at long last

At long last, I'm blogging again. For some reason, when life is in constant transition, it's hard to keep up a normal routine (it's really weird). Needless to say, since I have neglected this for almost 2 months, there is a lot of catching up to do. So we'll be going all the way back to Easter!

Happy Easter

Okay, where's those easter eggs

These people are so crazy, they made it so easy!

Hmm, these rocks look good too

Sydney was quite the smarty pants with the easter egg hunt. Knowing that Sydney wouldn't be getting the candy inside, Grandma only filled a few. It didn't take her long to figure out that some of the eggs had something in them and others didn't. So she began shaking the eggs before putting them in her basket, and if they didn't shake, she didn't take it. Pretty fun to watch the mind of a 16month old work.

Victoria

After John got home, he had a couple weeks off, so we took a little trip to Victoria, BC. Here is our time, in pictures:

I love the ferry!

Our little cottage- just 2 blocks from the Parliament Building, very convenient  

The Craigdarroch Castle- the was an amazing home, but I'm not sure I would classify it as a castle.

Fisgard Lighthouse

Buchart Gardens- it was hard to narrow down these pictures, what a beautiful place

We hit it at the perfect time for tulips

Sydney was learning to be gentle with the flowers, she did pretty good!

The Parliament Building

The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

On the way back from Victoria, we stayed a night in Mount Vernon and hit the Tulip Festival. Again, gorgeous and hard to only pick a few pictures. 

Don't worry, we didn't forget Sydney, she was just sleeping in her stroller

These were my favorite

And now

Now our lives have almost gone back to normal, except that we still don't have a home. We are so grateful to our friends who have allowed us to live with them during this time. But don't worry, the end is in sight! Finally! We will close on our house on June 22nd. 

After we got back from this trip, John returned to work, and we continued to look for a house. It was kind of strange because this is supposed to be a good time to buy a house, lots of options on the market. Well, we did not find that to be true. Yes, it is still a good time to buy, but over here the inventory is a bit low. We had a hard time finding a house in our price range. If we went to the low end of our price range, the houses were a dump (and we don't have time for a fixer upper). The houses that fulfilled our needs and some of our wants, were too high.  But, alas, we did find one. And I guess, that's really all we needed. It is also located on Shirley Street, for those of you who don't know, that's John's mom's name, we took that as a sign! 

Between now and the 22nd, the Robbins' 3 will continue to stay at our friend's until the middle of next week. Then we will be flying to Oklahoma City, where John will be attending a class at the FAA. We are hoping to be able to sign the papers for the house down there. And then when we come back on the 23rd, we should no longer be homeless (since it has now been a year and 2 weeks since we moved from our home in AK).   

I almost forgot! Some where in there (shame on me for not writing this down), Sydney got her first 2 teeth!! They came in together one night, no crying or fussing, they just finally decided to show up!

It's kind of hard to see them, but they're there! I think she's still getting used to actually using them.

 Ok, I think I have covered all major events. Until next time...