Dear snow, why do you hate me?

I've said it once, and I'll say it again.

Snow and I, we don't get along.  In fact, I'd say we are enemies.

Blame it on my Floridian upbringing or dead inner child...who knows.

All I know is, snow has it out for me
and has been stalking me with a vengence the last 3 years.

This year's proof...

 It followed me to Washington!

I was told it didn't snow much here....psshhh.

 We apparently got the worst snow storm WA has had in like 30 years.

What the heck?!

 When we lived in Maryland, there was "Snowmageddon"
...the worst snow they had in years.

Then it followed me to England.

England, people!  

That first winter we were in the UK, they had record snow and ice.

Why does Mother Nature hate me?

Nerd Fest

 The boys decided to have themselves a little nerd fest
the other night with Ben's Santa gift.

It is basically the "big boy" version of Legos.

 ...Except you can build robots and stuff with the pieces.

Like I said, 

Nerd. Fest.

 We start the geek training young at our house.

 The finished product.

This time they made a car.

And here are the boys reaping the rewards of their hard work...

watching it drive around on the floor!

Welcome to Seattle!

I have been meaning to update, but life has been getting in the way...

Anywho, we made over from England to Washington in one piece! 

So far, we are really enjoying it here (now that we don't have jet lag). 

Until we find a house, we are living near Ben's work, about 20 min. from Seattle.

The boys are trying to grasp that we are in a different continent now.  

Nate is adjusting to not having school (at the moment), and so am I to be honest.  

Spencer has been having some personal "adjusting moments" of his own...
in the form of tantrums.

Ben is looooving his new job though, so it is all worth it.

When we first move to a new place, we always try to get out and explore.  

The first places we visited were the Museum of Flight
and the Pacific Science Center in Seattle!

 Sorry for the blurriness....my camera died, so I had to use my camera phone. 

 I apparently have not mastered the art of picture-taking on it yet.

Now on to the Pacific Science Center...

 This is what happens when you try to take a photo of a child with an attitude and agenda all his own.

 I like to call them "Jesus Dinosaurs"....since they can apparently walk on water.

 The museum is right next to the Seattle Space Needle.

 Fun times at the water tables.

 One of the "other" dinos that can't walk on water.

 They've apparently also captured the guy from that 80's movie, "The Fly"  for the kids to point at and mock.
(yes, Spencer points with his middle finger)

 Spence taking on a giant mantis!

 If you are squeamish, look away....

...these were giant cockroaches. Yummy.

Nate held one for a second,
  then decided he'd been grossed out enough for one day.

 More fun boy toys.

 The one part I actually really enjoyed was the butterfly sanctuary.  

They fly all over the place and some even land on you.  

I kept waiting and waiting for one, but wasn't so lucky. 

Guess I need to work on smelling more like rotten fruit?

And then we had some lunch before heading home...

Delicious, no?...Ok ok just kidding...

This isn't from the museum cafe.
Just a little display of some insect dishes from around the world.

So far...we are fans of Seattle!

Christmas Morning

We kept Christmas pretty simple this year because of the move,

but we made sure to do the "essentials" for the boys

 while in temporary housing...

 Guess who ate our cookies and milk?!

(no...it wasn't housekeeping)

 We have a tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve (for the kids),

 and these awesome slippers were this year's.

A touching moment shared between Storm Troopers on Christmas day.

And the only video we took of Christmas morning!

What!?

Santa brought a Pirate Ship and a Giant Bumblebee Transformer.

(note to self:  talk to Santa about re-thinking these transformers 

since mommy is the one actually having to "transform" them 24/7...

and doesn't know what she is doing).

All Aboard!

The last thing we did before we moved from England

was to take the boys on the steam-powered "Santa" Train.

I must admit that we weren't feeling all that Christmasy this year without being

able to decorate with anything but boxes,

so this was our last attempt to get into the spirit of things...

Santa and his elves visited each box car and gave each child their own gift.

The boys LOVED it!

We love "Santa's" steam train!

Belated Greetings

We are alive!

We have in fact made it back to America in one piece...

but with all the craziness of the move,

we did not get out a Christmas card this year.

So here is the best we could do for the moment.

 Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!
We look forward to hearing from you!

life lately