The adventures of Joshua and I

Joshua and I have been at my parents house in Washington. We are here for ten days and then fly down to California for ten days. It has been so much fun. I spent my high school years and summers home from college in Washington. My parents have been trying to move back to California but still have their house on Bainbridge Island. I haven't been here in three years and it is so weird to walk back into the house. My bedroom is still the same. There is even all my stuff hanging on my cork board, and old clothes in the closet. It has been fun to kind of walk back in time.

Anyway my sister and her family are here too. We have been planning the trip for a long time, so that I would have something fun to do during Caleb's surgery rotation. We have done so much stuff. We have been running along the Puget Sound every morning, playing in the wonderful yard, playing with all my old toys from when I was little, going to the zoo, sailing, going out to lunch at all our favorite spots, swimming... we have been really busy. Mainly we have just loved being together and hanging out. Joshua loves his cousins and has so much fun playing with them. When we got here he will play with them right away but is a little nervous with everyone else.




You have to ride a ferry to grandma and grandpa's house. Joshua loved the water and boats.



We have been playing outside a ton. I love my moms beautiful fenced yard. Joshua loves the trike and being able to wonder free without worrying about cars.



All our old toys are up here and Joshua and the boys love playing with them. Joshua and Ezra have been sharing their food at our old tea party table.



We went to the Woodland Park zoo. It was really fun, but Joshua didn't nap all day. He was overtired and it was a pretty exhausting thing to do without Caleb.




One of our family friends took us sailing onthe Sound in his boat. It was soooo much fun. Joshua loved it but got mad at the life vest some times.



We all went swimming at the aquatic center. Of course I couldn't get Joshua out of the water.

I will do another post soon. Caleb is busy at home and wants to see pictures of our adventures. We really miss him and wish he were here. We love you sweetheart and miss you, it is never as much fun without you.

Playing with Water

We have had a couple nice days so we have been trying to do all the hot summer stuff. We went to the beach at lake Champlain and swam and played. Joshua loves the water and the sand.

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He loves to just sit in the sand and dig with his fingers.




We have also been using Joshua's little blow up pool. He likes it, but spends most of his time playing around the pool and throwing things into the pool.



He loves the steps and is working really hard to master them.



My cute little morsel.



He loves pushing and pulling things. He kept loading all his balls in this wagon and then pushing it around the yard.

The Turmoils of Figaro

I have this 12 year old cat named Figaro. She is a prissy little thing who has been very humbled this summer. First of all she got sprayed by a skunk and spent a lot of time outside. Her biggest problem though is that Joshua has started to walk.


Joshua loves Figaro. He will not leave her alone if she is around. He pets her and will lay on her and squeeze her.



All of which she will tolerate to a point...



So this is how they end up spending their time together. Figaro hiding while Joshua yells at her and throws balls at her. I think she wishes he couldn't move still, but even I miss those days sometimes :).

Playing with Joshua

Nothing super exciting has been happening lately. Caleb has been doing surgery for the last few weeks. Honestly, I hate it. His average day is to leave around 5:30 in the morning and get home at 7:30- 8ish. A really good day is when he gets home at 6:30 or 7 and those are rare. Depending on the rotation he doesn't even have time to call me for or text me during the day. He is exhausted when he gets home. He is so sweet and wonderful that he still tries to be with me before he goes to bed at 10 (at the latest). So I see him for ,at the most, 2 hours. Right now I can handle it. Since I know that it is just a rotation that will come to an end. Although Caleb scared me the other day, he was telling me about his day and said that this has actually been his favorite rotation. I tried to be supportive and listen... luckily he finished and said he could never go into it because he can't handle the hours. With a sigh of relief I said good because I would never ever want him to go into it. I am really the type who would much rather be with my husband than do anything else. I use to tell my mom that I would be perfectly happy living a simple life if meant that my husband would be home more. When Caleb and I were dating and he told me he wanted to be a doctor I honestly second guessed if I wanted that kind of a life. I know most people would probably be thrilled. Then I realized that I loved him so much that everything would work out fine. Everything has worked out great and I really appreciate all the effort he puts into being an excellent provider for his family and fulfilling his duties, and I am anxiously looking forward to that day when he is well established somewhere with decent regular hours :).

Anyway, Joshua and I have been keeping ourselves busy and happy. I am so grateful to have a little buddy with me every where I go. Being a mother is by far the most tiring and fulfilling thing I have ever done, I love it! When ever I get tired or overwhelmed I get this cute little face looking up at me and I can't help but to smile. Especially now Joshua has learned to give kisses. So when ever I sit down or hold him he comes up to me and gives me a big sloppy kiss, usually on my nose or eye :) but it just makes me so happy. I mean how could you not be happy with that face staring back at you.



Other things we have done to stay busy have been swimming, dancing and playing outside. Swimming classes were for two weeks and he loved it. They had a water slide and we would go down three or four times a lesson. We would get to the top and he would be laughing and clapping, and would laugh the whole way down. We also love to turn music on and dance. He will shake his head all around and try to snap his fingers. Every chance we get we go play outside and play with his balls, cars, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, baby pool, and sandbox . Joshua loves being outside and would spend every minute outside if he could. He plays in his sandbox a lot, and lately has loved Caleb's grill brush. He spent an hour and a half the other day walking around with the brush "cleaning" everything - even the sand.

Having a good time and peaking out of the rails.



Joshua's newest thing is climbing on things. He climbs up and on everything. I think he is trying to conquer it.



His push broom.



It has been a really rainy summer, which has made for some really great thunder storms. The other night I tried to capture some lightening. I took about 200 hundred pictures in 5 minutes and this tiny little bolt is all I got. It doesn't do justice to how massive our thunderstorms can be. I love it. The lightening and thunder will be so loud that it will literally shake our house like an earthquake. In one half hour storm my three inch rain gauge will be overflowing with the buckets and buckets of rain. I tried to video a little clip, but even that doesn't do it justice.

2 Weeks Off

This year Caleb only has two weeks off, and it went way too fast. For the first couple days we hung out around Burlington and got ready for Caleb's family to come to town. His mom, dad and two youngest brothers came for 9 days. It was a very busy and fun trip. Like all vacations it was over too quickly. First we went to Ben and Jerry's and Stowe. Caleb's brothers loved the ice cream and cider. We went on a hike up at Smuggler's to work off the ice cream.

For the weekend we went up to Quebec and walked around old town and ate a lot of good food. Joshua had a good nap in the back pack



Monday we took a drive to Woodstock to look for covered bridges. On the way done we stopped in Montpelier and Sharon. Joshua found this street sign and was playing hide and go seek.







We also went to Shelburne farms. We visited the animals and garden and went hiking and swimming in the lake. Basically Joshua will get in the water any time he can.







It was a great trip and really fun to see the family. After they left Caleb still had a few days left of break. We have a goal in our family to go on a family vacation to somewhere different every year, no matter how short or exotic. This was are only chance for the year so we took off to Acadia national park on the coast of Maine for three days. Joshua did really well with the camping and Maine is really beautiful. The first night camping we realized that we didn't have a ran tarp or a lantern, so we had to run to walmart the next day, and of coarse the weather was perfect the rest of the time. We went on some hikes, saw some really cute New England towns and light houses, and went to the beach. To get to Maine we drove through New Hampshire, and to get home we drove all the way down the coast to Portland. Along the way we saw tons of cute towns and light houses. It ended up being a lot of driving but was a really fun family trip.










Now Caleb is back in school on his Surgery and OB rotation. We really miss him. To keep Joshua and myself entertained we have been taking a mommy and me swim class. He loves it and will not stop laughing and smiling. Caleb had a long lunch the other day and got to come play with us.