Oof, September is really doing its best to keep us down and derail any packing progress. Jared had plans to take Alice to his parents' home on Tuesday so I could get a lot of packing done while Jack was at school, and so his parents can get more Alice time before we move. On Sunday evening, two days earlier, Jared's mom called to tell us she had food poisoning and wouldn't be coming up for Alice's birthday the next day. Thinking, "Oh, surely she'll feel better by Tuesday, food poisoning usually only lasts a day," I encouraged Jared to still go on Tuesday because I desperately needed that time to pack; this move is already on a fast timeline to begin with, and with two young kids at home it is tough to push the needle on the packing in a meaningful way.
Well. Karma had the last laugh--I probably should've let my sweet mother-in-law recover in peace. Alas, it was not food poisoning. It turned out to be a horrendous stomach flu. And you can probably guess the end of the story from there. Nearly a week later, we are all still home having family sick days together. Alice was the first to get it, then me, then Jared, and Jack was the last one to fall last night. We are two weeks out from our house being listed and it is not looking good on the packing front. And someone's always up all night vomiting so no one's getting the sleep they need. The cherry on top is that the stress is giving me cystitis flares, which puts me out for hours at a time. And then the next day I feel more stressed because we're even further behind on packing, and then the cystitis flares up agin. It's a bad cycle and unfortunately the only way out is through. We might have a rough month ahead of us. In the end though, it's all in the name of getting our family moved to Utah, which is ultimately what we've been dreaming of for years. So, trying to look at this intense month as a blessing instead of a problem.
I don't want to overshadow Alice's second birthday though! We had a lowkey, sweet birthday celebration. Jack was at school and Jared had the day off. We took our little girl on a day trip adventure to Camano Island. We started out at a cool playground with a sculpture park. Then we got pastries and a burger at the Camano Commons. We finished off collecting seashells at a quiet beach, then back home for a nap. It was the perfect day, and Alice loved all the attention! At two, Alice is sweet and spunky. She want mama in sight at ALL times, but isn't often interested in snuggling (but sometimes!). She likes to "help" and will clean up her own spills and take the dishes over to daddy at the dishwasher. She loves makeup and watching "Baby," aka any video from my phone of "Baby" Alice and Jack. She loves music and singing, and she can communicate quite a bit, with an ever-growing vocabulary. We love our Allie Baby Sweetie and are so excited for her to be TWO (it's the only number she knows how to say, so whenever she counts she says, "Two, two, two, go!").
Well, I need to get back to packing. The next few weeks my blog posts will probably be light on words to maximize packing time. Here are some pictures from our week:
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