Sometimes Heading off the Path is Better

We are learning a lot as we continue setting out to explore this enormous city we live in, and today we learned another valuable lesson when it comes to exploring this morning! Thanks to the super cool book I wrote about last time we went out adventuring, we found another new place to play today.  We thought we'd take advantage of the gorgeous November weather (okay, it's almost too warm for me!) and packed up to head down to the Beverly area of LA to Pan Pacific Park, a public park that had a train theme to it.  Seeing as how our little guy is obsessed with choo-choos and we've had a lot of fun exploring the variety of public parks LA has to offer we thought we'd check it out.

The playground was pretty cool, although I'm not sure there was anything about it that made it exceptionally stand out from other playgrounds we've been to.  It did have a "train" to drive, but it wasn't quite what we had pictured.  Aidan did love "driving" but it didn't hold his attention for all that long.

 The choo choo to drive

Peek a boo!

He was too busy telling me what letters were on the sign to look at the camera apparently.

 

 The Pan Pacific Park

Exploring with daddy

Unfortunately, there was a little boy at the park who had a little ride-on car that my little "driver" got obsessed with and could not get over the fact that it wasn't his to ride.  So once he saw that and was told no, he wanted nothing to do with the rest of the park.  We had to change scenery, so I suggested we go exploring down some of the paths in the park.  We couldn't figure out what kind of "garden" we ended up in, but upon more exploring realized it was part of the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum.  It was very cool, a 2 minute walk across the park we had been in. 

So we kept exploring the museum, and found some powerful outdoor memorials...

A wall where you could places notes or thoughts into little holes, like a wailing wall.

Outside were huge pillars with some of the history written on them year by year throughout the WWII era. (That would be Aidan there in the background playing with the water fountain....hey whatever kept him occupied was fine with me!)

We wandered inside just to look, and found that it was a free museum and we were the only ones there at the time.  We obviously couldn't spend much time looking at anything with a toddler running around, but I snapped a few photos and we definitely would love to come back minus the little one.

Part of a display about the Jewish faith and monotheism.  This is a Hebrew scroll of part of the Old Testament which I thought was so beautiful.

It's a museum with very little to read, they really encourage you to do the audio tour (which we obviously couldn't do today), but this was the display of people who resisted the Nazis--Miep Gies, Anne Frank and Oskar Schindler being some of them.

Back outside crunching the few leaves that had fallen.

Our initial plan was to finish at the park and then drive over to have lunch at The Grove, but when we looked at our maps we realized The Grove was just across the park, so we loaded Aidan into the stroller and set off for a quick 5 minute walk.  We arrived at The Grove to find a ginormous Christmas tree.  I feel like it's a bit early for this especially since it was 80 degrees, but it was beautiful against such a blue sky! (Aidan was 100% NOT impressed by the way.  I had told him there was a Choo Choo at The Grove (a little trolley that runs up and down the shopping plaza) and he was busy looking for that.  Which doesn't start running til 1 PM by the way--we were there at 11:30--so needless to say someone was a tiny bit cranky about not seeing the choo choo AND not getting to drive the "little car!" at the park...whoops!)

I love the fountain here, I could watch it for quite awhile.

So could Aidan :)

We had a bit of drama figuring out where to eat--we were going to eat at The Farmer's Market but we ended up at Johnny Rocket's instead...not super unique but a place we all enjoy that was going to be fast, relatively inexpensive and with high chairs :)

Um and they have butterfinger milkshakes.  Definitely a plus!

Aidan is now officially a bit fan of "mook shakes!"

So today we learned is that sometimes the original "adventure" isn't all that cool, but at least in LA if you walk a few minutes in one way or another you will undoubtedly find something else worth exploring, which is such an awesome thing about our city.  We're looking forward to what our next opportunity to explore might have in store for us!

Aidan's Adventures

One of the things we're trying to be really intentional about as a family is having adventures together. We realized recently how easy it can be for a weekend to roll around and instead of thinking about what we want to do with our time we just kind of let it pass and pretty soon the weekend is over without us doing anything meaningful, memorable or fun together.  Aidan and I head out on a lot of adventures throughout the week--both of us get a little stir crazy just sitting at home so I am thankful there are a TON of places I can take him within 30 minutes of us that often don't cost a lot (definitely one of the perks of living in LA!).  However, daddy doesn't get to come with us very often, so if we wanted to start making some family memories we needed to be intentional about our Saturdays together.  It turns out that our first MOPS speaker of this year was a woman whose life's mission and passion was just that--helping families have fun, educational adventures together around Southern California.  Susan Peterson was an AWESOME speaker and shared her book with us, Fun and Educational Places to Go With Kids and Adults in Southern California.  She talked about the importance and value of getting out and having experiences together as a family, and exposing our kids to a variety of places and situations.  She was a homeschooling mom of 3 active boys who hated just sitting at home, so when her boys were young (they are now in their 20s) she just started taking them places, anywhere she could find, as part of their education.  She started writing down all the places they went and eventually it became a book (which is now in its 9th edition and 846 pages long!).  She motivated me once again to continue thinking outside the box and be willing to try new places and things (which isn't necessarily my strong point!).

So this past weekend, even though I was fighting a cold, we decided there was no time like the present to start working through her book (at least the LA County places!) and try a new place or two together. After taking it easy for the morning to rest a bit, we set off. We ended up choosing a free public park but it caught our attention as we flipped through the pages because it's name is Aidan's Place, named after a little boy with disabilities who passed away.  What's awesome is that her book is broken down by county, and then into categories.  So I went to the LA County "Great Outdoors" section to find a park or outdoor adventure for us, and then I went to the LA County "Edible Adventures" section to find somewhere fun for us to eat dinner.  Such a great book--if you are living in Southern Cal and need a gift idea for a family--this one is awesome and available on line--she tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about visiting a place--how much it costs, how long you'll spend there, if it's good for birthday parties, how to get there, hours, recommended ages etc!  Anyways! Enough with the sale's pitch :)  We started our adventure at Aidan's Place, a park in West LA, just off the 405 in Westwood Park. It was a fantastic park--fully handicapped accessible, which also means great for a toddler because there are fewer things for him to fall off of or have trouble maneuvering on his own.  It also has an amazing sand play area that is set up for kids of all abilities to be able to enjoy this sensory experience.

This kid LOVES to drive anything and everything!

I loved that the little boy whose name this park has spelled Aidan the same way we do!

Beautiful random park in the middle of a big city!

A great sand play area--kids who are in wheel chairs can still access the sand in buckets atop those platforms.

I love that I snapped the camera just as he was making the "thank you" sign to a little girl who gave him back his bucket!

After about an hour and a half of sliding, scooping, driving and running around we packed up to head to our next stop on the adventure--dinner inside a choo choo!  (We knew this would be a hit with the train-obsessed toddler!)  We headed to Carney's, which I'd never heard of but is apparently a famous LA landmark known for their hot dogs (and other yummy, but not so healthy dishes!)  There are two Carney's, which we learned the hard way. One is NOT as close to our house, on Sunset Strip, which of course is where we went.  The other is in Studio City, which is the one I thought my iphone was taking us to.  Whoops!  (she did tell us that in the book, but I wasn't paying attention when I pulled up Yelp's reviews....) Oh well, it was fun to see another part of LA--although the toddler stuck in his car seat while we navigated Sunset Blvd's Saturday afternoon traffic was less than thrilled...

 They took 3 train cars and turned them into a fast-food type restaurant that sells a variety of hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, chili-cheese fries (which they are famous for--and they were delicious!) and some healthier options--wraps and grilled tacos.  We would definitely visit here again, Aidan thought it was so good I had to go order him a second hot dog (which he ate--yikes!) so he'd leave my food alone! 

It was a gorgeous fall day, and we are all glad we had an adventure together--now we're looking forward to our next one!

28 Weeks--Hello Third Trimester! And Hello New Home!

Wow! What a whirlwind! One month ago we didn't have any job offers on the table, didn't know where we were moving to (although we knew we'd be leaving Seattle, there weren't jobs available up there), didn't know how all the health insurance would work out/transfer so I could deliver our baby boy in a hospital here in LA, not in the northwest, and had no idea what we were going to do with our house. It's kind of amazing how God works sometimes. A job as a youth director literally fell into my husband's lap (thanks to some great friends who already work at this church and were looking out for us), we flew down, interviewed, were offered the job two hours later, and three days later had accepted. In the past couple weeks we have packed our entire house (except for the furniture being used to "stage" the house for potential buyers), moved all our belongings into our garage and out of cupboards, closets, and drawers, put our house on the market, loaded up what would fit into our car, drove down I-5 and made it from Seattle to LA in less than 2 days, and Charles has now started work at our new church. Phew! No wonder I feel a bit exhausted and disoriented! An older couple from the church has graciously allowed us to stay with them for a few weeks while I apartment hunt for us, and we have already been invited to dinner with a couple our own age in the congregation (we're excited to have friends!).

Our little man is now the length of a Chinese cabbage apparently--about 14.5 inches long I think? He's getting bigger!

Everything about our beginning here has felt different. Everything. Those overseeing the youth program have re-scheduled big events til spring to give Charles a chance to acclimate to the culture and people here before being asked to plan a talent show for the youth (which was on the calendar for Nov.) Which is pretty much the opposite of what happened at our last congregation. They've dialed their program calendar way back to give him time to get his feet wet here, I think our first big event is winter camp in January maybe? (And it's over the weekend of my due date, so I for sure won't be going, and we'll see if he gets to go for a day or something!) We haven't been met by any "threats" of "this is what we always do and you need to do it the exact same way" which has been SO refreshing. Last night was the first junior high youth group we experienced and from the beginning it kind of looked like it was going to be a bit of a disaster. He found out at the last minute that several of his normal volunteers who were going to lead the night couldn't make it, (and he'd never met any of these kids), and that the normal space they do youth group in was being taken over by the children's ministry program folks setting up for a giant Halloween haunted house. Our senior pastor wandered by, immediately acknowledged the chaos, apologized profusely for this being our first experience and said it was fine if the whole evening was a disaster, he wasn't worried, we'd get back into a rhythm next week. That kind of grace practically brought tears to our eyes--the lack of pressure we felt was amazing. And the night ended up going really well--the volunteers who were there said it was fantastic, the kids seemed to have fun, and we'll re-group for next week!

I've spent the week filling out health insurance applications, researching doctors, and apartment hunting. Which has been a bit of a long process, but I actually think I found a place for us last night! I'm taking Charles to see it this afternoon, and if he likes it we'll be filling out an application today. It's 1 block from the church, which is going to be SO helpful with only one car and a baby on the way (especially on those Sundays he needs to be at church for both services--I can walk the munchkin home for naptime and not have to worry about waking him up to go pick my husband up when he's ready to come home--same for bedtime on youth group nights that run late). So I'm keeping my fingers crossed this works out.

Anyways, I think that's about it for now--we have a full weekend of various Halloween related events (have I mentioned that I hate Halloween with a passion? I do. I seriously hate it). and our first high school youth group Sunday evening. We're SO thrilled to be here even though we miss Seattle friends (and I miss the Seattle weather!) already. We'll be back up there in about 2 weeks though to pack up our house and for my baby shower which I am super excited for! It's been so fun looking at little baby things and registering for some of them for this little man :)

And I'll leave you with some way cute photos that make me smile a lot :)

A pumpkin just Lily's size!

My mom finally headed home on Tuesday after 5 weeks in Providence being Gramma--I know she was tired, but I also know she loved the time she got with Lily, and then with Brooke! I love this photo!And my very favorite photo--I LOVE that they are holding hands :)

Have a great holiday weekend everyone! Hope you enjoy Halloween more than I do!

Weeks 25, 26, & 27! Lots of Life Updates!

The 3rd trimester starts on Sunday--that's crazy to me! The second trimester does feel like it was really long--a LOT happened in the past 13 weeks in our lives, so I know we still have a ways to go until we meet our little guy, but we also still have a lot of things in life left to get settled before he arrives, so I'm okay that we have another 13 weeks to go! I realize I haven't written each week in the past few weeks, but here's the scoop on our lives and baby in the past 3 weeks!

Week 25--our little dude hit the weight of a rutabaga. No, I don't know what a rutabaga is or how to cook/eat it, but I do know that a rutabaga is about a pound and a half, and apparently that's what Baby K weighed two weeks ago. This week was discerning week for us, as we headed home from our trip to Los Angeles with a job offer on the table. We loved the church, our new senior pastor, their vision for youth ministry (it actually looks like FUN at this place instead of so much work!), and the idea of being back with friends who know both of us really well. We weren't so sure about the financial piece of living in Los Angeles. We sat with it for a few days, we spent time together in the SPU chapel sitting in silence, separately journaling our thoughts and questions. We researched health insurance rates and rent rates. We received a super supportive email from my dad that week as well, reminding us that the first and most important thing to discern is the call itself. Is this a church and community we can see ourselves part of? Is this is a senior pastor we can work well with who actually will support Charles? Would we be happy living there? He reminded us that if the answers to those questions were "yes" then part of trusting God is trusting that the finances will work themselves out somehow, but probably shouldn't be the #1 reason to turn down an otherwise great job offer. He reminded us that once our little guy is a couple months old I can always look for part time work to help with the bills, something I'd love to do anyway (even if it's taking in someone else's baby while I'm watching ours too, or working part time for a church in the area or for Fuller again). There are ways to make finances work. We learned here that while our financial situation was stable, the church was not and that wreaked havoc on our marriage, our physical health, our emotional health, and even our spiritual health. Choosing a job based on financial stability doesn't seem to be the right answer all the time! We were definitely grateful for his counsel and words of wisdom & support, and after a couple days we accepted the job offer! After 4 months of not being able to answer the "what's next?" question, we were thrilled to share with people that we'll be heading back to a place that was so rich for both of us in our time there.

Week 26! This was a HUGE week for us! Baby has grown as long as an English cucumber (the long skinny ones!) He's busy working on his lung development and the maturing of his reproductive organs, and the little dude has reached about 14 inches long from head to heel.

Baby and I started the week off by spending Sunday afternoon enjoying a day with my girl friends up here celebrating Lynn's upcoming wedding! Seven of us headed over to Bainbridge Island on a ferry for a gorgeous afternoon of wine tasting (well some of us tasted!), wandering the cute town, and enjoying an incredible meal at the restaurant Hitchcock. Everything we ordered was to die for. Their menu is based on what's in season, so everything is ridiculously fresh and gourmet--my kind of place! I enjoyed the ricotta gnocchi (gnocchi are like dumplings made out of flour, and in this case, ricotta) mixed with pine nuts, yellow summer squash, blue cheese and parsley. It was amazing. (This photo is the 7 of us from Darbee's wedding earlier in the summer. I will miss these amazing women like crazy when we do move and have been so grateful for another season of life spent with them here in Seattle).

The other super cool thing we did during week 26 was attend a live taping of a radio show/podcast called The Kindling's Muse. Every month at Hales Pub and Brewery in the upstairs banquet room, a group of people come together to discuss a given topic in the theological world. This past Monday they were discussing Rob Bell's book Love Wins. Dick Staub, local guru of theology and pop culture hosts the show and has usually 3 guests on to talk about the topic of the night. This past week two were Seattle Pacific professors and one was our good friend Bryan Burton, associate pastor at the church we just left and professor at Fuller Northwest. Bryan invited us to come and we jumped at the chance. It was awesome! The audience of about 70 sits at tables and can order food and drinks as they listen (and submit questions to the panel) and the theologians discuss the night's topic. Food, wine, beer, theology, community being formed as guests interact at their tables...we LOVED it! If you're ever bored, check out some of their podcasts, you can listen right on line, and the conversations are fantastic and thought provoking.

Also up in week 26....the infamous prenatal glucose screening. Da da dum. I'd been hearing about this test for years now as friends of mine have experienced it, and I knew the day would come when I too would get to drink the kool aid. For those of you who either had kids way before they did this, or who haven't yet had the pleasure, allow me to enlighten you :) Everyone I've talked to did theirs a bit differently, but mine was a 2 hour process. I headed in to the doctor's office first thing Tuesday morning having not eaten anything since the night before. They drew my blood to see what my numbers were while fasting, and then handed me a 10 oz fruit punch flavored drink with 50 grams of sugar in it (a teaspoon you add to your coffee has about 4 grams of sugar). You have to get the drink down in about 4 minutes and then sit there for an hour when they'll draw your blood again, and then sit for another hour and get a third blood test. It's basically to see how your body is processing sugar while pregnant and to screen for any gestational diabetes. I was doing okay until I visited with the doctor half way through the test and she had me lay down to take the fetal heart rate. When I sat back up the room started spinning and needless to say I lost all the fruit punch in my stomach. Which means, I had to start all over again the next day with the fasting, blood tests, and drinking the kool aid again. Not fun. But day 2 went much better & I do not have signs of diabetes, so for that I am super grateful. I am also grateful to not have to drink that stuff again til baby #2 comes along some day!

On Thursday of week 26 we became Aunt & Uncle again!! Sweet Brooke Elizabeth was born to my little sister! She weighed in at 7 pounds, 9 ounces and is healthy and doing fantastic--praise God! Apparently her birth was a super great experience, exactly the kind of birth experience Megan wanted, and my mom was over the moon that they'd asked her to be in the room this time when Brooke arrived (she and dad were in the waiting room when Lily was born). Dad was on Lily-duty for the day at home and brought her up to the hospital to meet her "baby Brooke" when Megs was out of delivery. So grateful everything went well, and now I'm working on figuring out when I can get back there in the midst of our moving to meet my newest niece!

Lily meets her baby sister and gives her sweet kisses!

This picture pretty much makes me tear up every time I see it. We have an almost identical one of me "holding" Megan when she was born.

A baby sister can never have too many kisses!

Pretty much the happiest Papa in the world! We told him he needs to grow that 3rd arm between now and January for our little one!

Saturday was a day of celebration! We celebrated Lynn & Adam's wedding at probably the coolest venue ever! The top of the Columbia Tower (the tallest building in Seattle) is where their ceremony & reception were held--it was incredible! Such a fun time with friends that continued late into the evening after the wedding at a local bowling alley. This was later that night bowling--I learned that pregnancy can really throw off your ability to bowl. Not that I was great to begin with, but I am usually better than I was!

Also on Saturday was Lily's 2nd birthday! We video chatted and she told us it was "happy birthday Lily's turn!" She told me that she got to eat cake, and open presents and I asked what she got. Her response was "baby Brooke!" Not a bad birthday gift! She also laid down on the bed next to Brooke to show me who was the bigger sister :) Happy birthday sweet Lily, you've made all our lives more joyful and richer than we could ever imagine!

She got a bike for her birthday! And her special "bike hat" that she showed me how she puts on whenever she wants to ride. Such a big girl!

Papa helping her figure it out

Yum! Chocolate cake!

We spent the rest of week 26 packing stuff up and getting our house spotless and staged perfectly for it to go on the market this past weekend. We even have our own website our realtor made us. Wanna buy a sweet townhouse? Click here!

Week 27! Well, technically week 27 just started yesterday so not too much excitement has happened yet! Baby boy is now weighing in at about 2 pounds! (About the weight of a head of cauliflower) and is developing his little brain more and more each day. He's opening and closing his eyes, moving around a TON, listening to our voices, and practicing his sucking reflex by sucking on his cute little fingers. I am eating everything in sight--amazing my husband with my constant requests for seconds. It's our last full week in Seattle together, Saturday we leave to begin our trip south and once we get there Charles will begin work and I'll begin looking for a place for us to live. The church is graciously hosting us with a family for a few weeks until we have a place to call home. Also on the list of things to do immediately? Find a new doctor since we'll be delivering this little one down in LA now. So we're trying to clean out our fridge this week--eating random things for meals because that's what we have on hand, we're seeing some friends, continuing with our packing, and praying someone wants to buy our house soon. That's pretty much it for this week, we're getting more and more excited about our new church and community waiting for us in LA!

Phew! If you're still reading, congratulations! It's been a busy few weeks, but we are so grateful our little man is healthy, kicking around in there, and growing just like he should!