What's New in Reno?

Some family members have been asking what we've been up to up here. I guess our lives have changed drastically since we moved, but it doesn't feel that way to me. It is not a big adjustment to go from working full time and being stressed out and overwhelmed on a regular basis to staying home again. It just feels like this is how things should have been all along. No adjustment period. Well I guess the big adjustment is being on one income again and working within the constraints of that, but it's kind of a fun challenge to make it all work. I've been cooking again, something Eddie had been doing when we were both working since he was home earlier than me. I don't mind cooking, but I'm not as good at it as Eddie.

I've spent a lot of the last few weeks unpacking and getting the house in order. Today we plan on tackling the last few things so the boxes will be gone. We've been finding creative solutions to deal with the lack of storage space that we have been accustomed to in our last 2 houses. We have no pantry here, no linen closet and a smaller garage. We bought an inexpensive cabinet to use as a pantry after having no luck on Craigslist. We managed to get both cars into the garage just before our 1st mini-snow. It's nice not to have to scrape ice off the windows. We are making things work. It's all about being creative and thinking outside the box to find solutions to make everything fit. I'm sure there is still more stuff we could purge to free up some space. I'll have to work on that after the holidays are over.

Eddie has been at his job for 3 weeks. He's catching on fast and his 1st evaluation went well. He went to his work Christmas party last night, and says his coworkers are very nice. The work keeps him busy all day long, but he seems to like it.

I joined a mommy meetup group in town and took Nate down to a place with the blow up bounce houses last week. He loved it! I met some other moms, but Nate wasn't too interested in the kids in such a big place. We planned to go to a story time with Santa with the meet up group this past week, but Nate has had a little cold and has been super cranky off an on. That was a cranky day so we didn't make it. So there is plenty to do with other moms and kids if we choose. We haven't met anyone in our neighborhood yet, but it hasn't exactly been nice weather for playing outside very much.

Two weeks ago I started the beginnings of potty training with Nate. I found a train sticker chart that we taped up in his bathroom. It started with getting a sticker if he would just sit on the potty. So we did that for a few days and then one night he peed on the potty for the first time. Two stickers for that. He could get a piece of candy or some treat if he got 6 stickers. He filled his first chart in 5 days. We started another chart, but he wasn't very interested in the potty at all this week since he's been sick. He's doing a little better, and a few times he's told me he needs to go potty, but usually I have to catch him after he wakes up. He's making progress, but there is no instant potty training here. And that's just fine. We will go at his pace.

 

 

We've been doing a few art projects this week. We had to invest in some glue (if you call $1 for 4 bottles and investment), but everything else if just misc. craft stuff I've acquired.

 

 

We had our first snow that stuck since being in Reno. It's wasn't much, but still fun to look at from the warmth of the house. Our temperatures have been pretty cold. Lows in the teens or 20s and highs in the 30s or 40s. Not too bad, but definitely colder than we are used to in Vegas.

Nate is obsessed with trains. He has been for a while. He's watched Dinosaur train and Chuggington and has some of the toys. He likes Thomas the Train toys, but has never seen the show. We don't mind because it just seems weird. With so many trains in Reno and the Polar Express, Nate has become a train nut. We took him to Carson City (about 40 minutes away on the 395 S) to ride the Santa Train and the train museum. They do the Santa train 2 weeks each year so it was pretty busy. We had to stand in line outside for a while and it was cold, but we were bundled so no one froze. Nate was very impatient to get on the train, but while we were waiting we got to see the train come around a few times. It had a very loud whistle and Nate would cover his ears and at one point his eyes. He's so funny. He wanted to ride in the caboose so luckily we got to pick the car we sat in. The train went around the track twice. Santa came in to give out candy canes but Nate didn't care too much about Santa. I thought the train was really neat. Especially seeing it up close. There are more trains parked outside of the train museum and some things inside that we didn't stay to see since it was getting to be nap time. We'll have to take a trip back there to see the rest.

It is so nice to have the weekends to do things together as a family. The rest of this week with be much like our regular week, running errands and playing, but we'll work in the Christmas things too like making cookies, mailing Christmas cards and gifts. Our 8th anniversary is on Tuesday so we'll probably do a family date of some sort for now. Mom and Dad arrive Friday morning and will stay through Christmas Day. Fun, but busy times ahead.

Birthday Part 2

On Saturday we did the second part of Nate's birthday fun: Terry Lee Wells Nevada Discovery Museum. It is in Downtown Reno so it takes maybe 20 minutes to get there. It is much newer and nicer than the one in Vegas (although that one is being redone next to the Smith Center soon). Grandma and Grandpa bought us a year membership so we can go as much as we want, and it will get a lot of use. Nate and I have plans to go on Wednesday for an hour before the museum open to everyone where only kids 5 and under can play.

This museum had a lot more hands-on exploration type activities that we all loved. It's definitely not just for kids.

The Truckee River exhibit. Nate probably could have played here the whole time. He loves the water. It snakes around the room, but I didn't get a picture of the whole thing.

The cloud climber is in the same room as the water. It goes from floor to ceiling and has all sorts of twists and turns. Nate didn't make it to the top the first time because it's somewhat maze-like and easy to get going in the wrong direction.

An airplane upstairs that had parts that would move on the wings, which is why Nate is turned around. I'll have to get a shot of the whole plane next time.

There was an ore cart on a track in a room for younger kids only. There were foam rocks and a conveyor belt system that would dump the rocks out of the shoot. Nate loved this room and found 2 other little boys to play with.

A video of the catapult. Sorry for my camera skills. I always forget I can't turn the camera when I'm taking a video.

A giant tire in the Nevada history section. This part was interesting for us. They had a mine, a telegraph and a pioneer/cowboy camp. Nate really liked it too.

 

A decorated Bristlecone Pine tree, one of our state trees.

 

The full shot of the cloud climber. Nate got almost to the top this time by following another kid. He's not scared at all.

 

 

He had such a good time that he didn't want to leave. We will definitely be back often.

Nathan Turns Three

Nate is now of an age where he's had enough experiences with presents that he knew his birthday (and Christmas) meant presents, and he talked about both events quite a bit lately. Of course we helped him with that by asking him what he wanted. His Birthday/Christmas list has been pretty steady with the emphasis changing depending on his mood. Trains, dump trucks, monster trucks and most recently Jake and the Neverland Pirates stuff. Every time we went to Target or Walmart he wanted to look at the toys, but we told him he couldn't get any right now. He was generally pretty okay with that.

On Thursday evening we blew up some balloons and I hung a Happy Birthday banner in the kitchen. I had a Jake and the Neverland Pirates shirt for Nate to open when he woke up and wear for the day. I woke him up a few minutes early so he could open his shirt and see Eddie before he left for work. Nate and I had a normal day doing stuff around the house and running a few errands. We went on a little "hike" in the BLM land behind our house. It was still pretty muddy from the rain, but we had fun walking around.



Nate found a bike tire to haul around in the desert while he looked for the bike it belonged to. We are still working on smiling for the camera.

Our house is the 1 story in the middle. As you can see our fence allows us to look out onto the BLM land.

After Eddie got home and Nate was up from his nap he got to open his presents from Nana and Poppo (Grandma and Grandpa Blubaugh) before we went to dinner. He got a motorized and talking fire engine from Thomas the Train, a Thomas train track and some clothes. He was a happy boy!

We went to Red Robin, a burger place that Nate loved in Vegas mostly because of the balloons. Funny thing was he didn't even want a balloon this time. We all had burgers. Yummy! And Nate got a special dessert with a nice, loud birthday song. He was surprised, but he loved it.

When we got home we got Grandma and Grandpa up on Facetime so they could watch Nate blow out his candles (he didn't care too much about the ice cream and cookie after eating the ice cream at Red Robin) and open his presents.

Nate got his big boy bike from Grandma and Grandpa early before we left so there was nothing to open from them. He got a monster truck, a Jake dress up set and Jake's boat for the bathtub, plus some books. Nate loves to pretend to be Jake, costume or not, but the costume makes it better.

Nate seemed to have a great birthday. Round 2 was the next day to complete our tradition of taking him somewhere fun. I will do a separate post about what we did the next day soon. :)

The Big Move to Reno

Let's back up just a tiny bit although I'm sure most, if not all of you, know the story. In the beginning of October we found out that Eddie got a job up in Reno that would allow him to work in a field that he is knowledgeable in and will challenge him. Plus I would get to stop teaching for the second time and stay home with Nate again. It was a big decision considering all that we would be leaving behind, but something we needed to do for our little family. This must has been the right decision because everything just fell into place for this move to happen.

We decided that our last days at our jobs would be November 16th and that we would load up the day before Thanksgiving, enjoy Thanksgiving in St. George with the Atwood side of the family, and then make the big drive on the day after Thanksgiving. It's a little difficult orchestrating a move around a holiday like that, but we managed. We almost didn't have a truck because the truck rental location decided to close early for the holiday and didn't bother to tell us. Luckily we needed to pick up the truck earlier to deliver our fridge that we sold and found out before it was too late. We had a bunch of help from the church getting all of our stuff loaded up. We ended up making some quick decisions right at the end of the things we had to let go so it would all fit. It was a tight squeeze and this was after selling and donating a lot of our stuff already. That was probably the most stressful day we had in the whole move. We signed closing papers to sell our house that day as well. Busy day.

Friday morning we got on the road at 8:00 with Eddie in the big truck, Nate and Phantom in the van with me, and Mom in Eddie's car. We anticipated a 9 or 10 hour drive, and it ended up being about 10 hours from getting on the I-95 to pulling into our driveway. We made a quick stop in Beatty to stretch our legs since we didn't know for sure when the next good place to stop would be. Our next stop for lunch was in Tonopah where we pulled into a McDonalds and ate outside and let Nate burn off some energy on his bike.

 

We made one last stop in Fallon to fill up the cars and stretch our legs. Nate rode his bike around the gas station there as well. He did very well in the car, but would start getting squirmy at about 2 1/2 hours or so. Grandma drove the van with Nate and Phantom from Fallon to Reno. We pulled into our driveway around 6:30. It didn't feel like a 10 hour trip to me. Luckily we didn't get in too late.

 

We unloaded the cars and dug a few things out of the truck. Mom and I picked up some dinner at Qdoba, which is a quick Mexican place down the street. Nate slept in his Pack N Play and the rest of us camped out on the floor in the bedrooms with blanket and pillows. Not the most comfortable sleep we've all had, but we survived.

 

The next morning some wonderful guys and a few kids from the church down the street came and unloaded our truck in an hour. I don't know how we would have managed without their help. We got cable Internet and TV installed and had a visit from our landlords (a nice older couple who just bought the house as an investment). Then we just unpacked as much as we could with Mom's help all weekend. We got a lot done with her help.

 

We've just been unpacking, well mostly I have been unpacking during the day when Eddie is working and doing some together on the weekends. We are nearly there. We have both cars in the garage. It's a tight squeeze, but they are in. Mostly just wall decor is left and a few miscellaneous things here and there. We've also decorated for Christmas and got a real tree over the weekend. Pictures of the house to come soon.