Park

Can you believe it I'm posting twice in the same month... lol. So, today we went to the park with some new friends from church. We had a really good time. It was nice to get out of the apartment and spend time with others. Bella made a couple of new friends.

This is Preston and Paisley Lineberry.

As most of you know Bella is pretty shy and doesn't normally play with others. I'm very proud to say that she played very well with Preston and Paisley! Paisley is in Bella's class at church and they will both move up to the Sunbeams class in January. Here are a few other pictures from today.

Paisley and Bella posing for the camera Bella smiling for daddy.

Preston, Paisley and Bella running on Mt. Trashmore.
Kate Lineberry with all the kids.

Fall

  We are in Virginia Beach and have been for about 3 weeks. It is a BIG change weather wise from Southern California.  I haven't seen this much rain since I lived in Ohio last fall. It is nice to be back east for the changing of the leaves.  This is one of my favorite times of year. 

Playing at the playground

   We found a place to live when we came to drop Mark off.  It wasn't exactly what we wanted but everything we had written down to look at was rented when we call to see it.  We found a nice apartment (a little small but nice).  We figured we can make anything work for a year.  I am going to start looking and asking about areas so if we decided we don't want to be hear after our year lease we have an idea where to go. 

  We are in a nice ward.  The people seem to be very nice and accepting.  My ward in San Diego was great but it was probably 3 to 4 months before anyone spoke it to me.  Bella gets to go to her first playgroup tomorrow.  She is pretty excited to get to play with other people besides mommy. 



Playing with leaves when we did family pictures when I was in Ohio



Bella watching the ducks at the pond



Blowing a leaf

Busy Summer

I guess I'm not that great at keeping up with this blog.  I keep saying I'm going to better but that never happens.  A lot has happened in our lives since April.  Mark and I both received callings in our ward in San Diego.  He was second counselor in the Young Men's Presidency and I was second counselor in the Young Women's Presidency.  We both LOVED those callings.  There weren't a lot of young men and women in the ward but the ones we had were great!  Our families both came to visit in July and August.  Mark FINALLY finished his schooling for the military. Bella got accepted into preschool in September and LOVED it.  In the middle of September Mark received orders to move to Norfolk, VA.  He received his orders and in 2 weeks we were moving.  Let me tell you that was a little fast!!!!  That about somes up our summer.

Spring is here!

It has been a good Spring so far here in San Diego. The weather is always nice here but it has been going between cool and warm. A few weeks ago it was 80 this week its been in the lower 60's. It is normally sunny all the time. I think the having the sun out really makes a difference in how my day feels.

Mission Beach

Bella is growing like a weed and becoming a big girl! It is hard for me to think that she is 3 years old already. I don't know where the time has gone. She is my mini adult. :) She talks very well and is recently potty trained!!!!

This is a little potty at one of the malls in SD

We had been trying potty training off and on for a few months but she never really had an interest in going all the time. So, about a month ago we really started working on it. I would set a timer and every half an hour we would venture to the potty. Sometimes she would scream for 15 minutes before she would just give up and go potty. I did not use the pull ups. I think those are a waste of time. My mom sent me some training pants and plastic to put over them. That way if she pees on herself she really knows it. So, when we would get up in the mornings we would go potty and not put a diaper on until nap time or bedtime. After about a week of doing this one night she wouldn't let us put a diaper on her anymore. So we have been diaper free for about a month now and it is FANTASTIC!!!!! As much as I don't like potty training I'm hoping with future kids it will be this easy.

Bella really likes to dance and sing and when she does it is very loud. Her two song she sings are Twinkle Twinkle little star, and Itsy bitsy spider. Now, she does not know the whole song so she only sings the parts she knows and I think that makes it more hilarious. Dancing in her Tinkerbell costume

Bella singing The Itsy Bitsy Spider

We have made friends with one couple and they are great! They have 3 little girls. A set of twins that are a little younger than Bella and a 7 month old. We are with them a couple days a week. Mark and I babysat for them last night. It was fun to see how well the girls liked Mark. They were all just laying with him watching their movie. However, I think I will be lucky if I get more than 2 kids.

Kadence, Journey, Georgia and Bella

Mark starts back up with school at the end of the month and that will be about 4 or 5 months long. When he is finished with that we will know whether we are staying here or being moved somewhere else. I wouldn't mind staying here because of the weather but part of me would like to come back east just to be closer to family. But I guess whatever the military tells us to do we will do.

We are finally starting to do food storage. We go with our ward tomorrow night to the Cannery. It is a new thing for us and hopefully we will be able to start and keep it going.

Here are a few more pictures of Bella.

San Diego......finally

Well it is official we are in San Diego! Okay so it like a week late but better late than not at all. We left Ohio on the 14th of January. We left at 6am on that Friday and didn't stop until we were in Texarkana, Texas. It made for a long day but we made it a little farther than we had hoped. The next morning we woke up and left about 6am again. Can I tell everyone that I HATE Texas! We drove all day and finally made it to Las Cruses, New Mexico. The next morning we got up and left the hotel and got about a mile down the highway when we run over something and get a flat tire. It's a good thing that my dad told me how to change a tire. After driving for an hour on our dummy tire we made it to the next town so I could buy a new tire. 2 hours later we finally get the tire on and are ready to leave. We arrived in San Diego on the 16th.
My Mom and Grandma came with me and helped me get everything unpacked and settled. It took a few days but everything is set and ready to be used. :). Sad part is Mom and Grandma had to leave this morning to go home. At least we will have lots of company over the next six months.
I will post some photo's and video's of Bella soon.

Summer days

Where did the summer go? It feels like I blinked and summer was gone. I'm happy about it but also sad. It was a very humid summer this year. I can't remember when it has been so hot.
Not too much happened this summer. I can't remember anything exciting happening in June. July some friends of our family came down to visit for the 4th of July weekend. It was great seeing them and hanging out at mom's with them. They came to my work to watch Red White and Boom. It was fun watching all the kids play together.

At the beginning of August Mark's parents, little brother, Isabella and I flew out to visit Mark for a week. The trip out started off pretty good. We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to get to our plane. First flight went great! We went from Columbus to LA. Bella is a great traveler. She slept for about 3 to 4 of the hours we were on the plane. The next flight from LA to San Diego was delayed for almost an hour. We were SO tired by this point. Luckily the pilot really booked it and it only took 15 mins instead of 45mins. We got into San Diego a little before 11pm their time which is 2am our time. More things went wrong after that because of our delay. We call the rental car company to have them come pick us up and they don't answer. So, Mark and his mom get a taxi and go over and they are closed. When they get back we get a big taxi van to take us to our hotel. When we get to the hotel they say we haven't paid for our room which showed up on my credit card before I left. The guy at the hotel takes my checking account card and say he will only charge the account for one night so that we can just get some sleep and deal with it in the morning. Nice guy right..... Not really. They charged the whole week onto my check card. Luckily I had the money in there to cover it.

We go to bed and when we wake up Mark and his mom go to get the rental car. Mark calls me and tell me to check the bank account because the people there ran our card instead of his parents. So I check and now our account it overdrawn. Then they tell us it could be 2 to 3 days before the money is back in there. I start freaking out. I have to call my mom and see if she can go up to the bank and deposit some money so I don't get hit with fees. After that everything went pretty smooth. We went to the beach a couple times, to Legoland. It was a blast!

Can I just say I LOVE San Diego!! The weather is great and the people are nice. I'm pretty excited to move out there to be with Mark.

Here are a couple of recent photos of Isabella:

Isabella playing with play-doh. We sent this photo to Daddy!

This is Isabella getting ready to go to church one morning. She LOVES to go to church and see her nursery teacher!
Well that is it for now. I will keep updating this as often as I can.

Life

Life has been so busy over the past year. I'm not good about checking this regularly, I will try to get better in the future. The past year has been a whirl wind for us. In February Isabella turned 2! We had a big party for her with all of both of our families. I had it at the ward building so that we had enough room for everyone. With both of our families we had about 40 or 50 people. It's a lot of work to get a party like that together. We (my mom and mother in law) did all the food.
Also, in February Mark joined the Navy. He left for boot camp 3 days after Bella's birthday. It was harder than I thought for him to leave. He was working nights so I really only saw him on the weekends so I thought it wouldn't be too hard. Man was I wrong. After the first few weeks it started to get a little easier. We still miss him like crazy but it is all for the best for our family.
Now I am trying to get the house pack so I can put it up for sale. We will (most likely) be heading out to live in San Diego for a year or so. That could all change. Well, I will post more another time.