30 years, 3 years

Today Scotty and I closed on our first house - we are SO excited, and are amazed at the goodness of God regarding the house, neighborhood and location that He chose for us to live in (long house-hunting story - maybe I'll share it sometime).


After signing 30 years of money away, Scotty and I enjoyed a lunch at Olive Garden (thanks for the gift card at Christmas, Hannah!) to celebrate our 3-year wedding anniversary (tomorrow). Again, we are so thankful to God for the story He has written for us, including such an incredible life-long companion.


P.S. And our 2 week vacation was wonderful!! Sometime in between tearing down wallpaper, ripping up carpet and moving into our new home, I'll have to post some photos and stories from NE and CA. :-)

Vacation, day 1

Right now I'm accessing the wonderful "wi-fi" at the hotel we stopped at in Iowa in the wee hours of the morning (after trying about 3 other places unsuccessfully, this place had just discovered, 5 minutes before we showed up, that they had 1 room left...God is good)! That's right, our family vacation officially commenced last night, June 16th at 7:30 p.m. We opted to leave for NE after Scotty's day of work and around Micah's bedtime, so we wouldn't have to do the whole 10-11 hour trek in one day.

We got about 5 hours under our belt, but Micah only got about 1 our of sleep...that's right, he was wide-eyed and awake until sometime between 11:18-11:30 p.m. He was great in the backseat, but just too curious and alert to think about sleeping (lots of rain, cars, and construction sites along the highway)! When we rolled into the hotel around 12:30 a.m., he still didn't fall asleep for about another hour after that...to top it off, I could hear him from his pack-in-play this morning calling out "mommy, mooommmy" around 7:15 a.m. Honestly, he has been a GREAT traveler; though he is on the path to sleep deprivation, he has such a good attitude! He is LOVIN' all the adventure.

Well, we gotta hit the road again soon, but I just had to get some photos up of the beginnings of the Ruth family adventure!!

Heading out from MI last night:


Playing with one of his never before seen "travel toys" to keep him occupied (thanks to numerous "free" boxes at garage sales):


Around 1:00 a.m. in our hotel for the night - his first time as a "big boy" in a hotel:


This morning, sporting his trendy new sunglasses:

Our first 10 boxes!

Scotty, Micah and I are coming up on over a week of vacation - first a 10 hour road trip to my mother-in-law's HUGE family reunion (she's from a family of 11 kids), then a 4-hour flight to CA to spend a whole week with my family. I'm so looking forward to all of it (though a little apprehensive about the drive and flight with a toddler) - I love adventures, family, vacation. Right on the heels of our escapade, we'll be closing on our house, which means I not only need to pack for vacation, but also moving! So Micah and I got busy yesterday packing up some clothes and vacating half of the kitchen cabinets. He was a big "help" (handing me papers to stuff in boxes, taking his little stool and peering over the edge of the countertop while I piled dishes to be packed).

So, just as we recorded when we packed our first box in our move from Chicago, let the record show that our first packed box for our upcoming move into our first house was on June 13, 2009!


We also packed 9 more :-)

Sneak Peak...

Here's an outside picture of the house Scotty and I are buying. Home inspection and appraisal are behind us, and if things keep moving forward we'll be closing on our first house June 30th!! God is good!

My first catch!

Let the records show - I caught my first fish ever on Sunday, 5/24/09. It was a bluegill, and after caught, it was released again.

Mommy's little helper

Usually when I have a task to do around the house, Micah either

(a) shadows me in boredom, sometimes hanging on my legs whining,
(b) copies me (like handing him a washcloth to "wash the fridge" while mommy does the dishes), or
(c) is in self-entertain mode playing with his toys (rare).

But today I felt like having him join me in the actual task at hand - taking the husks off of corn-on-the-cob and washing up some strawberries. He loved it, and he actually helped me out (by handing mommy one at a time). I had a good time too. :-)