We've had a busy week with a busier week ahead! That said, I'm going to focus this post on one quick thing we did over the weekend because Jared's going to be home in 10 minutes and then we need to immediately drive an hour to his parents' house to meet up with his sisters who flew in from North Carolina and South Korea for the holidays. Then we'll drive another hour into Seattle to go to our favorite restaurant and see some Christmas lights. I'll be sure to take some pictures for next week's post.
For now, here are some pictures of us doing some gardening in Jack's preschool "Zen Garden" on Saturday. They assign each family one week from the year to pick a day to do a little upkeep. Mostly it's just fun and good to teach the kiddos about pitching in and working. And I appreciated the opportunity to snap some pictures of Jack's cute preschool that we love so much. It was extremely rainy the morning we decided to go, but that's pretty much the norm in the winter here. At least the temperatures are pretty reasonable.
Hi! I didn't post yesterday. I was spending my Monday in recovery after one of those weekends. On Saturday I sent Jack and Jared to Redmond to spend the day with Jared's parents so I could write my talk I'd be giving in church the next day. I spent the previous Saturday with Jack while Jared wrote his talk, so this Saturday it was my turn.
Our talks went great. Except the part where afterward, the first counselor told Jared he wasn't thorough enough and would need to give another talk next month. WHAT. Sounds made up. It is not. This was the delivery: "Brother Lambert, I have some bad news for you. But maybe it's good news? You didn't have time to finish your talk, so Bishop would like you to give another talk in January." There is some back story. Our bishop is very cool and very involved in our little community. He loves sports and announces for Granite Falls' high school football team. He made up a calling called "ward fitness director" and gave the calling to Jared, presumably because Jared's a doctor, or maybe because we named our son Jack Lambert, who is apparently a legendary football player from the 80s. Who knew. Anyway, this calling is basically the bishop's passion project. He and Jared had a little meeting discussing his vision for the calling, and he wanted Jared to give a talk for 10 minutes, and then spend another 10 minutes talking about his calling and getting the ward excited about it. But because Jared was the last speaker, he ran out of time and didn't get to go into detail. So now he's getting "another chance" next month. Glad it's not me, but it is kind of a funny story.
After church we went for a little walk (I'll include pictures below) and then promptly got to work cooking and getting the house ready because we invited a family from the ward over for dinner. Jared and I don't love putting ourselves out there to make friends. It's hard for us, and most of the time we'd rather just be hanging out on our own. But we know friends are good to have and when we think back on the past places we've lived, one of the things we miss most are the friends that came into our lives in each of those places. And so, inviting people over. They invited us over a month or two ago, so we figured we'd have them over this time.
Dinner went great, the food was delicious, and Jack was having a great time playing with their 5-year-old and 3-year-old. And then came the, "CRACK!" Jack had been running in circles around our couch and tripped and rammed his head into the corner of our coffee table. The scream was telling, and by the time we got to him there was already blood gushing everywhere. I'm so grateful Jared was there in that moment and knew what to do. I held Jack while Jared grabbed some towels to put pressure on the gaping wound in Jack's forehead. It was obvious he'd need stitches. This is one of the cases where it comes in handy to have a doctor in the house, especially since the nearest urgent care is half an hour away and it was already well after Jack's bedtime. Jared had everything he'd need to stitch Jack up except for some lidocaine gel. Luckily there's a Rite Aid in our town of population 3,700 and they had some in stock. Our new friends stayed with me, and Shanna cleaned up the kitchen and all the toys the kids had gotten out while I just held Jack and tried to keep him calm and sneak some ibuprofen down his throat. In hindsight I probably should have told them to head home and get their kids to bed, but I didn't have the clarity of mind and I'm so grateful for all she did.
Jared came home with the lidocaine and we sent our friends home while we waited for it to take effect. It took some creative thinking to get Jack to hold still. He was screaming and exhausted and in pain, hungry because he didn't touch his dinner, and he didn't want Jared to come anywhere near him. What eventually worked was promising him he could open two Christmas presents if he'd hold still until his visual timer beeped while Jared did the stitches. He agree, and I also read him a new book to distract him while Jared did the stitches. It somehow worked. Jack definitely winced when Jared had to tug on the stitches, but that was the worst of it. Thank heavens for lidocaine. Two stitches later and two little tractors that were going to go in his stocking, and Jack was good to go. By the next morning he was back to his normal self, and now I'm sourcing fabric to make an upholstered coffee table and give our wooden one the boot. It'll be great as a train table shoved into a corner of the playroom.
Ok that's a long enough post. Enjoy some pictures from our family walk! Also Jack putting a tiny paper star on top of our tree because we don't have a Christmas tree topper this year haha.
Happy December! To kick it off, I'm throwing it back to Thanksgiving. This year we were so happy to be invited to Jared's cousin Rachel's home for Thanksgiving, along with Jared's parents. This is the same cousin we celebrated July 4th with at Jared's parents' home. Rachel and her husband have 6 kids, the oldest of whom just got married and the youngest of whom is just older than Jack. They live in Port Orchard, which is a quick ferry ride or slightly longer car drive south of Seattle. We opted to take the ferry down and then drive back. Jack loved the ferry. It was a beautiful ride.
I didn't take any pictures this last week so I thought I'd post these from Jack's last soccer practice a few weeks ago. It was fun to watch Jack and his 3-year-old teammates go from having absolutely no idea what to do at the first practice to being able to shoot goals and dribble around by the last one. Now that we have our patio in, me and Jack like to set up little goals at either end and play against each other (we could use the grass, but it's pretty marshy out there with all the rain we've been getting lately).
Whew, what a day! Today's schedule so far:
-Track down Jack's month-delayed soccer pictures (finally got them from a lady in a Rite Aid parking lot, yay)
-Drive into town for groceries
-Get Jack ready for preschool while the concrete guys begin our patio extension! Our current patio is big enough for one chair. We thought, "Hey, maybe let's make it big enough for two chairs?" And so we're having it extended out an extra 15 feet to the left when you walk outside. My actual requirement was to have it big enough for a table for outdoor dinners all summer, and for Jack to be able to drive his scooter in little circles around it all day.
-Drop Jack off at preschool, and then . . .
-Drive straight to my dental appointment. First one in Washington. They were very thorough (2 hours for pictures and a cleaning), but no cavities. Yay!
Now that I'm home from the dentist, I've got a half hour before I have to pick Jack back up. At some point today our fence people are supposed to show up and begin our fence installation as well. Luckily two sides of our backyard were already fenced when we moved in, so we really only need to pay for one side to be built.
It's been a big day, and a good one. Our highlight from the weekend was finding a beautiful trail system in a neighborhood 8 minutes from our house. It's a development where each house sits on an acre surrounded by trees. It's my dreeeeam Washington neighborhood. It's still within Granite Falls, which we love, but a few minutes closer to Jared's work. Also well outside our price range, but it's fun to dream! They've got a little trail system weaving around the surrounding forest and we appear to be the only ones who know about it. We found a beaver pound, a cute wooden bridge over a creek, and sky-high trees with leaf-strewn pathways. Also lots of mushrooms. I think I'll try and scrape together a real family picture here next week for a Christmas card. Ok, maybe just a blog Christmas card. I've got a pretty hefty to do list right now (miles and miles long), so not holding myself to any Christmas card commitments. Here's to a (hopefullyyyy) productive week after a week of Jack not going to preschool because he had a minor stuffy nose! Yay covid world!
A couple weekends ago we made the most of Washington's peak fall leaves and did a drive suggested by Jared's mom along the Chuckanut scenic byway. It was HIGHLY CUTE. The drive hugs the coastline between Burlington and Bellingham, WA. It winds in and out of huge trees with peeks of the ocean and San Juan Islands off on one side, and a big wall of mountains on the other side. We stopped at a cute state park along the way to check out a beach and get some wiggles out.
^^I don't know what's going on for Jared here but I thought this was a funny picture.
