First Family Vacation

We decided this was the year for our first family vacation.  This is a big deal to us.  Margo and I love to take trips and before kids we traveled a lot and went to a lot of places.  We consider ourselves to be really good vacationers.  But vacationing with kids is a whole new ballgame.  Instead of doing whatever we want, whenever we want, our trips will revolve around the girls and their schedule.  So, no more fancy restaurants or art museums (at least until they get older).
We thought a beach trip would be a good vacation for a couple of toddlers.  We asked a bunch of people we know who go to the beach a lot and finally settled on Navarre Beach in Florida. It is kind of a long drive which we were a little worried about with the girls, so we decided to split up into two days. But the girls did amazing with being in the car for many hours. We did not have to stop a ton of times and there were minimal breakdowns.  Those of you who know us, know that we try to keep tv watching to minimum (or none at all) and we especially don't want our girls to have to watch tv every time we are in the car or take portable dvd players/smart phones everywhere we go to entertain our girls. We have a dvd player in our car but have never used it but thought we might have to on this trip. Amazingly, we did not ever have to use it, the girls were happy playing with toys, books, etc. We were very impressed with how well they did.
Navarre Beach is a lot less crowded and crazy than the more popular places like Pensacola or Destin and it is a lot cheaper.  We are staying at a condo that is really nice and it is not a huge complex which is nice. It has a pool and is right on the beach.  We have a nice balcony that looks right over the ocean.  Since getting here we have spent lots of time on the beach, playing in the sand and water.  The girls have never been in a pool or tried to swim or anything like that.  Esther knows all about swimming though and has seen people swimming on tv and stuff and was super excited to get to swim even though she had no idea how to do it.  When we first went to the beach she saw some people out in the water and she said "I'm going to swim daddy" and took off towards the water about to jump in, so I had to grab her really fast.  She did not understand that it was not that easy.  After taking her out in the water a little, she decided she was not such a big fan.  She does like getting out in the water but only about waist deep.  We tried them in the pool also and they liked it ok but not great.  They would much rather just play in the sand.  I think we need to start Esther on swim lessons soon.  Today we went to the National Seashore which is just down the road and walked around some.  It is really nice there, the sand is so soft, you sink down in it like snow.  We had a good dinner tonight at a seafood place and had some great seafood, including some raw oysters for me.  Another thing that makes us proud parents and how we have raised our girls is they will eat just about anything. We can take them anyplace and give them just about any kind of food and they will eat it.  We don't have to find a place with chicken nuggets and french fries for them.
I think doing a beach trip for our first family vacation was a great decision.  It is perfect for two toddlers.  And it is nice having a condo to have a place to cook and a place for them to sleep and nap easily.  We will keep our fingers crossed that it keeps going as well as it has so far.

First Bike

Last summer we got Esther a tricycle that she did pretty well with and we got it out again a couple weeks ago when it started getting warm and she was doing really good with it so I thought it might be time to move her up to an actual bike. As a side note we had a parenting win....when we got Esther a tricycle last year we also got her a helmet. Even though there is really no danger in her falling because we were always helping push her along, we always made her wear her helmet and told her she can never ride without it.  When we got the tricycle out a couple weeks ago after not riding for a couple months, I forgot all about the helmet.  When I got out the tricycle and she got on it I told her to start pedaling and she said no. I thought maybe she had forgot or something so I started trying to push her to help her and she said, no I can't ride without my helmet. Parenting success!!! Now back to the new bike, last week I decided to buy her a new (used) bike, her first real bike.  She was pretty excited about it but I think I was even more excited for her. When I was a kid, my bike was a huge part of my life. I rode it all the time (and got hurt on it all the time). My brother and I made up a game called cops and robbers that we played on our bikes that was a little dangerous.  When I was a little older, most afternoons in the summer I would go ride with my friend who lived a few houses down (which is a mile or so away in the country) and we would ride all over the place for miles and do all kinds of stuff. To me, my bike equaled a little bit of freedom and that was amazing for a 12-15 year old. So, I am excited for Esther to have her first bike, because I loved riding bikes when I was young.
We took her out to ride at a planned subdivision that has not been built yet but has the roads in, which was perfect. She did really great for her first time on a real bike.  She pedaled well and did good steering.  Her only problem was braking to often because with her tricycle when you pedal backwards it does not do anything but on the bike when you pedals backwards it brakes. She had a couple crashes  which is inevitable and she cried a little but she got right back up and kept going. And we know she had a good time riding because when we decided it was time to go home, she had a meltdown because she did not want to go.

Here is Esther on her little bike.

 And not to be left out, we brought Clara's little car for her to ride on. And she had to have a helmet like big sister.

Here is an additional funny picture.  We tried Clara out on the tricycle but she was not quite big enough yet so she just started flintstoning it. And of course, Esther thought she needed some assistance. 

Two Generations of Friends

Some of our best friends, Evan and Emily, had a new baby a week or so ago. After the girls got over their upper respiratory junk they had going on, we finally got to go see the new addition. Esther and Clara love getting to see and play with Evan, Emily, and especially Benson whenever we can and now we can welcome Lucy to the mix. We got a few good photos from that day that I wanted to put on here. 

Esther checking out Lucy

Benson and Clara playing a duet, complete with surprise faces

Clara, Esther, and Benson playing a triet (or trio?)

Everything Changes

Just thought I would update the blog with the current status of some goings on. It turns out the offer and contract we got on selling our house did not work out. Now we are back to trying to sell our house so that we can buy and move to the place we have a contract on.  We have about a month left to get a contract on our place so we can get the new place.  It is very nerve racking not knowing if this is going to end the way we want.  All we can do for now is just keep hoping for our place to sell because we really want to get the other place.

On a totally different note, I wanted to give an update on my running project. The update is that I ended it. I did not want to end it but I felt like I had to.  With all this selling and buying of houses that came about all the sudden things were getting kind of hectic around here. I did not have enough time in the day to do everything I wanted to do and I needed to cut back on something. The something that got cut was running, which is unfortunate. Maybe I will try again in the future.  I am pleased with the progress I did make and what I was able to accomplish but I have to admit it was not easy like I thought it would be in my grandiose ideas. We may never know if I would have been able to accomplish my main goal.

What?!?!

The Farm of Hale is moving (again), hopefully for the last time for a long time. We always knew our current location was temporary.  We just wanted to spend some time here to let the housing market come back so we could make some money off this house and then hopefully find a permanent home. We absolutely love our current location but we need a bigger house and would like more acreage.  We wanted to be picky about our next place and find just the right place. Our only timeline was we wanted to be in our more permanent location by the time Esther started school which is in a few years so we had time to be picky. A place happened to come along that we went and looked at a couple weeks ago and we decided it would be a great place for us. So, we made an offer and they countered and we accepted.  The only contingency was that we had to sell our house and we had 45 days to do so.  So we got our house all spiffed up and listed our house for sale by owner yesterday and put it on craigslist and Margo's facebook.  We showed it once yesterday, and once today and had three more showings set up. But the second person who looked at it wanted it, for full price!!!! So, we signed a contract on it.  It was crazy.  I had someone else call after that and offer us more than asking price.  As long as everything goes like we hope and it appraises, we will be moving May 28th.
The new place will enable us to do a lot more farm stuff. We are going to move further out which is what we have to do in order to have a bigger farm and afford it. It is in Prairie Grove Schools and is northeast of Prairie Grove about 6 miles.  It is about 10 miles to the interstate and 12 miles to our work.  It is 20 acres with a 1750 sqft house (that needs to be updated) with a big shop, two barns, pond.  It even has a rental mobile home on it that is already rented.  It will be a great farm place and enable us to do a lot of things so we are excited about it to say the least.

Memorable Easter

I could not resist posting this picture. We had a pretty normal Easter overall today except that something funny/awesome happened for church. Every parent has ideas of how they would like their child to be or act. One of my things is that I (Josh) want our girls to be silly, have fun and to be themselves. I also think it would be great for them not to fill pressured to conform to ways of acting that don't really matter or don't make sense. I am kind of a rebel on things so it is not surprising that I want them to act like me. So when Esther begged to wear her Russian looking leopard print hat for Easter (the holiday where we celebrate Jesus resurrection by dressing kids in extra fancy new clothes to go to church and hunting eggs brought by bunnies) we said sure, why not. I know at the very least we made a great family memory today, the day Esther wore a leopard print hat to church for Easter, and that makes me really happy. I am willing to bet that in 10-20 years when we are reminiscing about all the years that have gone by we will still remember the time Esther wore a silly hat on Easter instead of not remembering Easter 2013 as anything special. 

Happy Faces

Esther has been having some amazing after sleep hair recently. It is awesome. This is my new favorite picture of her, amazing hair and silly face

And we can't leave out Clara who is always up for hamming it up.