Hawaii-bound

Last October, during the annual conference for Damon's work, he received an all-expenses trip for 2 to Hawaii for exceeding his budget goals for the year. They pay for airfare, 7-nights at a gorgeous hotel, and $100/day for food! All we had to do was buy a ticket for Abby. Damon's birthday (Thursday) seemed like the perfect time to take it now that we're settled in the house, and Damon has filled some key positions at work. We leave Friday for paradise!

The only thing I'm absolutely dreading is the flight there. We fly from Denver to Honolulu NONSTOP. SEVEN hours. With a 2-year-old. Who's suddenly become a typical "terrible two" year-old. At least the flight leaves at noon, which is around naptime, so hopefully she'll sleep for part of the flight. And she's old enough now that she'll actually enjoy being on a plane and be able to take it all in. I'm just know the novelty will eventually wear off when she realizes that she's stuck in her carseat for seven hours! I've been stock-piling provisions from the dollar store to hopefully buy us an hour. Seven hours with nowhere to hide! I'm having nightmares just thinking about it.

The flight home? RED EYE!

We're back!

We finally have internet access! The developer of our neighborhood talked to some higher-ups at Qwest to get things moving along, so we were finally able to get DSL. Comcast is now saying that they wait until a certain percentage of homes in the neighborhood before they even bother setting up service, so it'll be at least 4-5 months before cable and cable internet are available here. They're not going to have many subscribers since no one is going to wait that long! I'll be back soon with tons of pictures before the grandmas attack!

First Haircut

Still no internet access at home. It'll be the middle of next month (hopefully!) before QWEST will be available in our neighborhood. Cable internet won't be available for 2 months! Thank goodness for a laptop and coffee shops! Anyway, here are some pictures of Abby's first haircut. A month ago. I'll post some better "after" pictures next time I can sneak out to get online. It's really a cute bob. She didn't lose the curl; it just gives it a cute flip. Click on the pictures to see more.

BEFORE:


AFTER:

We're still here

We still don't have internet access at home thanks to a mix-up with Qwest. We'd decided to go with them instead of the cable company because we'd be hooked up by now. Unfortunately, they weren't able to hook our phone up today since they refused to believe that everthing was already in place for them. Everyone else in the neighborhood has phone service but us. Hopefully we'll have internet soon, so I can post a bunch of pictures.

Anyway, we're fine. We're getting settled. Having John at the house with us has been a huge help. We have pictures on the walls already! My mom, sisters, and aunt came for a visit last weekend. It was so great seeing them again! I can't believe it's been a year. Abby got her first haircut a couple weeks ago. She looks like such a little girl now!

Our walk-through yesterday went really well. Most of what we found were just paint touch-ups. I love that we got to do this a week before we close, so they have time to fix as much as they can before we move in. The project manager we met with told us they already have a lot of their subcontractors scheduled to come in today to get started. Despite taking more than a year from the initial contract-signing, we've had a terrific experience with our builder. Everyone has been very helpful, and they've treated us as if we're they're only clients. Now, we are definitely anxious to move in and finally get settled. This coming Thursday is the big day! We have another walk-through in the morning to check the stuff that was supposed to get fixed and go over how to use things like the thermostat, and we close in the afternoon. We'll be loading up the car with as much as we can and spending the night in the empty house that night. John will be here Friday to help us move our things out of our current home, so we'll at least have beds and a couch for the weekend.

They mentioned to us yesterday that the Air Force Academy's head football coach, a neurosurgeon (McDreamy!), and a head guy for Comcast are all building houses in our neighborhood! We're going to have some very impressive neighbors. If only someone would buy a lot on our street already! Damon jokes that it's going to be like living on an acreage for a while.

Let there be light!

Our house is done! The city turned the electricity on to the neighborhood May 30 (right on schedule!), and the electrician hooked up circuit breakers and all that last week. We finally have electricity!! All that was left was carpet and the driveway, and both went in last week too. Our walk-through is scheduled for Thursday, and we close next week. The next 10 days are going to fly by!

He was a little early, but my Gumpa came for a short visit last week. It's too bad we weren't in the house yet, but we had a nice visit anyway.



And a bonus picture because I haven't posted Abby pictures in a long time.

The official end of babyhood

Something amazing has happened in the past week. I've been a little hesitant to blog about it because I was afraid of jinxing it. It's now been a week, though, so it's time I come clean. I still can't believe it's happened so easily and quickly.

Abby's potty-trained.

We've been pretty lazy about it the last couple months, but last Tuesday I realized we were down to 6 diapers. I vowed then that I wouldn't buy diapers again. Abby spent the rest of the day in panties, only having one accident at home. That afternoon, I decided to try to overcome my fear of Abby having an accident in public. We had an errand to run about 5 minutes from home, so it was a good first step. I spent the entire drive telling Abby over and over that she needed to tell me if she had to go, and that she wasn't to go in the car. It turned out my fear was unwarranted. We spent about an hour away from home, and she did fine in her panties. No accidents!

A few days later, on Thursday, she completely shocked me. I had a doctor's appointment, which turned into 4 hours of errands. I put her in a Pull-Up and didn't push the whole "potty" thing at all. I completely expected her to go in the Pull-Up. While we were in the waiting room, she excitedly told me she had to go! We made 5 trips to public bathrooms that afternoon, and only 2 of them were false alarms. She went every other time, and her Pull-Up stayed completely dry!

After a couple days of going out in public wearing Pull-Ups, only for Abby to stay dry, we bit the bullet and let her wear panties out on Sunday while we ran some errands. We've been fortunate that the few accidents she's had this week have all been at home. We've already had to stop at a gas station only 5 minutes after leaving home a couple times, but for the most part she's been great about only telling us when she actually needs to go. We're still using Pull-Ups during naps and at bedtime, but she's even been staying dry at naptime as well.