Beautiful Washington, Part 2 (just some pics)

We are leaving town for a week tomorrow for a conference near Ashville, NC. Jono's parents are joining us and will help us with G while Jono and I are in meetings. I'm especially excited about being in the mountains and enjoying some cooler weather. Here are several more pictures from our time in Washington. I'll write more about the rest of our summer when we get back.

Also, we were fortunate to find a great rental house this week and signed a contract on it quickly. It has pretty much everything I had hoped for~three bedrooms, a fenced-in backyard, super clean, a neighborhood we can exercise in, in our price range, etc. I am so grateful to have that taken care of, and look forward to settling in come August 9th.

Lake Crescent

Hiking in the rainforest

Jo Johnny

Ho River

Wandering the tide pools of Second Beach

Rainy, but gorgeous

We went to Victoria, BC for a day. Unfortunately Jono was sick with a stomach bug.

Sunset at the rental house. It was a small piece of paradise.

Beautiful Washington, Part 1

Back in the winter of '09, Jono and I started daydreaming about taking a trip somewhere beautiful this summer. With another baby on the way we knew it would be a while before we'd be able to escape on a getaway together.  So we started scheming and talking to my parents about caring for G for a week while we went on vacation. We also enlisted our awesome friends, the Brewers, to join us. These fantastic folks have journeyed far and wide to hang with us, including a fun-filled trek all the way to Spain!

I have loads of pictures, so I'll have to devote a couple of posts to this trip.  We spent a total of 8 days in Washington. We arrived in Seattle, spent the night downtown, then took a ferry over to the Olympic Peninsula, where we had a rental house on the coast and spent the majority of our time.  We went on some gorgeous hikes, cooked yummy food, and enjoyed ourselves to the max. Never having spent the night away from G, one of my favorite parts of this vacation was sleeping and showering whenever I wanted and for as long as my heart (and body) desired.

Walking the streets of Seattle

On the ferry to the Olympic Peninsula

OCD or nesting? When we got to our rental house I started cleaning the windows.

Pretty bird. I took this picture, and the local artists (Jono and Mary) highly approved of it.

The Olympic Range

This was the view at the end of our first hike. It was about 3.5 miles uphill (7 miles total) to get to this frozen lake. I'm pretty sure I couldn't do this now at my present phase of pregnancy.

Tired, but happy, hikers

The view from the back of our rental house

We were about as relaxed as we've been in 1.5 years!

Last Days in Jordan

Did I say it would be May before you would hear from me again? Hmmm. Let's make that late July. Better late than never, right?   Over the next few days I'll post some pictures chronicling our adventures of the past few months. As I was looking at which pics to put up first, I came across these from our final days in Jordan and thought I would start at the "end" (of our time there). 

Funny, I'm getting really nostalgic looking at these shots. I was pretty exhausted when we left and told myself and others it would be at least a year before I would reflect back longingly on Jordan. I've obviously been able to rest since being in the U.S., since it's been less than three months and the thought of being in the Middle East is actually somewhat appealing.  But I'm sure my growing, pregnant body would disagree if I were actually there and were enduring another summer without air conditioning.

A quick Shirey update: we are settled in Georgia, where we will be making our home for the next year. After almost a month of house/apartment hunting, it seems we've found a winner and I am hoping we can sign a contract today.  G has changed so much in the past three months. He is picking up new words all the time and jabbers almost constantly, most of which we still don't understand. He has been an amazing trooper through all the traveling and transitioning we've been doing.  Baby boy #2 is growing steadily and on target for arrival in September. We have found a good doctor here and are hoping the little boy will stay in my tummy long enough for us to get settled.

The start of our move. Jono stayed in Jordan while G and I flew back to the U.S. to hang with family and avoid the chaos of boxes and furniture out of place.

As G would say, we said "bah-bye" to our friends out there. That was by far the hardest part about leaving, and the hardest part about being away from there now. In this sweet picture B is angling to give G a goodbye kiss. G's not so sure though.

Jono did do some fun stuff once we fled the country and left him with all the work. He and a friend hiked a very cool part of Jordan called Wadi Mujib.

                A view of their hike. The trip actually involved repelling in a waterfall if you can imagine one in the middle of such desolate landscape. This hike is in fact seasonal due to the amount of water that can be present.

Jono got pretty nostalgic as he packed things up, sold things, and gave some stuff away. Here is a picture of G's "toys" before getting rid of them. Notice it's mostly containers? He still loves a good ol' bottle and top. Though these days his main fascination is pressing buttons and sitting in the car pretending to drive.