What a great weekend!

Mike had duty on Friday which means he left for work at 6:15 on Friday morning and got home at 9:45 on Saturday morning. BUT, what could have been a long long day ended up quite nicely. We had a play date in the morning with some new friends who have 2 boys 7 months older than Emma and 4 months younger than Andrew- good match all around. Emma didn't make a very good first impression- she seemed to have swallowed a bit of a bratty pill with her Amoxocillian Friday morning. I am really starting to wonder if the antibiotic is making her a bit crazy...because she's all crabby and snippy for about 3 hours after she takes it. Coincidence? Just 3 year old attitude? I don't know. BUT, everyone had fun despite a little bit of kid shenanigans. Then, Friday evening we got to go to a dinner for some people who are moving. I wasn't going to go because Mike wasn't home and that means I'm home without a car but a very nice (and kind of pushy) friend insisted she come get us....so we went. It was fun and I didn't have to feed the kids dinner! When we got home they were both so tired they were almost asking to go to bed. By 8 p.m. the house was dark and quiet and I watched House Hunters, read my blogs and read myself to sleep. I always miss Mike when he's not here but that was a quiet and fabulously relaxing evening.
Saturday was a beautiful day and we were all ready to go out pretty much right after Mike got home from duty. We didn't know what we wanted to do so we decided to do the necessary comissary trip. We have been talking about what we're going to do when our lease is up here....decisions decisions! We do know that while we really love the space/place where we live we really miss having an outdoor space for the kids. Plus, while we manage just fine with 2 bedrooms we DO see a benefit in a three bedroom house (not for more children, just for guests). So, we decided we would move at the end of our lease. We didn't really want to switch wards so we've been keeping our eyes open in our ward boundaries. We really like this area. Less than 2 miles from us are so many parks and almost every store we could wish for (except of course a commissary). BUT, more and more I've been thinking of some benefits to moving on base. It DOES make living with one car much easier as there is more "stuff" available in walking distance and more people who are in the same life stage as you so there is a greater chance of you and your kids making friends in a close radius. On the base where we would live there is a brand new huge commissary, a huge pool with some big water slides and a great kiddie pool, tons of playgrounds, a lake, boats to rent, a GYM, movie theater, library, etc. The Navy Lodge where Mike's parents like to stay when they visit is also on this base actually across the street from part of the housing. There is also a Child Development Center which I don't think I would ever use but it would be nice to have in case of emergency (when your spouse is deployed you can use it for free a certain number of hours a week). Well, we heard they were rebuilding all the officer housing so we decided to take a peek.

Oh. My. Gosh.

The houses are so awesome! I wish we had pictures to post here because even we couldn't believe how nice they were. Especially after our very very mediocre base housing in Florida. We loved living on base there, mostly because we had good friends around (hey, friends). The house was fine and we loved the screened in porch and big bedrooms and tons of storage space. BUT, we thought we would want something more cozy here. Well, I learned from the housing lady all the 3 bedroom houses (which we would get) have 2300 square feet plus two car garages, fenced in back yards. We looked in some windows and saw fireplaces, stainless steel appliances, open kitchens to family rooms (my wish) plush carpets and beautiful interiors and super cute back yards. We were both ready to break a window and look around but we thought if we got caught they might not let us live there...so we didn't.
Mike said when the housing office opens at 7:45 tomorrow morning he would be there to put our name on the list. We both decided to take the leap and switch wards to get the really nice house. And, I'm thinking of making Mike go take pictures just so I have some to look at and show. Wouldn't it be great if they said "we have 5 houses that will be done next month and you're #5 on the list....my wishful thinking is getting carried away. The kids loved running around in the cul-de-sacs, and splashing in the puddles. They both said they wanted to live in these houses (but they would probably say yes if we asked them if they wanted to live in Motel 6). We played on the fun brand new playground and enjoyed looking around a the new base. Little Creek here we come!
Other fun scenes from Friday and the weekend were
Andrew pushing the Little People Mayflower around. I love seeing his imagination bloom. It's awesome.
Andrew setting up all the animals. What would my kids do without these animals? We took our basket of animals to the dinner on Friday night (we were requested to bring some toys because the host house didn't have toys for anyone over the age of 1) and all the kids ages 7 years old all the way down to 10 months were playing with the animals.

Emma making and eating imaginary carrot soup. Big fun around here these days. Do imaginary vegetables count as vegetables your kids eat? Because if they do my kids eat a LOT.

We all went to church together for the first time in 3 weeks. Emma wore a dress Grandma made and Andrew wore his pants from Grandma- thanks, Mom! Our kids looked awesome. I know I made the pictures black and white so you can't see how cute the dress is. I'll get a full scene of the dress- it's my favorite! I really really really need to get my mom in an etsy shop.


And, to end my weekend I have made bread. With yeast. I did it. And, it's not terrible.