Sunday, June 28, 2015

Back on the Bandwagon!

Greetings from the Gleed family! No, I didn't forget about the blog, just temporarily forgot what my email was for this account.  Here's to recommitting myself to online blogging.
Since my last post A LOT has happened.  A few brief highlights of 2014 will have to suffice. First off, we are real adults! We are in debt and have two kids. We're just missing the family dog. We bought a 4 bedroom 3.75 bath house located at 1213 28th st SE Auburn, WA 98002. We love having our own space and ability to change whatever the heck we want. We grow a garden and we have homemade swing in the back yard.  Now the kids can have a true childhood.  Sure we've had a few frustrating learning curves being homeowners but overall we love having a place to call our own.
We bought a 2009 Town and Country van that we love. We spent the year working and playing.
Fast forward to today--
Cameron
Work is going well for him. He works so hard for our family. In the month of May, guess how many hours he billed...220!!!!!! That's just BILLED hours, not total hours that he was physically at work. I can't imagine working that many hours. A fun thing that few of his coworkers did was put together a pull-up contest. They split into two teams and over the busy season they recorded each week how many pull-ups they could do. His team was Team Karate Kid. His first week he started out doing 11 pull-ups and at the end of the contest he could do 24. 24 PULL-UPS! He's the strongest man alive. I literally can't do one. Even though their team lost, he personally won (he got a cd of MC Hammer...awesome) because he was able to do the most.
He's working on studying for the CORE exam that he'll take in October.
He is currently serving as our ward's Elders Quorum President.  He's been in just over a year. They snatched him up pretty quick after we moved in. He's had a hard time keeping fully staffed -is that OK to say about church callings? Everyone has moved! Good thing Cameron has an upbeat personality and doesn't get frustrated easily or for very long. He's just the best!
Julia
Not too much has changed with me.  I still love staying home to take care of the kids.  We recently got a membership to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. We've loved it! It's nice going and not feeling pressured to make it to EVERY SINGLE exhibit. We just go and let the kids decide where they want to go. They mostly want to play on the playground, but that's OK. We also got a Discover Pass which gets us into the State Parks.  We have Flaming Geyser State Park pretty close to our house. We love going after Cameron gets home from work. Its got everything! Trails for hiking, a playground, a river with endless rocks to throw into the river, and a path to ride bikes. We've been there a few times and have loved it!
I love finding on pinterest creative projects to do to our house and garden.  This year for our garden I built 3 raised beds, a trellis for the beans and peas, and a rainbow trellis for the pumpkins.  We planted beets, carrots, lettuce, spinach, peas, beans, pumpkin, tomatoes, peppers, asparagus. Some plants are growing better than others but thankfully things are growing. It's so fun to have a garden!
In September last year I had a seizure. Basically--no reason why it happened or if it will happen again.  I couldn't drive for 6 months which was a hard adjustment but we made it through. What was really hard was in October when I got an ulcer on my left eye! I swear childbirth didn't hurt that bad.  Ok, that is an exaggeration, but it was EXTREMELY painful. It was only this last week or two that I've had enough confidence to try wearing contacts again.  Now any sort of hint of pain and I freak out and worry that my eye will explode again. Good thing I look  good wearing glasses or contacts.
Last but not least, I'm the YW Secretary in our ward.  It's going just fine.
Addie May
How we love our dearest Addie! She's so smart! She memorized ALL 13 Articles of Faith before her 3rd birthday. Who does that? She's being more assertive with her wants.  If we ask her to do something she doesn't want to do or we say a word she doesn't want us to say she quickly says, "A DON'T SAY THAT ONE!" Of course when she says this to Cameron he is quick to tease and says whatever he can to push her buttons.  This was going on the other night when we were driving in the van. After Addie had more than she could handle she yelled, "STOP TALKING!!" We laughed so hard.
Another little quirk of Addie is that she frequently repeats what we say only whispering. For example we'll say something like, "Addie, let's go get in the bath and tonight we can have bubbles!" She'll whisper "tub and have bubbles." There is no pattern to what she repeats, but it's an interesting thing that she does.
 We've started exploring other parks around Auburn and she's found something to love at each one.  At Brannen Park, she love the sea-saw. At Indian Tom park she loves riding on the horse-the kind that have the big spring on the bottom that rock back and forth.  She's a little possessive of it, but is slowly learning that it's not too hard to share. We've also taken the kids to Pioneer Elementary (where they will attend when they are old enough for school). That has 4 playgrounds there and they love running to each of them.
She's super smart at figuring out the lock to her door.  We have to lock her in her room sometime for bedtime and nap time. We've gone through a few phases of door knobs on her room door and we're out of options since she's figured how to get out of everything we've tried.  We love our Addie May and are so thrilled to be able to be her parents. She is such a joy!
Boston
I swear this kid grew up overnight.  I'm not even joking. In this past week he's learned the following: how to climb out of the pack and play that he sleeps in for naps, how to climb up on the counters in the kitchen and bathroom,  how to got to sleep night and morning without nursing. Yes, this means I don't have to nurse anymore. Mixed emotions about this, he just cold turkey did it one night.  He also learned just last night to climb out of the crib! We're putting the bunk beds back together and will start the adventure of Addie and Boston sharing a room. I can already see grey hairs from this experience.
At his 18 month well child check this past week, Dr. Naylor said that he is growing perfectly except his speech.  He said that if Boston's not talking by September then he recommends that Boston go to therapy.  We've tried making more of an effort to have him talk and I actually think he's improved even in these past few days with us making a conscious effort.
One thing that Boston has recently picked up is his love for hitting Addie May.  He thinks it's hilarious to hit or throw things at her and she (understandably) doesn't' like it and yells and cries. sigh.

We've had a fun vacation so far this year. I took the kids home to Bear Lake for a week while Cameron finished up his busy season at work.  It was so fun to relax and let the kids soak in the country life. I love being home. We then met Cameron in San Francisco for a week of vacation there. That wasn't quit as relaxing since it was a foreign place for all of us.  We got the City Pass which let us on the Trolleys, a bay cruise under the Golden Gate Bride, the Science Center, Art Museum, and Aquarium.  We played on the beach, went to Palo Alto for lunch with a companion of Cameron, and went to Oakland to the temple. We did have a good time, but we won't be going to a big busy place like that for a while.

That about wraps it up for us.  I promise to do a better job recording our awesome life!