First Week of Venice

So this has been an exciting week in Venice.  We have had a lot of adjusting time to all the new people.  Robin was here with us from Monday until Friday, and then I took her over to Boca Raton to where her Grandmother lives.  While Robin was here though, we had a lot of fun showing her all of Venice. 

Amma has some fun toys, including a piano.  When cousins come over, we actually have an entire band.  Micah rocks the piano while Patrick plays the guitar and Grace sings.  It is quite an event.

Robin and I went to the Jettys during one of Micah's many many naps.  It was so beautiful, so much better to look at then anything in El Paso! We also took Micah to the Pier one evening, and while we were there, a fisherman caught a massive fish.  It was pretty awesome.

Micah loved just staring at the water.  I think he's definitely water boy.  We also took him swimming in the pool, but I don't have any pictures of that.  He did amazing in the water.  He even went under the water!

Another thing we have experienced it GRASS! Micah was not so sure about it.  He really struggled walking on it and he didn't like his legs touching the grass.

He did like the leaves though! He kept picking them up and crinkling them up. 

We have had so much cousin time.  It has been really awesome.  Micah loves playing with Patrick and Patrick has been doing really good with him.  They share toys and even share snacks.  It's really cute.  But cousin time is exhausting!

 

Goodbye El Paso!

This week has been crazy, so I have fallen behind in blogging.  On Sunday, we went to the scenic route in El Paso and said goodbye.

It is so weird that we aren't going back there, possibly ever again.  I won't miss El Paso, but I will miss people there.  It's also weird to not be able to see Mexico all the time.

As I was trying to take pictures of El Paso and Mexico, I got photobombed.

 

We have also now started our long long time without Daddy.  It hasn't even been a week yet and it's already hard.

On Monday, it was time to actually leave.  We loaded up with Robin and went to the airport, we were quite the train of luggage.  I had one massive suitcase, a small suitcase, another small bag, a backpack and a diaper bag.  Robin had one large suitcase.  We also had a carseat and a stroller and Micah.  It was exciting going through the airports!

This was right after we said goodbye to Daddy.  Micah wasn't to sure about it. 
This was Micah waving goodbye to El Paso.

The first flight was the harder one, Micah threw up a little bit when we took off and landed and he was tired and cranky but he didn't want to nap.  Then we had a layover in Houston, so we had him play for a little bit.

Then it was time for the second flight.  That one was a little bit calmer and he did finally fall asleep for that one. 
Then we finally arrived in Florida!! I'll tell more about this week later on!

Preparing to say goodbye to El Paso

It is officially my last weekend in El Paso.  It is absolutely crazy.  As much as I get annoyed with living here, it has been quite an experience.  I also do feel very comfortable driving all over this town and know all the roads everywhere, which is quite an accomplishment for me.  Brandon and I explored this town so much and it amazes me when I know so many places and different ways to get there.  When we get to Fayetteville, I need to remember to explore randomly again.  The past few days I have been running errands on the west side of town, so I decided to take some pictures of the places I went a lot.

This is the mall on the Westside, Sunland Park Mall.  We have amazing shopping here, Sunland Park on the West side and the Outlet Mall of El Paso, on the east side we have Bassett Place mall which took me the longest time to realize it was actually a real mall, it has lots of stores on the outside so I thought it was just those stores, such as Marshalls, Kohls and Target.  We also have Cielo Vista mall on the east side and they are currently building yet another mall.  I know that we aren't going to get shopping like that other places.

This is a view of our mountains.  We have the Franklin Mountains and they run through right in the middle of the town.  They aren't like mountains you think of back east.  They are their own thing, and they are beautiful in their own way.  I do like looking out my back window and seeing the mountains.  Also in this picture you can see the lack of grass and our really weird trees.  Word of warning, these trees fight back.  I still have a scar on my arm from our first night here in El Paso.  We were on post at the hotel and Mia got loose so I went running after her.  I ran past a tree and I expected the tree leaves to move, but nope they fight back, cut you and scar you for life.

Another part of El Paso that is different.  We don't ever have clouds for some reason.  Very very rarely will you see a cloud in the sky.  It's weird, but I do see the beauty in the blue sky.
That's my random good El Paso thoughts of the day..
I probably won't make it to the East side again or Far East to take more pictures, I don't really have any needs over there.  Tomorrow is yard sale which I don't know if we are going to do and then cookout in the afternoon.

Micah is all ready to go driving..he's ready to leave.  Robin was telling him that it isn't a good idea to drink and drive.
I had to add that picture..a post isn't complete without a Micah picture.

Walking!

So all of a sudden, this week my little man decided to start walking! He had been taking small steps when we really cheered him on, but this week he has become a confident walker.  He just lets go of walls and furniture and goes walking across the room.  It's so amazing to watch him.  He has all of a sudden gone from being a baby to being a toddler.  He has grown up so fast.  At Christmas time, he was barely crawling, doing his Micah version of crawling instead and figured out pulling himself up while we were at my parents.  Now mid April, he loves walking everywhere.  He still drops down to crawl when he wants to get somewhere fast, but other than that he really prefers to be on his feet.  It's just so crazy to think that a year ago this was my little man...

This was in the hospital in Venice last April when I flew down to get my gallbladder taken out.  He was such a little baby then..and this is today.

He walks a lot better and farther than this video, but it is really hard to capture it on my phone.  He doesn't believe in performing.  And well you try walking in those pajamas :)  He has a long body but short legs, not normally a problem but it can make walking difficult.
I'm excited to be leaving on Monday, but I am sad to be leaving Brandon for two months.  Micah has changed so much and so quickly the past few months, it makes me wonder what is going to change between now and late June and what Brandon might miss.  Thank goodness for FaceTime though, so at least he will be able to talk to Micah on a regular basis.
The countdown is down to 5 days now.

Graduation

Brandon had CQ last night, which means he had to work 24 hours and then had all of today off.  We didn't really do much today, but this afternoon I did have to run some errands.  One of my errands was going to my school, because I had to fill this out..

Yup! I'm graduating with my Associates of Arts in Business and Accounting.  I have one last class to take online this summer, but since I'm leaving in less than a week, I had to go ahead and fill out my application for graduation.  I'm happy to at least have my associates now, and I'm happy that it didn't cost us anything (Yay military).  However, I have decided that I am definitely not into Accounting.  Not enough for another 2 years of it and possibly a job someday in it.  I need to figure out what I want my bachelors in, I'm going to take the next semester off to complete the move and figure out what school in North Carolina I want to go to and what I want to go for.  I'm hoping to continue on with my Bachelors in January, but that one will be slower because the Army doesn't pay for it and I refuse to take out student loans for something I might never use.  I don't want to have to work to pay off my school loans.
So now, I have 5 days to get the rest of my errands done, have a yard sale on Saturday and a cookout to say good bye to our friends and to pack.  It will all happen eventually.

A Micah picture because a post is never complete without them.  He got this Lego fire truck for Easter and he loves it.  I was a little worried because the Legos are Duplo but they are smaller than other blocks that we have.  He is sooo good at fine motor skills though, he can put that little fire man into the little fire truck and he can put this tiny little axe on the back of it too.  He amazes me.  You can just see his little mind working.

One Week of El Paso Left

I can't believe we only have one week left of El Paso! We as in Micah and me...Brandon is stuck for awhile longer.  This weekend was pretty low key, Brandon has been studying for the board a lot, so thats pretty much our life right now.  I did run out to Target for a few minutes yesterday and I saw this..

Yes, that is a child up on the shelf in the toy while the parents shop the baby aisles.  Only in El Paso do you see things like this.  It will be weird to not hear more Spanish than English, to see cars driving down the road and wonder what kind of car is that? To only realize that it is a Mexican car.  And the most random things are seen here..babies in toys on shelfs..camels on trailers going down the highway..

I still have so much to do, the packing fairies haven't shown up yet.  I also have realized that I'm going to FL and probably need a bathing suit..and well bathing suit shopping is the worst! However, this will always make me feel good again.

He has been walking so much! Last night, we were playing monkey in the middle with him.  He kept walking back and forth between Brandon and me, trying to get a fish toy from us.  He's also discovered the remote control

He still doesn't like to watch tv, but he does like playing with the remote!
So off to pack...and run lat minute errands..or I might just let Micah do it all

He is a cute driver :)

New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum

So a couple of weeks ago we went off to the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum with Robin.  It is one of our favorite places here in El Paso, well actually in Las Cruces, but close enough :)

It is a museum plus a farm area.  As soon as we get there we ask about the next tour time.  When we went with Robin, they had one available right away and we got to be the only ones on it.  Both times we've taken it, it's an older gentleman, an old farmer.  They drive us around on a golf cart and tell us about all the different types of animals they have on the farm, mostly cattle.

This was Micah waiting patiently for the tour to start.  He loves it.
The beginning of the tour is a little boring for him..they show different ways people cooked and the old farm equipment, he just likes the animals right now.

But once we got to the animals, he loved it.

This is him yelling at the cows that we were passing...

They had a bunch of little ones there too, so sweet.

This almost makes me appreciate how people find it beautiful in the desert...almost.

Then it was time to say goodbye to our tour guide...

(Cutest waver ever)

And it was time to go see the GOATS!

Yup he was excited...the goats are the best.  They are in a barn though, so we have to leave the tour and just wander around at that point.

He cracks me up.  He just loves to sit there and yell at the goat, and then his goat friend yells back at him.  Micah thinks it's awesome that the goat yells the same thing back to him.

After a long time visiting the goats and sheep (they have a good variety of different types of each), we went off to visit the horses and ponies.

Micah really liked the pony too.  He kept making the kissing sound for the pony.  They also do pony rides in the morning on the weekends, but we are still a little young for that.

After we had visited all the animals, we made the walk back to the actual museum part again.

It's a pretty small museum, but it's cute.  They have a John Deere exhibit right now and then they also have a play area, so we had to go play of course.

I love this little tractor, it's so cute.  Wish we could have this at home.  Actually, it even had little parking spots for the tractors and trailors.  There was also a little playground with a slide.  It was really cute and well done.

Outside, there was a little fountain, so we decided to take a couple of pictures...

Finally a picture of Robin and me!

This is definitely one of the best hidden gems out here.  No one ever talks about it on post, but it's not like it's that far, it's probably about 40 minutes from our house.  Which I know sounds far in Venice, FL world, but in El Paso world, it can take that long to just go to Target!  Each time we have gone, it has always been pretty much empty and its definitely an older/retired crowd that runs it and they are so awesome.  Not this time, but the time before, we were walking around right during feed time and the guy feeding the animals stopped and talked to us for awhile and talked to Micah.  

So if you are ever in El Paso with small children, I really recommend this place!

My Little Artist

So yesterday was Brandon's birthday.  The day started with the weirdest thing..picked Micah up from his crib and somehow, his arms were still in his pajamas correctly but his legs had switched pant legs.  I don't even know how this is possible, he is a Houidini child.

Unfortunately, he had to work and actually ended up working late, so we didn't get to see him very much.  But Micah did send him a good morning/happy birthday picture

That was him waving happy birthday to Daddy.
We decided to draw Daddy a birthday card.  We had gotten Micah those Crayola baby crayons and he would try to draw with them but wouldn't ever draw that much.  However, he loves using pens and pencils.  So I decided to give him some Crayola twistables.  He loved them! They are hard plastic, so he can't break them in half and he loves holding onto them.  I think they actually fit him better.  This is his beautiful picture he drew.

So happy I thought to give him those, because he is all about coloring now! He's so artistic :)

Happy Birthday Sweet Husband!

Today is Brandon's 26th birthday.  I have now 11 days that I can tell him how incredibly old he is :).  I am so thankful for him.  Not only is he an incredible husband, but he's an absolutely amazing daddy.  Happy birthday to my darling husband!
Here are a few of my favorite pictures over the past 7 years that he has been in my life.