Anticipation

Not really good or bad anticipation, but there's a lot of getting ready and waiting and wondering going on right now. We had a little earthquake earlier this week, (on Jeremy's birthday; he was pretty excited)which they practically NEVER get out here. That was mostly just fun and interesting, since it didn't do anything but rumble things around a little. And then this weekend we heard we're in for a hurricane. Which I originally thought was kind of exciting, but only until it shifted course and now is headed straight for us, at either category 2 or 3 strength. (If you look on a big map on the news just above the North Carolina border and see Norfolk or Virginia Beach, that's where we are, just 5-10 miles inland.) I'm kind of wishing we had decided to head west for a few days, but we knew with all the crazy traffic we might end up stuck in our car for hours and hours at a time or have a hard time getting back. That would be worse (in some ways) than if our power and water are out for a few days. Either way, I'm a little more nervous about the next few days than excited. Everything should be fine; our area isn't under even voluntary evacuation, let alone mandatory evacuation. Basically, sitting tight seems the best option. We have plenty of food, water, flashlights, etc, but a hurricane (both during and the aftermath) just isn't sounding so fun right now. There will definitely be some memories made this weekend! I just hope it's not bad enough in this area that we HAVE to evacuate or have any damage to our actual building. It's one time when living in an apartment with less space and fewer windows, etc. seems to be an advantage. And since we're on the second story, even if there is flooding, at least it wouldn't destroy any of our stuff or living space! It's going to be interesting, to say the least.
Hurricane aside, we've had a good couple of weeks, and we've taken lots of pictures!

Our little Katy-love is growing up so fast. She's still climbing all over, but now she's walking too! She walks about 50% of the time and thinks she's all that. She is obsessed with necklaces (still) and shoes right now.

Our little walker!

Troublemaker.

She keeps getting up on this box and fussing cause she's not sure how to get down...

Reilly and Jaina love to tie this silk scarf on and play super-hero type
things with it. Now Katy is always bringing it to me and wanting the same
thing. Only she gets mad if it falls off, or WON'T come off, or gets
in her way, or... you get the picture.

Isn't she adorable, though?

Modeling her much-beloved new shoes

The other day we checked out the awesome 3-story MacArthur Mall in Norfolk. It was so fun to just walk through it, and the kids absolutely LOVED the play place there. It's one of the better mall play areas. Very clean, in good repair, and with a fun theme! They had a blast, and we'll definitely have to go back there!

She climbed up here all by herself and thought she was so cool.

We got a package from Grandma and Grandpa Kerrigan the other day. Technically it was for Jeremy's birthday, but there were lots of goodies for the kids. They had a great time with them! They love drawing and coloring right now!

Here we are at a rather late birthday for dinner on Jeremy's birthday. He didn't get off work until 6:30, sadly, so we didn't get home from dinner at Chili's until like 8:30! Poor tired kiddos! It was a really yummy dinner though. :)

It was nice enough the other evening that I took the kids to the elementary across the street to play. They really love that little set up! It was fun for about 30 minutes, until the mosquitoes came out. We headed for home fast at that point, but all have a few little red bumps as souvenirs.

My new favorite - all looking at the camera? Amazing...

My beautiful Jaina is looking so old!

This is such a Reilly face...

The smallest playground set. The perfect size for Katy!

She kept trying to go down head-first, the crazy child.

This is how she spent the last half-hour before bed.
She really loves her shoes (all of them) right now!

Our home

I already showed these to most of our family, but a few friends were wanting to see some, so I decided to put some of them here. We are mostly settled into our little space, and at this point that's enough for me. I'm not much of a decorator, and in this small of a space, we have stuff everywhere, which makes me not want to put as much on the walls anyway. I want to sew some better curtains (since we're using sheets right now)but I'll need to find room to set my sewing machine up (and get motivated) for that to happen... Maybe I'll even make some covers for all our poor mismatched pillows (that USED to go with furniture we had before... in two different rooms). We'll see.

Our tiny kitchen (standing against the washer to take this pic)

Standing in the kitchen to snap the laundry closet

The living room (and Katy, who woke up an hour after bedtime...)

The bathroom we all share

Looking into the kids' room (Katy's still sleeping in our
walk-in closet actually, not her crib)

The storage/computer/play room. Katy's little fun center.

The scary end of that room. (the door goes out into the
living/dining room)

29

Still doing well. Hanging around. Having little colds here and there, but nothing serious. We celebrated my 29th birthday (on the 29th) the weekend before last, and kept it pretty calm. We had dinner at Carrabba's, thanks to a gift card, and went to the beach the next day (Saturday) because that's my favorite place to go (and it's almost free...) The beach we went to was actually right at the start of Chesapeake Bay, and the waves were pretty small and fast. The kids, as always, had a blast. :)  

Katy took her first steps a few days ago, and has even started trying it out herself a little bit in between furniture items. Reilly and Jaina love to cheer her on. Our ward here has been very nice, and several people have invited us over for dinner or family home evening.  We are planning to take a trip to the D.C. Temple (that's the one we're assigned to) over the Labor Day weekend hopefully, so that should be exciting! We miss everyone in Arizona, but we are happy to be here with the beautiful green trees everywhere and the coast so close. We're excited for the heat to let up sometime though; with the added humidity it's pretty icky outside some days!