details, details, details

this is the post where i bore you with all the gorey details of our upcoming travel. but i can't help it because i LOVE details. and i love planning, and i am so happy to actually be able to plan now because i have deployment orders in my hot little hands. This is going to get a little crazy, and my make your brain spin just a bit, so feel free to skip it.

Oct 1 Grandma Stickley flies to colorado. This is a new development in our little plan. It came about because Cris was planning to go ahead and drive with the girls to Ohio on Monday, giving me a few days in colorado to tie up loose ends and "outprocess", while allowing him to get everybody (including dogs) settled in Ohio. You might think i am married to a clinically insane man, who willingly was planning to drive 20+ hours in a minivan, pulling a uhaul, with a somewhat finicky 2 year old, a quite rambunctious 3 year old, 2 full grown huskies, and a little lap dog. Yes, i think he might be crazy too. but he was willing to do it. However, in her infinite generousity (and i'm sure getting to spend a few extra days with her grandbabies has something to do with it) Cris' mom volunteered to fly to Colorado and then make the drive with Cris and the entourage back to Ohio. We are beyond thankful for this blessing, to say the least.
Oct 3 - Cris, Grandma, Juneau, Nova, Sherpa, Summit and Denali set off for Ohio
Oct 8 - Em flies to Ohio
Oct 21 - Cris, Em, Juneau and Nova fly to Hawaii (this is a surprise as of yesterday, since my deployment date is actually 2 weeks later than i initially thought!!!)
Oct 25 - Nelson and Katy arrive in Hawaii!

I don't think i am supposed to put any exact dates for official travel, but basically i will get to spend a little time in hawaii, then head to georgia for a week or so, then to afghanistan.

ha! does it all sounds just a little bit on the crazy side? you should see me packing suitcases and boxes. I have an Ohio stack, a Hawaii stack, a deployment stack, and a storage stack.

anyway, since i am getting all crazy excited about getting to spend a week in hawaii, i guess it's about time that i share our next piece of exciting news....

this, my friends, is the view from our new bedroom....in our new house....in hawaii!!!!

sorry the picture is kinda dark, but you can see the good part...the ocean! we are technically not officially home owners just yet. We are hoping to finish closing by the time we arrive in hawaii at the end of october. But getting to see the house is person is really exciting (Cris already saw it when he was in Hawaii last month).

And, if any of our friends and family are planning to visit us in Hawaii, this will be the view from your bedroom :)

The other thing were are so excited about is having a yard! When we lived in Hawaii before we basically didn't have any yard at all, and so we are super excited that the girls and the dogs will have a great outdoor space to play. the house is built into the hillside, and so the back yard is tiered into a small upper yard, and a larger lower yard. it's kinda neat :)

so, the last 24 hours has been packed full of finalizing plans, making flight reservations, and the usual packing and cleaning. we are EXCITED to see our families in the next couple of weeks!!!! i am really looking forward to spending lots and lots of time with cris, the girls, and our ohio family before i head out for the deployment.

sister playtime

i know i have been saying it a lot lately, but the girls have been so ridiculously hilarious in their interactions with eachother lately. part of it is that Nova's personality has been exploding over the last couple of weeks. She spends a good portion of the day singing...real songs, made up songs, or just little phrases that she decides to put to music. it is so funny. One of the funny things they do is to make up non-sense phrases and keep repeating them until one of them totally cracks up. The other day at naptime Nova started saying something silly, like "snoozy woozy". Then juneau said it, then nova said it, and back and forth until cris finally went upstairs to tell them to be quiet. Juneau was laying in bed, trying to pretend to be asleep, but literally bursting with laughter that she was trying to contain through a straight face. it was so funny.
They get along well for the most part, but do get into some little spats. Sometimes Juneau will tell Nova to be quiet, and Nova's response will be to say indignantly, "Don't tell me that, Juneau. Only Mommy and Daddy can tell me to be quiet". it's so hard not to laugh when you hear that perfectly clear statement coming out of a little 2 year old's mouth.
Anyway, i started this post so i could put up a couple of pictures cris took this week. He was out working in the garage, and had kind of left the girls up to their own devices. When he noticed it had been awfully quiet for too long, he looked over to see this: the girls had completely independantly rigged up this little climbing route on the ladder. Nova had the rope secured around her waist, and Juneau was "Belaying" from the ground (notice her little gloves!)
When Cris realized what they were doing, he helped them swith the setup, to give Juneau a turn to "climb"

Nova took her job belaying seriously...never took her eyes off her climber.

climbing, moving, and good friends

What a day! we are all totally wiped out after starting an early morning climbing at Garden of the Gods, then spending the rest of the day moving heavy stuff! My good friends from med school, Dee and Justin, now live in Denver, and were extremely gracious to offer help moving. I think Justin was seriously reconsidering that offer as he and cris were hauling hundreds of pounds of treadmill up the basement stairs...but we all survived :) the house is nearly empty. we really liked living in this house...it is so big compared to our little hawaii house, and we all enjoyed the extra space, and the big yard. we are sad to be leaving it!
anyway, we had a great morning at Garden of the Gods. Justin had never been climbing, and wanted to try it out. Cris is always happy to find an excuse to pull out his harness, rope and shoes. The girls are at a great age to just explore, and had so much fun checking out the rock formations in the area around the route we were climbing.Justin did great on his first ever climbing attempt. He made it up both routes we tried. Dee was ready to hop right up on the rock too, but her 25 week pregnant belly kept her on the ground :) maybe next time, Dee! this was just before Justin"almost died" - his first fall :) climbing at Garden of the Gods is kind of a funny experience. Because the area is a big tourist attraction, there are tons and tons of people around. Cris and Justin drew quite the crowd. The crowd watched Justin in great suspense...There was a crowd-wide gasp when he fall, and then spontaneous applause when he reached the top...talk about pressure! :)

by the time we set up a route for the girls to climb, they had kind of lost their momentum. Nova didn't even want to get on the rock, and Juneau gave it a half-hearted effort. maybe next time, girls :)

When I looked over at Juneau today i saw her with the pre-wrap and the tape, wrapping up her wrists like she saw Cris do last time we climbed! Future Athletic Trainer!

She got a little over-zealous taping her knees...still need some taping practice, Jbug!

The girls didn't make it very far once we got in the car before they were wiped out....

Justin too.... In spite of expending some serious energy on the rock, Cris and Justin knocked out some big time moving. We got basically all of our furniture moved out of the house and into storage, and we are down to just some little boxes and small stuff. Now if I only had orders, we would be all set! Thanks for an awesome day, Dee and Justin! we had a great time, and wish we would be around for more adventures (and to see Baby P when he makes his appearance in a few months!)

my husband must really love me :)

i come up with a lot of crazy ideas. i'll be the first to admit they don't always end up being the best ideas in the world (although some of them are pretty awesome!) Today the little, budget circus is in town, and I really, really wanted to take the girls. I thought they would love it because it wouldn't be as overwhelming as the gigantic Barnum and Bailey was last year. The problem is, we are smack dab in the midst of some serious packing and moving. We have boxes, and toys, and clothes, and kitchen stuff, and household items coming out of our ears. I didn't think Cris would go along with the idea of abandoning it all this afternoon to head over to the little circus...but he was all for it! I think we are probably all getting a little sick of boxes and packing tape.

I love this picture of Juneau. it really shows her personality. It's so funny because sometimes i will look at a picture of her, and i can totally see her in 10 years.
ok, back to the circus. 1st of all, if there are any animal rights activist that read our little blog, you probably want to stop right here! i was hoping to get up close and personal with the circus animals, but i wasn't really expecting that we would be riding elephants and camels!

This little circus has probably been around forever! The tent looked to be about one hundred years old, and the bleachers were covered in goo and sticky stuff that was probably about 100 years old too....just our kind of place...we fit right in! :)

Of course there were pony rides...and of course Juneau loved them!Cris actually caught Nova smiling this time! She really does like riding, it just takes her a few minutes to realize it!

the little circus train was a big hit

But the best of all was getting to ride the elephant! The first time the girls weren't too sure about it (and neither was I!) so i rode with them. The second time they rode all by themselves! Juneau kept saying "It's sooooo bumpy!". nova wasn't quite sure what to say, but she was squealing with delight by the end of the ride

It may look like June-bug rode this camel by herself....

But Nova was on there too, just squished right up against Juneau :)

Nova didn't take her eyes off the cotton candy!

Cris likes to say Nova gets her weirdness from her mom...I guess i can't really argue that one too much! The whole way homes she rode in the car with her glow necklace around her eyes like glasses. She thought it was the funniest thing ever.

It was nice to have a few hours away from the big moving job! Tomorrow we have friends coming to help us move some of the bigger furniture into storage....which could prove to be interesting since somehow i still don't have any deployment orders. I guess there is a bit of a problem with my report date. Apparently my dept was planning on sending my on oct 15, but afghanistan is not expecting me until nov 20, so they are trying to work out the details of the dates. I wish they would work them out a little faster! We are really stuck trying to figure out what to do, and we will likely be "homeless" in about a week! So, i guess i will be shipping out sometime between oct 15 and nov 20...we will keep you all posted as soon as we know!

Juneau Iris - 3 years old

Dear Juneau (June-Bug, J-Bug, Bug, Buggy, Bug-juice),
You are three years old!!! I remember the very second i saw your first picture. You were such a tiny little beautiful baby. I stared at that picture for hours the first day, and then for hundreds of hours over the next 6 months. And then came the very second i met you. I couldn't stop looking at you, and touching your little face. I kept saying "you're so beautiful!" You changed our lives, little girl. It is truly a miracle that you are our daughter.
You have been talking about your birthday for about a month now. You know your birthday is September 21st, and you have been reminding us about that almost every day! You also tell us you will be Three Years Old! I think you are excited about being three :) I put together the collage of pictures above, showing you growing up more each month over the last year.
You are amazing. You are so incredibly full of life. You love love love to talk, and you chit-chat all day long with whoever will listen to you. You talk to everyone, from the check-out lady at Costco, to the Hibachi chef at your birthday dinner tonight. You usually start out your conversations by saying "Hi! What's your name? My name's Juneau!"
You have really started to play with Nova in the last several months. The two of you will lie up in your bed and talk for literally hours if we let you. When we put you to bed you will usually ask us if you can "talk to sis for a little while" before you go to sleep.
You are a runner, jumper, climber, crawler. Fearless, for the most part. Even if we are just walking down the street you make it interesting in your own way. The other day while were walking you were jumping over cracks and told me you were the "biggest kangaroo in the whole world".
It's not all smiles and giggles, though, Little Miss Junebug! You are a stubborn little one, and smart too! You have been coming up with innovative ways to do what you want. The other day Nova was trying to hold your hand while we were shopping (you're usually not into holding hands as much as Nova is), and you stopped mid-tracks, put your hand on your heart, and started to recite the full pledge of allegiance...all to make it look like it was just impossible for you to hold hands because your hand was occupied while you were saying the pledge. Stuff like that makes it rather difficult to keep our own laughter under control while we try to be good parents....outsmarted again by our little bug :)
It's been such a great year with you, Juneau. You are imaginative, outgoing, spunky, and adventurous. You are growing into an amazing little person, and i am beyond proud to be your mama. I'll be going to Afghanistan in the next few weeks, and am so glad I didn't miss your birthday this year. It was such a fun one! Try not to grow too fast over the next 6 months! I love you, sweet girl.
your mama

Juneau's 3rd Birthday Party

Juneau turns 3 on Tuesday! we spent saturday in denver with our bestest buddies, Jackson, Shane and Finley (and Laurie and Trav!) We decided to try out a new spot..."The Urban Farm". the kids LOVED it! they mostly just loved having tons and tons of space to run around and be absolutely crazy wild. The also loved getting up close and personal with the animals.

Crazy crew - Jackson, Juneau, Shane, Nova, Finley Three Years Old, and proud of it!
There were lots of hugs going around. It's been a while since the kids have gotten together, and they had a really great time.

Fin and Nova were quick to join in on the group hug

Everybody took a turn riding the ponies. The girls were super exicted to wear these stylin helmets

Nova was a little nervous at first, but quickly relaxed and enjoyed her ride

Juneau loved it from the first second

Shane and Laurie (+Quatro - the Good's are adding baby number 4 to their crazy clan!)

love these little girls! just love 'em

all the kids enjoyed riding this little horse-swing

after lots of fun at the farm, we headed to our favorite...Smashburger...for dinner, then back to the Good's for some serious pinata smashing fun.

we were aware that there was a giant flatscreen tv behind the pinata swinging festivities...we just hoped for the best, and it all worked out :)

finally.....the candy!!

Finley is clearly a candy-gathering expert...she had a huge pile of loot!

this is the moment Juneau was waiting for....she loved hearing the birthday song, and getting to blow out her candles!!Pink Coldstone Cupcakes all around!!!

after the party it was time for rough housing!!! all the kids piled on top of cris and had a great time! it was a great day with our very dear friends, but also so sad, since this will probably be the last time we see them for a long time. many thanks to the amazing World Wide Web for bringing our families together :)

the girls have been "helping" Cris pack up the house during the day while i am at work. Today Juneau was working on one of her "projects", and told Cris she had drawn a picture of him. I have to admit....it's pretty good work! :)
I wish i could get a better picture of it, but where the eyes, nose, fingers and toes are, she punched tiny holes with her pen. Creative use of materials, june-bug :) The girls were super excited to get a letter from Alex, Lyndsey, and Brent that had a bunch of Silly Bands bracelets. They have never seen them before, and thought they were super awesome. Nova thought hers looked best as decorative bicep bands, and had them wrapped around her tiny little "muscle".

photo session!!!

The last time we were in Texas I came up with one of my many, brilliant master plans. One of the blogs i started following ages ago, long before Juneau ever came home, is Kelly's blog (which is now more of her photography business blog rather than an adoption blog. Kelly has the 2 cutest ever little girls, and is also pretty much the most amazing photographer ever. My master plan involved a "minor" detour from San Antonio to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area to get Kelly to take some family pics before i deployed. We had approximately 1 day to accomplish this plan, and unfortunately Kelly already had a bunch of sessions booked in Arkansas, and as hard as we tried to find a way to make it work, it just wasn't meant to be. I was really sad that we missed the opportunity, but when i started looking for a local photographer I came across the Operation Love Reunited program - which provides a free family photo session for deploying soldiers. That's when i found Tonee Lawrence. Not only does Tonee participate in the program...she was the founder! Even though she was in the middle of a big move (her husband is active duty as well), she made time for our photo session...and I LOVE IT!!!! Tonee is super creative and super artistic, and we absotely love the pictures. I am so glad to have these photos to help us remember the weeks leading up to my deployment...

hope you enjoyed these as much as we did!

And be sure to check out my two favorite photogrpahers!

Kelly in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Area

Tonee now in Little Rock