Mackenna turns 2!

Wow! Time sure has flown by with this one, I can't believe she is 2!! Mackenna is so sweet and laid back, she has been a true blessing, as the second child.

 

 She is the favorite child when it comes to sleep, she takes great naps with no fight at all, and sleeps till 7 most mornings. And she wakes up happy saying "Hi Mommy!!" Then goes to lay on the couch and watch cartoons, while fighting off Bridget who has already been up for two hours and is ready to play!

 While Mackenna does love to watch shows, and can be a bit of a couch potato sometimes, she can get pretty crazy running around the house yelling "TIGER!!!" while roaring up a storm!

Love you Mackenna!

Week 2

Almost 2 weeks done! Wednesday is almost over, so that makes it practically Saturday right?!
I'm not going to lie, the first few days were REALLY rough, like feeling sick every night when I was used to having Josh home the most.
But we have gotten in a good routine, and I feel more comfortable about everything. I try not to look at calendars too often, but it's hard to not have a countdown going on.

The girls have been having fun playing on their somewhat new bunk beds, that came just in time before Josh left to put together!

 We've been staying busy with dance class

 Playing outside lots!

 And taking a lot of bubble baths!

 

Bridget also had her first Primary program at church, and since Josh missed it I snuck in some pictures!

 

Here we go!!

We dropped Josh off at the airport this morning, to begin the DEA academy. We will miss him like crazy, but I am so excited for this new career opportunity for him. It's the first time in a long time I have seen him so excited about something work related.

 

Saying goodbye, was hard. Mackenna obviously has no idea what is going on. I tried to explain to Bridget as best as I could, but I am sure she will be asking tomorrow morning where Dad is.

 

 Leaving the airport, I was taking deep breaths, praying and trying to hold it together.
Bridget says "I bet Daddy is going to have a lot of fun, and we are going to have fun too!" Those little words calmed my fears in that moment, and I knew everything was going to be okay. I'm sure there will be hard days, but I am just going to take it week by week!

 We are both hoping he will be able to come home at least once around the holidays. He graduates February 6th, and then we will get ready to move to our new location! Exciting times ahead!

Is it February yet?!?!?!

The big 4!

 

I recently took Bridget to take some birthday pictures. I have such a hard time getting her to do her natural smile. She always looks so awkward!

 This one I tried getting her to laugh, it was the best I could get!

 Then she wanted to start doing her own poses, nothing good came from it, Haha!

 And this is her saying "I really want to go play on that playground!!"

Love that girl!

Princess Party

Saturday Bridget had her Princess birthday party.  She and her friends played dress up, made necklaces, ate pizza and cake, and had a blast just playing!

I'm no Cake Boss, in fact I have VERY little experience with cakes, but I have to say I was pleased with how this castle cake turned out. The important thing was that Bridget knew it was a castle without me having to tell her, and she loved it!!

 Making necklaces

 Opening presents!

 Mackenna picked out these Rapunzel shoes for her, so they don't have to keep fighting over the one pair we had!

 Cake time!

 It took her a few blows to get them all out!

We all had a great time celebrating Bridget's special day! Although I have to keep reminding her that it wasn't her actual birthday yet!

Big Duck Lake

Josh had been planning this backpacking trip since March when we found out we would have a week in between each of our families reunions. He decided to take me to Big Duck Lake, a place he had been to as a young boy scout.

A stop to enjoy the beautiful scenery!

That's me way back there, hunched over, trying to make it up the mountain!

We found the BEST camp spot, where someone had set up rocks to make a pretty sweet living space.

Josh getting dinner started

Josh made a pulley system with rope and put our bear bag up high!

We had been feeling rain drops on and off throughout the evening, and it got pretty cloudy, but we hoped it wouldn't turn into anything more. We hadn't packed any tarps or protection for rain so we were in big trouble if it rained hard!

Before we got into our hammocks to go to sleep, Josh found a huge rock with a pretty good overhang that was almost like a little cave. We decided that if it started to rain, we would get in the cave.

And here we are at 11:00 pm in our cave. We both woke up around 10:00 with rain on our face, sopping wet and the wind blowing us in our hammocks and it was COLD! Josh was pretty frustrated with himself and he didn't think to bring anything, but I reminded him that we "thought" California was in a "drought"?! So what the heck was up with the rain?!

This was the last picture we took, because after this we tried to go to sleep and that just wasn't working. At 1:00 AM we gave up and decided to pack up camp and hike back to the car. We left camp at 2:00 and got back to the car around 4:00, and slept in the van till 6:00.

 

It was not how we planned it going at all, but we made the best of it and it is definitely a trip we will NEVER forget.