Strange and Obscure Item #2

Please feel free to leave your description. I'm speechless.

The New House

Day three...I promised daily updates (for a while), and here we are! So here are a couple of pictures of the new house and neighborhood. Somehow they're a bit out of order... the first one is the back of the house. You can see a bit of the trampoline, and the playhouse that the prior owner left behind. How perfect! The second one is the front of our beautiful house. We love it! Reilly is on Kurt's shoulders, if you can't see. I wanted to capture a bit of the neighborhood as well, so took one down the street into the cul-de-sac. We live toward the end of a "double cul-e-sac" - the first one you can see, and the second one is off to the left. Reilly has a 9 year old boy next door to play with, and there are quite a few kids around all the time.
Last night we spent the evening after the kids were in bed at a "driveway party" next door. Apparently this is a regular occurance around here, and a good number of the neighbors were in attendence, including the old owner of our house (he's joking about moving in downstairs!). It was a jolly occasion...including a few beverages we didn't partake in, and also the second ranked whistler in the world joined us and whistled "Happy Birthday" to our new neighbor Cheryl, and also "The Lord's Prayer". It really was beautiful (the whistling) and a very entertaining bunch of people! We're excited for the opportunities here and really are enjoying our new neighborhood.

Strange and Obscure "New York" Decor

That's the only explanation I have for some of the stuff that the previous owner left behind (he's from NY). I understand why he didn't take these things with him. I think I'll post a pic a day. I would love to hear your description of each of the items- so here's the first!

Garage Sale

The Gebhards girls with Ali and Emma sipping their orange Crush through Dax's baby bottles...
We had a garage sale on July 11 at the house. Tons of help from the Foundry with the sale and with beginning to pack the house! Steve Lai was amazing with the customers- he would introduce himself and host them, offering them a bag to carry their things in and making some great deals. Everyone walked away happy!
Shea and the girls made a lemonade stand and and had lots of fun. I think it was around 98 degrees or something, but the hat was "necessary" for some reason, along with the jeans.
Kurt and Reilly slept on the mattress for sale on the driveway to protect the goods through the night. We set up all of it on Friday, so it sat out all night. Fun bonding for the two of them.
Bright and early...what faithful friends we have! The garage sale was great and we off-loaded a lot of stuff that we didn't need to cart across the country. We had a lot of fun doing it, too! Thanks to all of the people who helped us out!

Hickory, North Carolina

One of the MANY treasures the previous owner left for us. This was a "toad house" wind chime or something. We also got a ceramic life sized wiener dog, a stork with his mouth open large... and the list goes on into even stranger things. However, the house is beautiful!
The kids ready to go swimming at our new friends' house this morning.
The lovely welcome Shea received from the mosquitos. She itched like crazy!
Where to start...we arrived in Hickory North Carolina just a few short days ago, and I haven't seen a computer in over two weeks, so I apologize for any of you who actually expect somewhat regular updates!
So from June 15 (I believe that was my last post) until now- almost two months later -our lives have basically turned upside down. We decided right around June 15 that the Lord was calling our family to North Carolina. We sold the house (no small thing!!), bought one here in Hickory, and spent the next month and a half packing boxes, tying up loose ends, saying difficult good-byes and getting SO excited to meet our friends here in Hickory.
The good-byes were difficult- we will miss our friends and family dearly, but the welcome we have received here has been royal. I'm just waiting for them to realize that we're pretty normal people- at least let me speak for myself... So the pantry and fridge was filled to capacity- I'm talking 6 jars of peanut butter and 7 jars of grape jelly "filled". They found out exactly what we like, then everyone at the church shopped with the list! We are well cared for here, and already feel at home with the church family. They are warm, kind, sweet, and exceedingly generous! I can't say the same for the mosquitos, though they think my kids are warm, sweet, and exceedingly generous (for playing outside in the evenings). Shea is apparently allergic to the mosquitos here. See the picture.
Well, I am going to make a promise to you all that I am going to post updates here on the blog daily to catch everyone up to speed with our life adventure (and make sure I have no gaps in my memory book!), so keep checking! I can't wait to catch up with all of my blogging friends!

Our little man. This pic was taken tonight. He is nudie because he messes up all of his clothes multiple times every day!
Dax loves to be swaddled tightly like a burrito- I love it!
I love this- Reilly snuggled up to Dax and the two of them were chilling together on the couch...
Reilly receiving his AR award from our principal
Well, as you can see, I'm finding it difficult to keep up the blog... Anyway, the end of the school year arrived so quickly! Reilly and Shea were both in the top twenty readers in their whole school this year. They both received awards from the principal, Mr. Evans, for this achievement. The kids earn points when they take on-line quizzes after reading a book. Depending on the length and difficulty of the reading, the points vary. These two pics at the end are from the "AR party" (accelerated reader).
Reilly also participated in the spelling bee and after winning in his classroom, he went on to take second place in all of the third grade! We are so proud of him! He reads like a maniac- in the car, in bed, on the couch (as you can see above!), anywhere and anytime. He loves books, which means he is a great speller.
All is well here! Dax is growing well, the kids are glad to be out of school, and we are filling our summer with park days and fun with friends (until it heats up around here!). It's been in the mid 70's all of June so far- we have been enjoying that!
We decided to go to Disneyland yesterday (last minute plan) as it was the last day SoCal season pass holders could go for the summer. When we arrived at around 1:00, Disney was already full to capacity, and there were a mess of people backed up for parking...so we left! We spent the day in the car as we hit major traffic on the way home because of a bad accident. Certainly NOT one of the perks of living in LA. Well, I hope to be posting a little more regularly, but we'll see about that...

Reillyism

Sometimes I wonder what exactly is going on inside the mind of a nine year old boy. Tonight at the dinner table I got a glimpse. Reilly was telling us what he envisions his life being like in the future. "When I grow up, I'm going to have two dogs, a talking bird, and a Ferrari." I wouldn't be surprised if he really means that. A nice car, the bird riding shotgun, and the dogs in the back seat...ahhhhh, the perfect life.