First few weeks in Washington....

The first few days of being in Washington meant some serious jet lag and early mornings. Every morning we were up and ready to go by 5:00 AM regardless of me trying anything and everything to get us back to bed. So, I decided to be useful with our time and do some errands. One day we went grocery shopping to get food for our new house, one day we went to Home Depot and one day we just went to the house and started working and had carpet ripped up by 8:00 AM! Me and my two little ones made a pretty sweet carpet removal team! And sometimes those little ones just needed a blanket and a movie and watched mommy work....

We also made frequent visits to our favorite donut shop called Rocket Donuts especially since they carried gluten free donuts which made Peyton's day....and later come to find out (another post) Graham's!

We cut flowers from our beautiful garden at our new house. We have a huge hydrangea plant growing on the side and it is gorgeous. We had peonies at the start of the summer as well.

We explored around my parents house and found the spot of where my dad was going to build a tree house. The kids were so excited and spent time helping bring boards up to the treehouse and draw up plans with him on what it would look like.

We went to church and soaked up the worship, messages and kids church for Peyton. We are thankful to have that community there to come back to and especially for the kids. Peyton adores going and looks forward to it every trip home.

We went to a car show and Graham was in love with the firetruck and firefighters. 

Graham (and Peyton but not as much as Graham) also LOVED riding on G's tractor....and had TONS of tractor rides all summer long. We had a funny joke all summer when we would ask Graham whose tractor it was and he would say "Papa's" and he would laugh because he knew we would get all pretend upset and say it was "G's."

We loved on my parent's dog Bailey....

We visited the farmers market and bought a two blueberry bushes and decided to make a fruit garden instead of a vegetable one. We ended up with two blueberry bushes, a raspberry bush, some strawberries and some snap peas. The kid LOVED running outside and seeing what had grown and eating fresh fruit from our garden. Even Peyton started eating the blueberries from our garden saying they were delicious but whenever I would try to give her store bought ones (even if I didn't tell her where they were from) she would say she didn't like the store ones. 

The kids were so helpful in doing tons of yard work, picking out new plants and planting our flower beds. They loved going to the nurseries and playing in dirt, rocks, and picking out the plants. It was also so much for me to pick out plants knowing that everything grows so well in Washington and I was overwhelmed with all the choices. I am excited to see how everything grows within the next year and adding and making beautiful flower beds! We later added some privacy trees along our fence to our neighbors which will grow quickly so we are excited about those as well. 

One rainy day we went to the Bellingham Children's Museum with my mom. The kids loved it and it was a perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon.

We started one of two sessions of swimming lessons at the same place we did last year. The first day was pouring rain! The pool is heated but it is cold and not fun getting out when it is raining on you. Peyton was in level three and did amazing keeping up with the big kids and this session Graham was in the Mommy and Me class and had a hard time because he didn't want mommy and wanted to do it "all by myself." We survived and made it through the two week session with only two or three rainy days.

We found tons of yummy gluten free places to eat at, had lots of doctor's appointments and just soaked in our new home of Washington. We do love our life in Saudi and there are so many good things about being in Saudi (daddy being home, the simplicity, a safe environment, wonderful friends and so many more blessings) but there is a rejuvenating affect that Washington has and it is such a refreshing, refilling place for us to be. 

And then just like that our first three weeks in Washington had come to an end and it was time for daddy to join us!