No title

Happy 4th!!!

Okay, okay, today is not the 4th. But I started this blog a bit ago, and was trying to finish it yesterday and was expecting to post it, and since Abby did this little pose for me I just had to post the pic. And it only makes sense yesterday. So...whatever.

Sorry for the lapse in posts here. I am still trying to get adjusted to things here, and wanted to be able to put pictures up but just haven't really been taking any. Then I had to figure out how to get them onto our laptop. We haven't found a way to set up our desktop in such a way as to not clutter up one of the rooms too much, so we are just going to use our laptop here. And since Bill Gates, in his infinite personal financial wisdom keeps coming out with new versions of windows, has made it so that only Vista is available, this laptop runs off of Vista. And our camera software was for XP. And I couldn't find help on any website, Microsoft or Canon, to fix it. So me, being the computer savvy guy that I am, went to the best website for getting answers: google. And I found a way to make it work. So we have pictures now!! Here is our apartment.

Front room

Kitchen/dining

Abby's Room

Mom and Dad's room

That's the basics of it. The wood floors came out really nice after we scrubbed them and polished them. And we've been able to get everything placed in such a way in all of the rooms so that they look pretty good. The best thing by far in the house is in the kitchen - two little things we like to call a washer and dryer. Well, not that little - they take up a good amount of space - but they are totally worth it. In 6 years of marriage, for the first time we can do laundry in our own home. That is pretty awesome. So when Abby wakes up in the morning with blood everywhere from the night time beatings, her comforter, blankets and pillowcases can be done without us having to get dressed and worry about whether or not we have 3 bucks worth of quarters lying around (just kidding - she was bleeding because that dang finger of hers seems to be magnetically attracted to her nostril. It's obviously reached a breaking point - when the kid wakes up with blood everywhere, something has to change. If anyone has any suggestions, we're open to them).

We really want to catch and squish one of these bunnies. Abby gets so excited to see them, and they are less afraid of us than the squirrels around here (though that is maybe because Abby will run after the squirrels and tiptoe around the bunnies). The other day we were talking to some neighbors (a really cool younger couple, it'll be nice to have them around as friends) and a rabbit was eating some clovers about 10 feet away, when it suddenly realized that it wanted to go to the other side of us. Instead of running around us all, it cautiously hopped between us. And I'm not kidding when I say that we were maybe 5 feet apart. It was crazy to watch.

From our back steps:

From the front porch:

And a few with Abby

Abby is enjoying herself down here. She will still ask about her friends in Charlottesville when we talk about church and nursery, but I think that she realizes that they don't live here. I just can't wait for us to make new friends with kids her age so that she can have some playmates. She will start up with daycare at the end of this month the week before I start up with school, and is so excited about it. We went and saw the place last week to talk with the people and check it out, and when we told Abby that we were going to go see her new school, she said happily "Go see my new school!! Woo-hoo!!" And now she asks frequently if she will go to her new school tomorrow. She can't wait to start.

She is really getting into coloring - and is getting pretty good. She sat down and colored Goofy pink the other day, and stayed in the lines really well. She gets the artistic side from Jodi. And she likes singing songs, too - the ones she likes and kind of knows now are her ABCs, Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Itsy Bitsy Spider. She doesn't know all the words, but will frequently be heard trying to sing them. At the end of Sunbeam, she does the Rowlett-y "doo-doo!" (you all know what I mean). The other day in the car, she was singing it in the back seat and couldn't get all the words and would stumble around a bit. After some time, she just went "doo doo!" to signify that she had finished so we could clap for her. It was way cute.

Jodi's job is going pretty well so far - the first week of orientation was, well, awfully boring and mostly pointless. She is on the floor now doing patient care, and it is going better. I;ll let her post more on that when she has time (or I will when I get more time). That's all for now, I'll try to do better with my posting this month. But there's just so much to do and see here, so we'll see what happens.