Horseback riding..

I few weeks back the girls and I had the opportunity to go help out at a local horse stable to do some work with some friends from the gym. We cleaned all the horse stalls and helped move some shelters and do some other maintenance. The girls helped with spreading the new straw in each stall. They loved all the animals that were there on the farm especially the new litter of puppies.

After the hard work they got the chance to go ride the horses. They were both in 7th heaven getting to ride, brush down, and feed the horses especially Maren who loves all things horse/pony right now. Whitney loved is so much that she made a book about it the next morning.

Happy Birthday Jonas!

Our happy little guy is now one years old. He is on the move and loves to play outside any chance he can get. He loves standing at the front glass door to watch everything happening outside. I love when I come home and see him standing there as he lights up with a big smile to welcome you home. He's starting to do some sign language and loves to blow kisses. He does well playing independently but occasionally that also means he's being mischievous like emptying his sisters drawers or unrolling the toilet paper. We celebrated his birthday a few days late as it was the first day we could have everyone home at the same time. He really enjoyed opening his presents much to the dismay of his sisters who wanted to do it for him. Happy Birthday buddy!

Here's the play by play on the cake eating, first a little taste of the frosting that was pretty yummy, let's try some cake, not my favorite but I'll keep tearing it apart, All Done!, guess I need to clean up my tray, "Who me? I wouldn't make a mess!", where most of it ended up.

Jonas walking...

Little J-man has really taken off this week with his walking. He walks more than he crawls now. Here's a couple of videos for the grandparents (ignore the Star Wars sounds in the background)

Easter fun...

We enjoyed the opportunity to watch General Conference this weekend and really focus on the true meaning of this holiday as we were reminded of the glorious gift that our Savior has given us through his life and atoning sacrifice. We are also very grateful that Jim returned early in the week from Chile after only three weeks instead of 3 months. Once they arrived in Chile they realized what they really needed was only the facility (tent hospital) and not all the personnel. Once they got it all set up and running they turned it over to the Chileans and returned home.
Amidst all the craziness of packing up half our house, cleaning it up in preparation to place it on the market and watching Conference, the kids, Nana-san, and I headed out for some Easter fun.

Maren and Whitney each enjoyed some activities and hunts at school this week. On Saturday we went to the base Easter egg hunt. Maren insisted on joining Whitney and their buddy L in the 4-6 group but was sad when the eggs disappeared so quickly that she couldn't leisurely walk around and pick up one at a time from each area. She doesn't have the open field egg hunt strategy down yet. That evening we enjoyed dinner with some friends and the kids all had a blast actually hunting for eggs instead of picking them up as fast as possible. Jonas even joined in the action at both hunts and quickly picked up the concept of picking them up and with help putting them in the basket. He's also quickly gained a love for chocolate as he's raided his sisters baskets.

(Maren sporting some plumbers crack while hunting)

This moving stuff sucks already and we're just getting started. Hopefully with all the work we've done this week the rest will be easier though I think we'll be in moving mode for the next 6+months until we buy a new home. Our home is mostly bare now (staged) so now the trick is to keep the kids from making a mess :)

Puerto Rico-Day 1

One of the bummers about Jim leaving was that it was the day before his parents flew into town for a visit and 4 days before we were to leave for Puerto Rico sans kiddos to meet his sister and her husband. At the urging of my sister and brother in law, I went ahead with the plans to meet up with them. My brother in law did an awesome job planning a high adrenalin vacation which is typical of a Dahle-Baker adventure. I arrived the first afternoon, picked up the rental car, checked into the condo and then walked the 3 blocks to the beach. I grabbed some dinner and groceries, checked out the local area and then headed back to the airport that night to pick up Michelle and Jon. The next morning started bright and early as we hopped in the car and drove an hour to Fajardo on the east coast for a scuba diving adventure. Originally Jim and I were going to snorkel but I decided upon arriving there that I would do the Discover Scuba option instead.

I was so glad I made that decision as it was an awesome experience to scuba dive for the first time and given the rough conditions and decreased visibility I wouldn't have seen much while snorkeling. We had to watch a video and then the dive master had has practice a few skills on the first dive before we headed out exploring. We did two dives in different areas of a reef off this island that looks like it's from a Corona commercial.

We saw a lot of cool fish, a few crab, and a large spotted ray. It was so nice to even just chill on the boat out in the sun while eating fresh papaya. Upon our return we headed into the rainforest of El Yunque National Park. It was beautiful hiking through the lush green growth and seeing the various waterfalls. We had a fun time playing in the La Mina waterfall, it gave a great natural massage as you stood under the cascading water.

Adios mi amor

Such is life as a military wife- the phone rings just after midnight and then your husband is on a plane heading halfway across the globe in less than 36 hours to return at an indefinite time (likely 1-3 months). Hopefully he will have the opportunity to do some good for the Chilean people that have been devastated by the recent earthquake. In the mean time, the rest of us will continue on with the preparations for our upcoming move by selling the house, car, and other necessary business. For now, I'm going to start by cleaning up the rubble from the natural disaster that seems to have hit our home in the last 24 hours!

Snow fun

While we were in Philadelphia a few weeks ago 8 inches of snow fell here at home whereas we only saw an inch up north. We picked the right weekend to go to Philly though as the next weekend was when they got 20+ inches and we only got an inch or so here. Snow is a not a common occurrence around here, let alone 8 inches, so it translated into Whitney getting 2 snow days on top of the 2 inservice days they were already scheduled to be off. Luckily for ue there was still plenty of snow to play with when we returned so the next morning we decided to go sledding. Living on the coastal plain means there are very few hills so our options were limited. We tried sledding on the one little hill at a nearby park but between the stickiness of the snow and the lack of incline you didn't go very far without someone pushing you down the hill. However, the girls still enjoyed their first sledding adventure.




We also enjoyed building a snowman and making snow angels.