Padilla to their ward's Trunk or Treat. Ethan was a Pirate & Katie was Princess Bell.
We spent Thanksgiving in Virginia at Mike's Aunt & Uncle's house and Christmas with Mike's parents & siblings. We had the opportunity to go to a tree farm and cut down our own Christmas Tree! It was great. We chose the tree we wanted (I chose the tree we wanted) and Mike got to cutting! We also took the kids to see the lights at the LDS DC Temple. What a great experience it is to take the kids to the Temple, have fun with the lights and look at all the beautiful Nativity Scenes presented from countries around the world. The kids stayed at the Padilla's for New Years and we stayed with our friends, Golden & Carly in Pennsylvania.
I like to consider our Anniversary a holiday. For our Anniversary we left the kids with Mike's parents and went to Dave & Busters! It was a blast. It's nice to know Mike can't beat me at every arcade game :)
Memorial Day, we got dirty & picked strawberries. The kids had a fantastic time. We picked on rows in groups, Mike & Katie, Elizabeth & Tim, Steve, Me & Ethan. We picked a lot of strawberries! Mike's mom Kathy makes wonderful homemade strawberry jam. I wanted the full experience of making this wonderful jam so I picked the strawberries, prepared the strawberries and turned them into jam. Kathy told me how to do what and I did it by myself!
My Mom & Sister were visiting during the Fourth of July weekend so we headed to a lake in Virginia with Mike's family the Saturday before the Fourth. This particular lake is warm, very warm. It is heated by nearby Nuclear reactors. Fabulous. It was a not so funny joke the whole time that we were going to be contaminated. It was so much fun though! We went on tubes and got thrown off, we hung out on the boats, played in the lake and had a BBQ. We took the boats out on the water to watch the fireworks. The kids really enjoyed them because they weren't right over us, they were in the near distance over the water. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day. On the Fourth we enjoyed a BBQ at the Padilla's then said good bye to Mike & the kids while my mom, sister, Mike's little brother Tim & I boarded the Metro headed to DC to see the fireworks at the Washington Monument. What a great experience! Awesome fireworks, lots of people, it was fantastic!
Random
There was a crazy winter storm this year! We got our electricity knocked out for 13hrs which included a very, very cold night, Mike's work got cancelled & we camped out at the Padilla's with their generator since they had to electricity either. Lets just say it was a crazy welcome for me to Maryland's winter. It was like nothing I'd seen before & something straight out of a movie. Down power lines, trees broken all over the place, ice everywhere. The winter here was definitely different than all the previous Utah winters. I'm use to snow being on the ground as early as October and staying through April, even May. This year it snowed in Maryland but didn't stay long. There were many "warm" days after many unbelievable freezing days. I didn't know how cold was cold til living here and knowing this isn't the coldest place where people I know live, WOW. Katie is quite happy we were able to sled in the yard this year. That was something "required" for winter after having a hill in our front yard and sure enough there was a hill outside our door here.
We went for a walk one day and passed by the school Katie will be attending for Kindergarten. The first thing out of her mouth, I wanted it to be PINK! Not sure how that would work out.
March 2011: Ethan's funny sayings..."That be so gross!">he had been drinking chocolate milk and so there was barely any in his cup and I was going to pour OJ over top which wasn't acceptable. "ABCDEFGWXYZ now I know my ABC's!" "Hey Mommy, You're eyes are pretty good!" "How my look mommy?" "I want you to make me padillas!" he was calling tortillas, padillas for a while.
It has been great living so close to both Baltimore & Washington DC. There are so many things to do. It's beautiful here. There's shopping everywhere. We've really enjoyed living here.
Birthdays
Ethan had a great 2nd birthday this past September back in Utah. Aunt Christina came over and we had Ethan's favorite dinner, Swedish Meatballs with a lot of mashed potatoes. He had a cute cake with race cars on it & the car theme carried over into presents. Ethan got many cars and race tracks from everybody! Katie's 5th birthday was in October. We moved once again on her birthday, 2 yrs in a row. She had been wanting a pillow pet "so bad," we surprised her with one in her seat when we all piled in the car to start our journey from Utah. Grandma Bigelow was with us going to Maryland and gave Katie a present everyday of the trip. Grandma Padilla had a birthday cake waiting for Katie when we arrived. Katie was very excited! We celebrated birthday cake and presents with the Padilla's. Katie made sure we knew that we are not allowed to move on her next birthday! Mike's 28th birthday was in November. Mike gets cheesecake on his birthday every year, not a traditional birthday cake. Every year we've been together I've gone to the store to buy him a cheesecake. I've contemplated making him one but if it didn't turn out right, I didn't want to "ruin" the fun. This year was different. I didn't make the annual trip to the store to buy a cheesecake, I bought ingredients to make one. I got a great recipe from Mike's mom and now the tradition is to make a cheesecake every year. It was fabulous! Alicia's 26th birthday was in March. Mike's parents watched the kids so Mike and I could go on a date. We had Chinese food, one of my favorite foods, headed to Baltimore's Inner Harbor, then we ventured down to Silver Spring and had a great time at the outdoor mall. We ended the day with cake and ice cream at the Padilla's. Mike surprised me with a double jogging stroller. It was a wonderful day.
Holidays
For Halloween we went with Grandma & Grandpa Padilla to their ward's Trunk or Treat. Ethan was a Pirate & Katie was Princess Bell.
We spent Thanksgiving in Virginia at Mike's Aunt & Uncle's house and Christmas with Mike's parents & siblings. We had the opportunity to go to a tree farm and cut down our own Christmas Tree! It was great. We chose the tree we wanted (I chose the tree we wanted) and Mike got to cutting! We also took the kids to see the lights at the LDS DC Temple. What a great experience it is to take the kids to the Temple, have fun with the lights and look at all the beautiful Nativity Scenes presented from countries around the world. The kids stayed at the Padilla's for New Years and we stayed with our friends, Golden & Carly in Pennsylvania.
I like to consider our Anniversary a holiday. For our Anniversary we left the kids with Mike's parents and went to Dave & Busters! It was a blast. It's nice to know Mike can't beat me at every arcade game :)
Memorial Day, we got dirty & picked strawberries. The kids had a fantastic time. We picked on rows in groups, Mike & Katie, Elizabeth & Tim, Steve, Me & Ethan. We picked a lot of strawberries! Mike's mom Kathy makes wonderful homemade strawberry jam. I wanted the full experience of making this wonderful jam so I picked the strawberries, prepared the strawberries and turned them into jam. Kathy told me how to do what and I did it by myself!
My Mom & Sister were visiting during the Fourth of July weekend so we headed to a lake in Virginia with Mike's family the Saturday before the Fourth. This particular lake is warm, very warm. It is heated by nearby Nuclear reactors. Fabulous. It was a not so funny joke the whole time that we were going to be contaminated. It was so much fun though! We went on tubes and got thrown off, we hung out on the boats, played in the lake and had a BBQ. We took the boats out on the water to watch the fireworks. The kids really enjoyed them because they weren't right over us, they were in the near distance over the water. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day. On the Fourth we enjoyed a BBQ at the Padilla's then said good bye to Mike & the kids while my mom, sister, Mike's little brother Tim & I boarded the Metro headed to DC to see the fireworks at the Washington Monument. What a great experience! Awesome fireworks, lots of people, it was fantastic!
Random
There was a crazy winter storm this year! We got our electricity knocked out for 13hrs which included a very, very cold night, Mike's work got cancelled & we camped out at the Padilla's with their generator since they had to electricity either. Lets just say it was a crazy welcome for me to Maryland's winter. It was like nothing I'd seen before & something straight out of a movie. Down power lines, trees broken all over the place, ice everywhere. The winter here was definitely different than all the previous Utah winters. I'm use to snow being on the ground as early as October and staying through April, even May. This year it snowed in Maryland but didn't stay long. There were many "warm" days after many unbelievable freezing days. I didn't know how cold was cold til living here and knowing this isn't the coldest place where people I know live, WOW. Katie is quite happy we were able to sled in the yard this year. That was something "required" for winter after having a hill in our front yard and sure enough there was a hill outside our door here.
We went for a walk one day and passed by the school Katie will be attending for Kindergarten. The first thing out of her mouth, I wanted it to be PINK! Not sure how that would work out.
March 2011: Ethan's funny sayings..."That be so gross!">he had been drinking chocolate milk and so there was barely any in his cup and I was going to pour OJ over top which wasn't acceptable. "ABCDEFGWXYZ now I know my ABC's!" "Hey Mommy, You're eyes are pretty good!" "How my look mommy?" "I want you to make me padillas!" he was calling tortillas, padillas for a while.
It has been great living so close to both Baltimore & Washington DC. There are so many things to do. It's beautiful here. There's shopping everywhere. We've really enjoyed living here.
