Thanksgiving I and II

We celebrated Thanksgiving over at Colleen and Kenny's house. Paul and Myra drove down from DC with Nick and Michael. Ally at first didn't believe that Chris actually has a brother, but she adjusted to the idea and had fun getting to know her cousins. The last time they'd seen each other, Ally was about 10 months old.
Grammy, Grampy, Sarah, and Jordan also made the long drive out to the Lungers and provided some of the yummy food.

Nate, Ally, and Cora

Nick and Michael

The Men (with Myra's leg, Sarah subbing in for Jordan, and Maddie)

Confused but very Grateful / The Grub

Siblings minus Terri

Grampy and Grammy with the Lunger/Hoffman/Hoffman grandkids

A few days after Thanksgiving, we were invited to another turkey feast.  We drove out to the Albrecht's in Raleigh and to try some of Grandpa Pete's turkey gumbo.  Since it was a little on the spicey side, the girls opted for canned spaghetti noodles. I braved the spice by avoiding the sausages and quite enjoyed my bowl. Then we ate some of Jess' Thanksgiving desserts, including a fabulous cranberry crumble.

Zach, Cora, Ally, and Jess

November (but not Thanksgiving)

While Daddy's been hard at work with his new job, we've been at play-- exploring our new surroundings and enjoying the light-to-no-sweater weather.

Our apartment complex has a small playground we visit sometimes while waiting for the laundry to dry. On other days, we hang out in the exercise room since the TV there has the Disney Channel. Cora can now walk a 0.5 mph pace on the treadmill without falling off the back; Ally can go a little faster, but tends to get distracted by the shows.

The development we live in also has a wonderful community playground with swings and a climbing structure. We meet a group for playdate about once a week. On rainy days (had to readjust to that!) we play at other people's houses from church. The girls are settling in and making friends, although Ally still cries sometimes over the friends she left behind in Washington and then Cora will whine "I miss Braelyn."




A big perk in returning to NC (besides the weather) is having family and longtime friends nearby. We've seen Jess on multiple occasions and are getting to know her precious little nephew a lot better. Cora feels right at home at Aunt Jessie's; she steals her money, she naps in Zach's chair . . .





Ally and Cora still love dressing up as princesses and fairies. Then they twirl and dance around, hoping for their Prince Charmings to show up and take notice.
 

We got a membership to the Greensboro Children's Museum and have already played there on multiple occasions. They have a "Main Street" with a post office, hospital and nursery, grocery store, TV station, pizza parlor, construction zone, grandma's house, and other areas. They have a plane, a train, and a few automobiles. They also have a camping section, a Curious George exhibit, and a garden out back with chickens. Ally and Cora LOVE having a place just their size where they can run around and pretend all day.

The museum is downtown, right across the street from another favorite place: the library. Ally loves picking out books (especially Fancy Nancy) and usually has one or two of them read by the time we get home. We generally go to a smaller branch every Friday for story and craft time. Ally and Cora are becoming quite the little artists. And I don't have to worry about coming up with ideas, collecting supplies, or cleaning up the mess. The library is becoming one of my favorite places to visit, too.

Chris Had a Birthday, Shout Hooray!

We arrived in Greensboro on Wednesday night and then drove out to Chris' parents' house in Selma on Thursday night. Friday morning Chris, Kenny, Jordan, and I transfered all our worldly possessions from the trailer to a U-haul. Then the Hoffman clan caravaned to our new apartment to deliver and unload the goods. Unfortunately there was a bad accident on I-40, and traffic was a mess. Sick of being in the car, the girls and I took two detours while hoping things would clear: one to Target in Apex and another to Taunja's house in Durham. We eventually made it to Greensboro, right after all the heavy lifting was accomplished and our help was pulling out of the complex parking lot. (Perfect timing for me.) Thanks guys!

We spent Saturday moving boxes and setting things up. Jess came out to help us unpack and also to make sure Chris' birthday was not overlooked in all the moving activities.

We took him out to eat at a Greek Restaurant, and then Jess accompanied me to 3 different stores in search of Chris' present-- a new TV. On Sunday she baked him a cake, and then I decorated it with M&Ms from the Halloween stash. I made it a little girly, but I couldn't think of what to do for a "guy" cake. Sorry, Honey, but you're probably used to being surrounded by hearts and flowers by now anyway.

Happy Birthday, Daddy! Thank you for all you do for us, for putting up with us, and for making the money to buy PopTarts for us. We love you, and wish you many more years to come.

The last 1476 miles

After learning as much as we could about Kool-Aid and passenger pigeons, we ate dinner at McDonald's. (I forgot to mention that we had eaten at a regional "meat pocket" chain, Runza, for lunch. We tried to eat at unique places along the way, but MickeyD's won out that night for location and speed.) The next morning we woke up and continued our long journey through Nebraska.

When Daddy was planning our route, he had the brilliant idea to build in a "break" day when we would do only a few hours of driving and have some fun instead. The halfway point in our trip occurred just outside Omaha, so we decided to spend the afternoon playing around in their Children's Museum.

Ally painted a leaf while Cora drew a masterpiece on a very large Magna-Doodle. They had a farm, a grocery store, a firetruck and crawl-through house area, and a room full of balls. The girls watched a presentation on bubbles (did you know they have Esko-skeletons?), climbed on some giant animal slides, and rode the carousel.  They weren't too excited to get back in the car, but dinner was a short drive away.

Chris really wanted to eat a steak while we were in Omaha, so he tracked down a local restaurant called Piccolo Pete's that Warren Buffett visits when he's in town. Ally loved the huge disco ball hanging from the ceiling and was a little upset that we didn't get to sit under it. Chris enjoyed his steak, I enjoyed my meat raviolis, and Ally enjoyed her soup and pasta. I don't remember what Cora ate other than Jell-O, but I remember her squirming around until she finally decided to curl up under the table. The food was excellent, and because of the large portions, we had no room for dessert. I hear they have awesome root beer floats. Maybe next time.

We stayed the night in Nebraska City, Nebraska. The next morning we swung by Independence, Missouri to see the temple for the Community of Christ. It is an impressive building that looks just like a giant sea shell. Since we were just outside Kansas City, we stopped at Gates Bar-B-Que for lunch. Chris ordered a delicious smoked meat sandwich, while Ally and I chose to dine on onion rings and homemade potato salad. Then we hopped back in the car and pressed on to St Peters, Missouri, where we discovered the Drury Inn.

We have tried very hard to teach Ally the proper priorities when it comes to choosing a hotel for the night. Besides relative cleanliness and safety, any decent hotel must have the following: free parking, free hot continental breakfast, an indoor pool, and a luggage rack to serve as Sally's (the doll's) bed. Drury Inn has all the aforementioned PLUS a glass elevator, a hot evening snack buffet with drink vouchers (aka free dinner), and plenty of old people with whom to converse. We obviously enjoyed our stay.

After our fill of breakfast, we headed into Saint Louis to see the biggest attraction on our cross-country trip: the Gateway Arch. (I'm tired of trying to remember things and writing them down, so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking now.)

When Chris bought our tickets to the top, he wondered why the guy asked if anyone had problems bending or was claustrophobic. Oh, now I see.










Welcome to your space pod. The door slides open, you step inside and take your seat on a back-lit sci-fi-ish chair. In operation since 1967, the tram hasn't lost a single passenger yet-- or so they say.

After taking in the view from 630 feet, we entered the pod once more for our final descent. Ally and Cora thought it was just like a mini-roller coaster. We arrived safely at the bottom, wandered around the museum, and then continued our pilgrimage east.


We stayed in Louisville, Kentucky that night at a "normal" hotel. We didn't take the time to find the world's largest Slugger, although I'm fairly certain we drove within blocks of it. Chris and Mildred started down the road about 5 am the next morning and arrived at our new apartment around 3 pm. Ally, Cora, and I took our time leaving. We had a good breakfast at the hotel, ate lunch at a Subway in West Virginia, and made it to Greensboro sometime after dark. North Carolina, My Home Sweet Home!

2888 miles in 7 days with 0 vehicular malfunctions and very few child breakdowns. Success.

The first 1412 miles

When I plugged the location of all our credit card and ATM transactions from Nov 3rd to 10th into google maps, and then added in a few untracked detours, it shows we traveled 2888 miles.  Not too shabby for 2 cars, 4 people, 1 tortoise, and a few household odds 'n ends.  What surprises me is that we never had a fraud alert show up on any of our cards.

Let's review the trip with the help of some pictures: 

First: our vehicles of transportation. We put most our stuff on an ABF trailer so we wouldn't have to worry so much about snowstorms or other unpredictable obstacles. That left us responsible for our two cars and their sparse (but important!) contents. We stopped at an overlook in Oregon to get one last glimpse of the tan-and-brown landscape we'd been living in.

Ally and Cora rode together with me the entire trip.  Chris said he would switch at any time, but they did very well. We chatted, sang, listened to music, colored, read books (not me), and watched the scenery go by.  Every afternoon they got to watch a movie, courtesy of a kind friend who gave us her portable DVD player with 2 screens. Daddy says Mildred didn't cause any trouble in his car, so it seems everyone had an enjoyable ride.

Here are Cora and Ally at the end of our first day.  I took them over to see the Twin Falls, ID temple and let them run around before sequestering them in the hotel room.  We ate dinner at Cafe Rio that night. Yum!

We got a good look at the gorge and the bridge outside Twin Falls before getting on the highway the next morning.

(Something else we saw but didn't get picture of: a black bear in Oregon. He looked like he was going to cross the highway in front of my car. He would've made for some very unique roadkill; I'm glad he changed his mind and ran back up the hill.)

We stopped off at Little America in the middle of Wyoming to use the potty and let the children climb on a dinosaur. Cora also stomped around in a tiny snow pile, and Ally and I threw a few snowballs at each other. Thankfully, that was the extent of our wintery-weather encounters. I guess we had just missed one storm, and were a day or two ahead of the next. We spent the night in Rawlins, Wyoming and had dinner in a retro diner.

We stopped in Gothenburg, NE for a few minutes to get gas and see an old Pony Express depot. (Good thing that was not a real horse, 'cause Ally liked hanging on his tail.)

Two hours later we were in Hastings, Nebraska-- the birthplace of Kool-Aid. We went to the Hastings Museum to take our picture with a true-to-life Kool-Aid man and see his footprints, but that section was under renovation and a lot was missing. But, we did get to sample some Kool-Aid, see some premiums/prizes, watch a few old commercials, visit a mock-up of the original store, and pose in some cut-outs. Then we toured around/ hung out in the rest of the museum.

Did you know the museum's founder is buried in the floor on the lower level amongst a collection of old cars? The middle level is full of taxidermy-d wild animals in diorama displays. The upper level had a huge mid-western history exhibit along with an extremely large collection of stuffed birds-- including a few passenger pigeons (I, for years, had mistakenly thought they were called "passenger" pigeons because they were big enough to be ridden on. Chris laughed and kindly corrected me on that after a year of marriage.)

Fall Festivities and Frenzies

Judging by the dates on my last few postings, it appears I have a lot of blogging to do. (Mom, I know, I still need to post this past summer's trips.) I generally try to be brief (ha! ha!), but rarely ever succeed. I might, however, accomplish my goal this time since all the details of the past two months seem to have vanished from my mind. Maybe they are packed away in an unopened box somewhere; maybe they got lost in the move. Who knows. Hopefully my memory will be jogged a little as I edit and post some of the pictures I have sitting in our Picasa folder.

Our strawberries were sparse this year and disappeared by early September, but we were still harvesting raspberries off our bushes in late October. Here's Cora enjoying the fruits of her labor one Sunday afternoon. I think the red shoes made the outfit.

Ally's "preschool" had another field trip, and siblings were invited to come along. This time it was to the pumpkin patch at the Country Mercantile in Pasco. They went on a hayride, climbed a pyramid, pet some animals, and chose their own little pumpkins.

I was working the Hanford flu clinics again this year, so I missed out on all the fun. While I played fluzie, my friends Jenn and Karen were kind enough to sub in for me and make sure my girls behaved themselves on their little adventure. Jenn took some pictures, so I stole these from her blog.

Jenn made sure the girls got dressed; she even styled Cora's hair. Jenn, however, cannot take credit for Ally's choice of wardrobe. The night before, Ally and I went through her closet to find the perfect outfit. I begrudgingly approved the whole ensemble only because she put so much time and care into making sure each item "matched"-- although her definition was very liberal (same color and/or pattern, but generally not both).

Cora was easy-- orange shirt, farmer overalls, and a fall sweater. When you aren't even two yet, you wear whatever you're mother tells you.

We had a garage sale. It's amazing what you can accrue in a few short years, and how much of it really isn't necessary when you stop to think about it. The sale was a success, as we were able to part with most our furniture and a ton of "extra" items. We also made enough to pay for the gas in our cars for our cross-country adventure. The next morning, while changing Cora's diaper, we discovered a rogue price tag. I'm glad she hadn't accidentally been sold.  Five dollars is a great bargain!

We celebrated Halloween with a Chili cook-off at the ward building. Our contribution was shredded cheese, as most of our kitchen was already packed away and our cupboards were quite bare. We won the prize for being "the cheesiest". Afterward, the girls got dressed in their costumes and then headed outside for the Trunk or Treat.

I love Cora's costume. I had actually bought it a few years ago at a consignment store so Ally could wear it, but she refused. I was so excited when Cora tried it on and she refused to take it off. She looked so cute riding her chicken around. Almost everyone smiled and laughed, except one older lady who was way too perplexed to enjoy the visual novelty of the costume.  She just couldn't figure out how Cora made the chicken's legs move with such ease without losing her balance and falling off. Ally decided to be Minnie Mouse, but I couldn't get a decent picture of her by herself. She is doing her best pose with her friend Ashlyn on the bottom right.

Ally knew the drill and had fun collecting her candy.  Cora enjoyed the walk since she got to eat three lollipops along the way.  Her only aversion to the whole "free candy" concept was having to tolerate other people's costumes.  We've always known that she's a bit paranoid of larger-than-life creatures.  Apparently she's completely petrified of giant Lego men; they bring her to tears.

November 1st was my last day as a fluzie. It was also the day we loaded all our worldly possessions on the truck. Thankfully we had plenty of guys from church show up to help.  The official "start" time was 6 pm; our first helper arrived at 5:50 pm. Ally and Cora went and played with the neighbor boys.  I frantically boxed up some loose items.  Chris directed traffic and helped load.  By 7:30 it was all stacked very compactly into 11 linear feet of semi-truck space. I was very impressed.  (This pic is from when we started transferring our load over to the Uhaul in NC. It proves that everything did make it and that --somehow-- nothing fell.)

November 2nd was cleaning day. Again we had plenty of help, but this time it was the women's turn.  Chris kept Cora and Ally occupied away from the house while the girls from church and I made everything shimmer and shine. Our friends Nick and Thad showed up with their tools and messed around outside, blowing leaves off the trees and making the front yard all pretty. Then our Realtor Jessica came over and we signed all the papers to put our house up on the market.  (Which reminds me-- Anyone want to buy a house in Richland?)  We had dinner over at the Jones and then spent one last night in our shell of a home.

November 3rd we packed up our air mattresses, swept the floor, locked the door one last time, and headed out on out 2700+ mile roadtrip (which I will blog about in a separate post).

We couldn't have accomplished any of this without our army of volunteers (unless we had forked over some big bucks for professionals), so we are extremely grateful.  You guys saved what was left of my sanity, and made moving a less-overwhelming task.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Tappin' Away

I bought Ally some tap shoes (size 8.5) awhile back, and now they finally fit her.  She loves them.  Watch the whole thing so you can see her impressive, high-leaping finale.

Cora gave a stirring rendition of this same dance right after.  It would really make you laugh, but I can't post that one.  We are in the middle of "froggy-potty training", so she was performing her little heart out-- in the nude.

Portland: The Farewell Tour

We took a little trip a few weekends ago in order to celebrate my birthday. Cora, Ally, and I drove out to Portland on a Thursday. That night we ate dinner at IKEA (Ally's choice) and wandered around the store. We went swimming in the hotel pool and then tucked ourselves into bed. The next morning we took a ride on the MAX train and spent the day at the zoo. I had Ally and Cora wear their new backpacks (thanks Jess!) stuffed with their jackets 'cause they're just so gosh darn cute. It became an easy way of identifying my girls and keeping track of their every move; people smiled and pointed whenever they saw them wander past.

Because I didn't bring the stroller and didn't want to carry any children, we took our time wandering around. We skipped some animals, but Ally insisted on seeing her new favorite-- the bats. We also saw the beavers, polar bears, orangutans, penguins, zebras, giraffes, elephants, and eagles. The girls climbed on some sculptures and even shared their drinks with a bronze squirrel. Ally almost spent as much time reading the signs as she did watching the animals. I knew she was able to read some, but I was amazed at how many unfamiliar, long words she was able to decipher. How do you know if an elephant is about to give birth? Ally read all about it.

Both Ally and Cora passed out on the 40 minute MAX ride back. I had to wake Ally up to get her off the train. She walked off under her own power, but then she laid down in the center island after we crossed one direction of traffic. She perked up enough to walk the rest of the way across the street once I promised dinner at Red Robin. She got mac and cheese AND a balloon, so she was a happy camper. We then crashed in our beds at the hotel. Chris finally joined us around 11:30 that night once his plane landed.

On Saturday we had breakfast at the hotel with Ally's new friends who served on the USS Rotanin back in WWII. (About 12 men and their wives were having a reunion. One of the men had been at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed. One of the wives had been an acrobat in the circus and had almost danced with Gene Kelly.) Then Chris drove us down to OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) for the day. We saw a planetarium show, and Ally enjoyed watching the man play connect-the-dots with the stars. We also wandered through the various rooms and exhibits.

We pretended to go into space, shot water bottle rockets in the air, made some stop-animation movies, experienced an "earthquake" in a shaking house, played on the computers, built sailboats, dried our hands, solved some brain-teaser puzzles, saw some fetuses in various developmental stages, avoided the skeletons, and road a few elevators. We also played in the ball and tube area, where Cora spent most her time trying to clean up the balls that were flying everywhere.

We ended the day in the children's room. They had a craft section where kids could work on projects and play with flubber. They also had a grocery store with all sorts of food, a miniature forest where you could be a squirrel and gather nuts (and hibernate, too), building blocks and plastic construction pieces, a puppet stage, a mini ball pit, and a large sand area.
We had a hard time pulling Ally away from that sand box, but we had to leave OMSI and head to our next destination: VooDoo Donuts. We opted for the larger location since it was closer and quicker then going to the downtown original one as before. Their shop was crowded (we arrived just after someone's wedding ceremony, so they were in the midst of their reception) but we got our donuts within 5 minutes. And we didn't have to wait in line in the rain for an hour. Cora's a VooDoo addict. Here she is freaking out 'cause we told her she had to wait until after our Indian dinner to eat her Fruit Loop-covered donut:


On Sunday we made a quick trip to the Grotto of Our Sorrowful Mother. It's an outdoor catholic sanctuary with gardens and sculptures surrounding the area. It is beautiful with a towering stone rock surrounded by lush green trees. I wanted to see it because of the name.
On the drive home we stopped at Multnomah Falls. Chris and Cora went as far as the bridge; Ally wanted to hike a little further up the path, so I went with her. We had to run the quarter mile back to the bottom when she decided she needed a potty "really bad". (Yes, we were faster than her pee.)

While on the bridge, Ally insisted I take a video of her dancing, so here it is. I took this about 15 minutes before we had to sprint for the bathroom. As I watch it now, I can't help but see great similarities between these "spontaneous" dance moves and her usual pee-pee dance.


Now, some of you may ask why this was the "Farewell Tour". Well, in case you haven't heard yet, we are moving back to NC soon. Which also means I'll probably be an official North Carolina resident again before I even finish blogging about our last vacation there. Oh well.

September Synopsis

We attended our one and only Dust Devils game for the season. We left early 'cause Ally refused to sit still, we were tired, and they were playing horribly. I think Chris is still trying to figure out how they let one guy basically walk from third base to score a run. Short season minor league baseball just isn't the same as watching the Durham Bulls or the Phillies play.

At the beginning of September, Cora started screaming bloody murder whenever we'd put her in the crib at night. This intense fear/hatred of the crib and/or going to sleep seemed to come out of nowhere. On the third night of hour-long crying spells, I decided to try a new sleeping arrangement. I pulled out Ally's princess couch and tucked Cora into her new "bed". Ally was super-excited to have Cora sleep in her room. She told me she was happy to not be by herself anymore (because she had been having nightmares), and that Cora could stay as long as she'd like. Ally even talked to Cora that first night to calm her down, and then sang songs to her until she fell asleep.
I was a little concerned that Cora would wake up in the middle of the night and wander. That hasn't been an issue; she stays put 'cause she has unlimited, unsupervised, instant access to the bookshelf. What can I say, the girl loves books. Ally's nightmares have diminished, and Cora again goes happily to bed each night, so the girls are now sharing a room. And I supposed we'll eventually get Cora a real bed.

Chris, Ally, Cora, and I went to the park for a music festival. We saw some Chinese dances, some Scottish dances, and a few local bands. We also got to share a bubble gum snow cone and play outside. Ally and Cora both wanted to wear their Eagles clothing. Chris says that's a sign of good parenting.

Ally started attending a preschool co-op that my friend Jenn hooked me into. Some women that she knows were starting a group up, and we were invited to join them. Ally is very excited to go, although she keeps referring to it as "pretend school" or "not real school" when people ask if she goes to preschool. Class is only once a week for 2 hours, and we rotate houses and who's teaching. She's had fun being with Ashlyn and getting to know the four other kids. I think her favorite part has been figuring out what to bring for Show-And-Tell.
The first day I dropped her off and came home with Cora, it was eerily quiet. I mean, Cora was talking plenty-- constantly asking "Where's Ally?" and giving me a play-by-play of what we were doing --but I'm used to constantly hearing Ally's voice, too. I think it's been nice so far for them to have a little separation and for Cora and I to have some one-on-one time, although I know Cora would rather be at preschool with her big sis.
Two weeks ago we took a preschool trip out to the country, aka Benton City. Little siblings got to tag along, so Cora was thrilled. We saw some steer and some horses, some grapes and some apples, and some fake giraffes too. The concord grapes get picked and then processed by Welch's, which would explain why the air all around the fields smelled like their grape jelly. Cora took to heart the owner's invitation to "pick as many as you'd like"; she stood in the same spot for 10 minutes and shoved those grapes in her mouth while Ally ran up and down the aisles of the vineyard. Ally loved harvesting her dozen apples from the trees and putting them in her bag; Cora chose one off the ground and spent the remainder of the trip contently eating it to the core.


The last weekend in September, we took a trip out to Portland to celebrate my birthday. But I'm going to save the blogging of that adventure for later since the weekend spilled into October. And, truthfully, I think I should go to bed.