The adventure begins...

Well, we made it.  After a whirlwind summer, we are finally in our new home in beautiful Vancouver, WA.  Ryan applied for and received an awesome job offer with an investment firm in the Vancouver area on Sept. 9th to begin Sept 27th.  Exactly one week later we packed up our townhouse and moved our little family.  (P.S. a HUGE thank you to everybody who helped us move:  Mom Walker for taking care of Sam & I for a week; Dad Walker for loading and driving the truck with Ryan; Edith for packing my entire kitchen, Mickie and Aubrey for watching Sammy; Johnny, Tim, Griffin, & Christie for loading the truck (and their families for sharing them); and the whole Gibbs Family for keeping me sane with lots of encouraging phone calls.  There were lots of other people who helped us too, so if I forgot to mention you please blame the preggo brain!)

Okay, on to some pictures!  (That is the best part about blogs anyway.)

Here are Ryan & Dad loading up our car onto the trailer behind the truck.  Sam & I watched from a safe distance :)  They drove the truck and car up to Washington on the 17th.  Sammy & I waited until the following week to fly when fares are cheaper.

Here we are at the airport!  We woke up really early for our morning flight (notice the bed-head).  Sammy has his little friend George strapped to him.  He gives George a ride and then Mommy gets to hold onto George's tail.  It works pretty well, I have to say, although I did get some looks at the airport.  Mostly people who don't have children.  This was Sam's first airplane ride and he did great!  We found a nice spot to wait where we could watch the airplanes and trucks.  Once on the plane, Sam could hardly sit he was so excited.  He stood and looked out the window, at all of the other passengers, and danced around in front of our seat.  We lucked out and got the bulkhead (extra-leg room!!!  Hooray!) so there were toys and books everywhere.   2 hours later, we made it to Portland, OR where Ryan picked us up and drove us to our new house!

This is our AMAZING house.  Isn't it cute?  Also note the sunny day.  Apparently they don't happen too often, so I am trying to appreciate them as they come.

This is the front room.  It is supposed to be a formal living room, but we don't have any furniture so for now it is more like a playroom where Sammy runs around and dumps his toys.

This is the other half of the front room.  This part is the dining room, but once again we don't have any furniture (yet).  I will keep you updated on what we end up doing with this room.

This is our awesome family room!  Nothing is decorated yet, but we did manage to get everything downstairs put away.

Our cute kitchen table works really well in this house.  Remember how stuffed it was in our townhouse?

This is the kitchen.  I love the working space, but I miss the cupboards in our townhouse.  But, this kitchen has a pantry, so it all makes up for it.

My FAVORITE FAVORITE FAVORITE thing about our new house...A YARD!  Finally!  With no dog poop on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Sigh.

I took a lot of pictures of the yard because I love it so much.

Sammy plays out here every day, even when it is raining.  The first thing he does in the morning run to the back door and say, "Outside?  Sammy Car!"  I know the picture below has terrible lighting, but I still love this picture.  Mostly because of Sam's face :)

Well, we are feeling amazingly blessed.  This is a really long post, but we are feeling so lucky to live in this beautiful place.  Thanks again to our family & friends back home!  We miss you lots, so come and visit!!!