Washington trip

So getting back to our hometown was quite the ride. We had an awesome couple days flying. When we landed in Seattle we still had a 6 hour drived ahead of us. We were debating staying overnight and driving in the next morning or driving through the night. We decided on the latter. My throat felt a bit scratchy but just thought that maybe it was because of all the recycled airplane air and going from a humid climate to dry. we drove through the night, arrived at my parents house and all slept in late the next day. My throat was killing me. I was disapointed that maybe I was getting a cold. As the day wore on I was freezing and sitting by the fire my dad had made, everyone else was warm and super cozy....I had a fever.....blah! I was bummed...there were so few days we were going to be with family and I didn't want to be laying on the couch like a potato for those few days. Through the night I got more sick, vomiting, and the next morning my throat worse than I have ever felt. I went to the doctor and lucky me.....I had strep throat. Then I was worried Erik and Lindsay were going to get it, that would be bad news. But luckily I got antibiotics and some good nurturing from my mom and I was well on my way to recovery. Well to be honest it still really hurt to eat, talk, swallow, but I didnt want to let that hold me back.

So onward and upward....Erik and his grandma made cookies

I sat with my dad and went through some family history documents

Erik was a bit of a goof

Then we went to Lindsay's family's house and Erik reunited with his bestie and cousin Zoey. They played the piano and she tried to sing but got very frustrated that Erik was loud and obnoxious while she was singing sweet church songs.

This is her scholding him for his boyishness....how cute!

Lindsay got to meet a nephew that Erik and I got to meet earlier in the year when we were here. Landon is exactly what I imagine a son of ours would look like if we had a biological child. Is it not blaringly obvious to everyone else that these two look alike? Even Landon looks like Lindsay did as a baby. It was fun to see him interact this trip.

The two after a long day of playing and craziness settled in for a movie. These two were so comatose sitting there and Erik was obviously very relaxed.

Lindsay enjoyed a game of Jenga with his youngest brother and they got it all the way until they basically won. There were no more levels to build or take away from....pretty impressive

                              
We had a thanksgiving celebration with both sides of our family which was so nice even thoguh it was early. Haley did the turkey and was a bit unsure about pulling things out of the carcass.

The twins again

It wouldn't be a thanksgiving celebration without some relaxing

Wendy and Isaac.....and we met her newest baby Summer for the first time this trip, unfortunately we didnt take pictures of her sweet face.

The adult table feasting! It was so much fun. These are the major pictures from the trip but we also did some shopping and lots of hanging out. We spent some time with Lindsay's fmaily and even got to visit with his sister and her family one night. Ahhhh, it was such a nice trip. Well then Erik got sick vomiting one night which wasn't very fun but no strep throat...well until we got home...Lindsay got it then which is a whole other story...

To get home we it took us more days than we anticipated. To make a long story short.....we spent a few days waiting in Seattle....flew to Hawaii....spent a day there....flew to Sydney...stayed a night there in a historic bed and breakfast that was over a hundred years old.....flew home. It was one big awesome adventure. And I am only saying that because now it is over and I dont have to worry about how many more nights we will have to pay for a hotel or where we are going to sleep or how to get a ride where we need to go. Hindsight is always 20-20 so they say.

Best flight ever

So back in October Lindsay came home one day and told me that he had a trip coming up. No big deal this is a normal occurrence. I was a bit surprised he was telling me so early because normally he wouldn't know that far out (3 weeks), well ok sometimes he does but it always seems like I find out last minute. I like to prepare mentally for all these things so I was glad to have the insight early. He recieved a few phonecalls from people about the trip  through the week when he was home from work for the day that I thought was a bit odd, but still didn't think anything of. Then about a week later I got a sweet message from my sister-in-law that spilled the beans (to her credit......she did NOT realize it was a surprise for me). And Lindsay could have easily covered up the slip up but decided to explain. He was setting up a trip for our family to fly back to the states for 10 days! And not only the states but the plane was supposed to be landing in Washington...all we would have to do is drive from Seattle to Spokane and we were home free (and pretty much literally).

That is where the true adventure began

This story in entirity will be done over a few because it was a long fun jam packed trip with lots of twists and turns...er..adventure!

Just in prep for the trip which we wanted to keep as a surprise for our families (other than Lindsay's brother and his family who knew) we ended up telling everyone due to trying to gather everyone together and some people were on trips that we wanted to give the opportunity to come home to see us, etc. Anyhow... we finally packed our stuff, had our shopping lists of what we wanted to bring back from the states, lists of the things Lindsay's co-workers had already been sending to his parent's house for us to pick up afterall there are perks to flying on a military flight. Such as the weight limit for you baggage is more lenient than commercial and for this particular flight we could pretty much bring back whatever we wanted on the plane. Our only holdback was fitting us and the stuff back in the car to get it to the plane. But we were excited.

We woke up super early one fine saturday morning in Australia and drove to the base. Everything was in order and good, we even took off on time. We were stoked that we would be free to roam the plane to play and had heard they would bring cots out to sleep on partway to the flight. The plan was to stop in Hawaii and stay a night and then continue on to Seattle. Fair enough.

 We took off, and about an hour later we heard over the intercom that we had a "bird strike" and needed to turn around land, have the jet checked out and then re-evaluate take off. We were fortunate at this point that the bird that we obliterated hit the side of the plane. and not an engine. The base took care of all they needed to for the bird strike and we were allowed to re-take off without too long of a delay.

 I was still a bit nervous about all the flying with a two year old...did I have enough toys...kid friendly snacks....entertainment....battery life on our electronics...etc,etc.

 The flight was the best I have ever been on. Turns out they did set upthe medic cots for us and we all took turns sleeping. Erik slept a good amount in his car seat and then I moved him to an open cot to extend his rest out some more. The food was better than any plane fare I have had, we could stretch way more, lay out, and Erik is obsessed with planes anyway and so he was in heaven. He played, slept, and played some more....such an awesome traveler-totally made up for some of his crazy days at home :) My whole plan for the trip since it wasn't going to be a real long trip was to just let our bodies adjust how they wanted...no fighting jet lag or too much adjustment....I just wanted to enjoy family and feel rested with all the days of travel I knew we would have (little did I know how many travel days)

And finally we ended in Hawaii, landing just after midnight. That was hard just because nothing was open and we weren't renting a car to drive anywhere where things would be open. We got a taxi to finally come and get us-he took forever....took an hour and half to get to our hotel room.......should have taken 20 minutes-maybe.....drove to the room which was a 5 minute drive (luckily the cab driver was a very nice man, just slow and confused) only to have our keys not work. Lindsay saw another passenger we flew with in his room and ran out real quick to use his room phone to call the front desk. So then we waited another half an hour for someone to give us a key that worked.

And you know the first words I heard out her mouth (I do know it was late, and it looked like she had been awakened for this service call but still-hospitality please?) were "Don't you have a car to come get the keys?" in her young crabby voice. I replied calmly and sincerely..."no, we just flew in and came in a cab, we do not have a car parked here." Although in my head I was thinking " dont you think if we had a car we would have driven right over so that we could have had the key in less than half the time it took you to get here...I do have a two year and its now 2 in the morning? But I was nice, which took her aback and she changed immediately into her nice sweet self which I am sure she is most of the time and let us in. We settled in the best we could and slept for a few hours before waking and needing to get up to catch the next flight.

We walked with Erik riding one suitcase down a ways to a McDonald's or Makka's as they call it in Oz that we had seen the night before so we could use their wi-fi to call my parents via skype to update them and let them know we arrived and tell them what the next leg should look like.

***TIP**** when traveling into a foreign country where you don't have a cell phone plan...buy a PREPAID PHONE as soon as you can, that would have saved us a lot of stress early on. Eventually we did buy one on our trip to help out with travels home but it should have been one of the FIRST things we did.

We made it to the base and onto to the next flight with a few hours delay (and no way to tell the rents) and landed at 12 am Sunday morning. There was a bit of drama once we landed at the base in Seattle because their passenger terminal was closed on the base for a few days and there was no way for us to get from the flight line to the front gate where my parents had been patiently waiting for us in the dark info wise. We talked a young airman that drove the crew to take us there (He will receive blessings) and we reunited with family. So our saturday was lived two days in a row and we continued to drove through the night to get back to Spokane 6 am Sunday morning. Crazy and exciting! We had made it!

livin' it up

This last week we actually went on vacation and partied it up with these crazies!

Well ok, we didn't party it up in the traditional way but we did lots of shopping, swimming, and relaxing like we did in the old days.


This group shot was taken at the flamingo and literally a few minutes later they shooed us away because they were going to perform a wedding.

playing in the laundry basket at the hotel. These two munchkins were asked about a million times if they were twins while out and about and they played like they were and fought like they were, it was pretty funny. Definitely interesting to see the difference between boy and girl toddlers too. Erik was aggressive and very physical in playing, zoey would play nice and get into all the girly cosmetic stuff.

most of all I think Haley and I enjoyed watching the men together. They turn into kids around each other and do all sorts of crazy things. And no erik did not have on a bikini he had a swim shirt and a washable swim diaper. Trunks are overrated if you ask me.

more to come....

Greetings Earthlings

So I honestly feel like I have been on a different planet this summer. A planet where time goes by five times faster than earth and nothing on the homefront gets accomplished. But we have had lots of fun nonetheless.


Erik and I just returned from a trip to Washington to help my mom recover from a major surgery. For those who know her and are wondering........the first week and a half was really rough for her, but finally things seemed to slowly get better and hopefully she will gain some of her freedom back as she continues to progress towards healing. Erik and I had a lot of fun seeing family, but like always it seems there is never quite enough time to visit friends. We need to go for a month and get in everything. Although in our defense we pretty much stayed with my mom to help her with anything we could.


A favorite activity of Erik's this trip was................ was going through the doggie door. He also loved playing baseball and playing with any stick he could find. Basically anything that is not a toy is what he will play with.

There was a toy wagon and a decorative wooden one that was in my parents backyard. He thought he would be sneaky and took the toy one to where the wooden one sits, switched them like we wouldn't notice and played with the wooden one. Where does he come up with this stuff?

School started here but summer is not over for the moon family! I got enough grief over our blog while away that I will try to keep you up to speed more. On to the next adventure!

we are still around......

....just uber busy. that is all.

For those of you who are concerned about the fires near our house. We are ok. The fire is moving in the opposite direction and we should be safe. The first day of the fire we were not sure but please keep the families that have lost their homes in your thoughts and prayers.

-k so I realize all these pics looks like we have just been relaxin'. Well we have been trying to get in as much summer fun as we can but have been busy with the youth in our ward. I went to girls camp and Lindsay took the scouts on a high adventure. Busy busy!

Today is a day of Remembrance

Today we celebrate those who have risked and lost their lives for our freedoms and protection. Without these brave men and women we would not have the priveleges we have today.

As a military wife I am very patriotic about soldiers. My husband corrects me when I call him a soldier because technically he is an "airman" but anyone who serves in any branch of the military is a soldier in my eyes. Lindsay and I both have many family members who have or are serving in our military and my heart bursts with pride for them! Even Erik's birth families are linked into branches of the military, it encompasses us.

Sometimes I have friends and family tell me that they could never do it, that would not be as strong as I am to have my husband gone so much, etc. Well I am not saying it easy or that I am overjoyed to have him leave me......sometimes I grumble, but what an honor to be married to a hero. What an example he sets for our family in his loyalty and honor in his mission. I know Erik does and will continue to view him as his personal hero. Whenever I see Lindsay in his uniform (okay so that is everyday) and especially when we go out in public, I feel so proud. He is such a humble man and does not like to go out in uniform or draw that attention to himself in any regard. He has more than a box full of awards with more that he wasn't given plaques or statues for that he will not let me put up in the house. When we first moved I thought I was being a sweet wife by putting up all the plaques on our guest room wall, oh no.......he had me take it all down the same day. He may not be on the front lines, but he is in a critical position to help the Air force.

(as a marine)

My younger brother Ryan was a marine and is now in the army. He leaves this week for a LONG deployment to Afghanistan leaving a wife at home. This is his longest and 3rd tour over to the "sandbox." I pray for him. I have seen the immediate effects war has on the front line soldiers. I have seen him go from fun seeking 18 year old to fun loving but yet deeply changed man. You know what his number one request is in his care packages? Baby wipes. These men rarely get showers, they have to burn their own waste and they risk their lives every second they are over there. It's no wonder PTSD is so common. But the sad thing is so few get treatment for it because it can affect their career.

I hope and pray for his safe return home with a heart beat........please pray for our service men and women. They need the comfort and support, no matter what they do in the military! Today Lindsay and I hosted a bbq and it was fun. I wanted to sneak in Lindsay's awards all over, but knew he would have nothing of it. Instead I made sure to make festive decorations to go along and we said a prayer that was in memory of those who have lost their lives in service. Did you know Red Poppy flowers are a symbol for Memorial Day? Just thought I would let you know!

Love,

Som

Mother

Although this is late, both Lindsay and I wouldn't be the people we are without the wonderful way we were raised by our mothers! We love you moms!

I am the luckiest girl alive. My husband rocks my world and feel so lucky that he chose to spend eternity with ME! And I am also so lucky that S and B chose me to be the cutest little boys Mother. Motherhood is the hardest thing I have ever experienced but it has also brought me a joy and fulfillment I could never imagine. Our small family is perfect to me. I am honored to be a part.

more thoughts on this weekend

so this weekend was so wonderful, and very similar to our experience in germany parts are hard to put into words how things were. so i will share a few things with you. first of all i know that this weekend would not have gone as smooth without the help of Heavenly Father paving the way because we had nasty snowy weather up where we live, it was fine everywhere but to get out of town was interesting.

You see when the weather gets bad here they shut down the main highway and back roads, so basically people cant get into town or leave. some people cant come home from work when this happens or leave for work in the morning. but somehow, someway we managed to get to every city we were headed to and on time (or miraculously early to the temple). We had so much support from people this weekend it was amazing, we are so thankful for everyone in our lives who helped make our weekend special.

all right so the run down.....

tuesday and wednesday last week-

-find out for sure that our court hearing would be held on friday afternoon.

-set up things and finalize details with our attorney and court clerk

-call the temple to make sure there will be openings on saturday because i know i can't schedule our sealing until friday after the hearing.

-weather is snowy and lindsay has short days at work to make sure he beats the snow home.

thursday-

-my parents come in that day. we are concerned they will be shut out of our town and have to stay overnight in another city.

-parents make it well after a long exhausting day, eat dinner, go to bed

friday-

-the first BIG day

-we head to the courthouse, meet our attorney in person for the first time, file one last document with the clerk, who knows us by name at this point, and head up to where the court rooms are

-there is one adoption before us-how wonderful!

-we go into the court room and sit down where the judge has told us. we are sworn in, my parents are told they can sit in the jury box if they want for better viewing, also were allowed permission to get up and move wherever they wanted to take pics.........yeah our judge was that cool! we are asked a series of yes or no questions regarding our understanding that we are completely responsible for our little man, sign the official agreement, keep the commemorative pen that we signed it with permission of the court

- take pics witht the judge..........interesting other tidbit, our attorney's first name is James, erik's middle name is James, and the judge's son is named James. Also the attorney referred to Erik as Erik Moon in the hearing before he made it official ;)

- go out delighted and ecstatic. stop by costco, call the temple and schedule our sealing, and rock n roll home!

saturday- the next BIG day-

- we leave early for the temple and make it passed the closed portion of the highway

- arrive at the temple and are escorted to the childrens care area where we drop off erik and are told how they will handle his part of the activities.

- talk with the records person to make sure the adoption has been finalized and record things for church records.

- change into appropriate attire and wait together in the celestial room until sealing is to begin. it was beautiful, glorious, and wonderful

-go into the sealing where erik giggled the entire time, he totally knew where we were from the time he got into that room.

- we pick up erik from the childrens area once we are done and the workers say they have never seen a child act in such a way during a sealing

-we head home

- i look exhausted and not very cute in all the pics because erik didnt sleep hardly at all that night before and i had zero energy to get myself dolled up, plus i knew that it didnt truly matter what i looked like, just a little self conscious that's all.

sunday-the last BIG day-

- we head to church with erik in his white suit once again and lindsay gives him the most amazing blessing. i dont remember all of it, my friend took notes but i forgot to get them from her yet. but i do remember he was blessed to be brave and courageous. that he would always remember the love and sacrifice that went into his adoption, an understanding desire for the scriptures, and something about when he was a man. honestly though it was awesome! and when lindsay held him up when it was over he laughed and waved his hands, such the charmer!

family pictures

holy cow there is so much to catch up on.....earlier in november we had our family pictures taken and we just got them back! we are so excited to have nice ones. and my hair looks great thanks to my friend kim who did it for me!
over the holiday we traveled to tennessee to visit with my younger brother and his wife. it was a lovely visit and it was fun to see them being all grown up. i still have a hard time imagining my younger brother being an adult. i still think of him as the baby who wipes off the game board when he isnt winning in tantrum fashion and talking him out of his toy to switch with mine (always of course claiming that the one he will get is better), or just getting him to do things for me. ok so the last one, i am pretty sure i can still get him to do things for me........i don't know maybe that is a big sister thing, but i am good about these days, i don't abuse the privelige like i did when we were growing up. his wife is gorgeous and so sweet, we were lucky to be able to crash in their apartment with them for a bit. we got a new camera but accidentally left the cable at their house so no pictures until we get that.
now we are planning christmas stuff and it's so fun! today we played christmas music and did some gift shopping, i put up decorations, it has been great!

nana's visit and so forth

As i said in that last post lindsay's mom has been down here helping me out and spending lots of great time with erik. it has been wonderful, help with chores, help with erik, and just can anything beat having family around? she has read lots of books and...............
on sunday she sunbathed while crocheting in the back yard which i thought was quite cute! up in washington temps have been low and we even heard of snow one day while she was down here. but here we have been having weather in the 70's which is perfect!

earlier this week we took erik to his 9 month well baby check and also had the doctor check out his cold and see what we could do to help him. he has bronchitis i think is what the doc said and said that he will most likely catch all the viruses this winter and have to be on a nebulizer throughout the winter until spring......yuck! he doesnt mind it for a bit but he doesnt like to sit there the entire time. he is 20 pounds (which i could of swore he was more) and a stinkin' 28 3/4 inches.....holy cow! he is average for weight but 78th percentile for height.
lindsay is home now...........thank goodness and erik wasn't quite sure what to think when linds came home. it has been about 3 weeks and when linds first walked in erik looked at me with a confused look on his face and wanted to see my reaction and of course i was happy. then when lindsay went over to get erik out of his high chair erik turned away from lindsay and hid his face in the side of the high chair. but after just a couple of minutes he remembered and realized who lindsay was and things have been happy since!

also this month is national adoption month. more posts to come on all that soon!

summertime splendor

This summer has been rockin' aweosme so far and we are planning to keep it that way! This last week our favorite people came to visit us down here in so cal and we had a blast! Alex and Haley flew in from Washington to spend the week between Alex's graduation (congrats Alex!) and his first day in his new job being a physical therapist. Erik got to meet his cousin Zoey for the first time and they were so cute together and Erik seemed to enjoy picking on Zoey when he could by grabbing her face. He also tried to hold her hand when they bathed together and showed off by rolling over for the first time while they did tummy time together. Yeah he is a show off.....he has yet to show Lindsay his rolling skills yet.

We went to the outdoor swimming pool one day while they were down here and had some fun. The babies weren't real sure of the cold pool water but they endured it for about 20 minutes
before they called it quits. Erik did better this time than last time in Arizona. Probably because Lindsay was swimming and doing all sorts of fun things with him. He still wasn't excited about the water but stayed in it longer than when I took him in.

Oh naked cheeks, can't refuse to take a picture of his cute bum!

And the cousins in the tub together! Erik's eyes are hilarious to me, he gets wide eyed like that often when there is something new, exciting, or startling. In this case both cameras were flashing and we were all trying to get them smiling before one of them started crying from the comotion. Zoey is only 6 weeks younger than Erik but look at her chubby arms, couldn't you just eat them off? If there was a full body shot though you would notice Erik is considerably longer than her. Oh so cute!

This one makes me giggle looking at it. We put Zoey's hat on Erik one morning and he got this mischievous smile on his face. Who knows.....this may be a blackmail picture later on but I love it!

Notice the outfit he is wearing? Yeah that pic was taken on my birthday and we ended up going into the city for lunch and shopping that day. Up until that special day Erik had never (trust me I know I am lucky) had a poopy blowout before. But he wanted to give a present like any good child would....he hadn't pooped in a few days so we knew when it happened it was gonna be big. But let me tell you, it was huge! I was carrying him into the family bathroom in the mall and when we got in the and I laid him on the changing mat Haley just started laughing and asked me to look at my shirt. I look down and there was poop smeared all over the stomach of my shirt, not just a little speck but humungo streaks....great! So the boys offered to go buy me a shirt while I cleaned him up. Normally I probably would have said I would have been all right, but it was my birthday and figured I could treat myself. So his outfit went into a bag and his ugly emergency outfit came out. Oh well, he felt better I can guarantee you that!

Another new thing in the moon household is that Erik is starting to be way more interactive, we love to see his personality shine through and all that he offers us. Lately he has been giving us kisses by sucking on his lower lip. I am not exactly sure how we figured this out but I think we kept making kissy faces and noises at him one day and he started trying to mimick by sucking on his lower lip. So now when we walk into his room after a nap, or he hasn't seen one of us for a bit or whatever he will offer us his "kisses" we love it! He is not as much into us actually kissing him on the mouth, it is a bit too much up in his face, but he will smile and "kiss" while being held, across the room, in the bath, etc.

O the joy!