It has been a very busy couple of weeks.

The weekend of October 3rd, we headed up to Charlottesville, VA for my sister, Andrea’s wedding.  Anna was the flowergirl and the wedding was absolutely gorgeous.  We had a great time and Anna had a blast running around with all of the kids.  The brought in a hot air balloon and tethered it so that it didn’t go up very high and everyone, especially the kids, had a blast watching it and riding in it.  Anna didn’t want to go up in it until they were putting it away and by then it was too late, unfortunately.

For all of my pictures from the wedding, click here for the different albums.

Immediately upon getting back to Chattanooga, with the help of my mom we got the house pretty much packed up for the big move back to Seattle.  We left Tuesday, Oct 5th to make the drive out.  The first day we were in the car 11 hours and made it to Kansas City where we stayed with Dan’s parents.  They threw a little birthday party for Anna and let her open some gifts.  She had a blast (as usual) with her cousin Alex and he even stayed overnight and had a little sleepover with her.

On Wednesday, Oct 6th, we drove 12 hours to Cheyenne, WY and stayed in a hotel.  When we got there it was probably 65-70 degrees.  When we woke up the next morning there was snow on the ground!!  It was about 25 degrees outside and FREEZING.  We definitely weren’t expecting that!  Anna had walked in the hotel in flip-flops so I had to go dig some tennis shoes out of the car.  Crazy!  So it was a little slow going getting out of Cheyenne with the snowy weather.

Thursday, Oct 7th was a nice, “short” 7 hour drive into Salt Lake City where we stayed with a friend who I met on my online “mommy” message board.  She has twins who are a couple of weeks older than Anna, so they all had a bunch of fun together. (The first two pics below were at a stop in Utah.  The last is of Anna having fun with her new friends.)

Friday was my longest day.  I was determined to make it into Seattle by the end of the day so that we’d have all day Saturday to spend together for Anna’s 4th birthday.  I think I was in the car a total of 13-14 hours.  We left Salt Lake City at 7:30am PST and got to Puyallup around 11pm or so at night.  We hit traffic right before coming over Snoqualmie Pass (the only real traffic of our ENTIRE trip) and that tacked on about 45 minutes to an hour which was very frustrating since we were so close and SO TIRED.  We had a short stop in Snoqualmie to visit our friends Andre & Mary and their kids, and then we headed down to Puyallup.  We were exhausted but happy to be home.

Saturday, October 10th was Anna’s 4th birthday!  I can’t believe it she’s 4!  Time flies.  (I think I say that every year..)  Since we’d just gotten to town the night before we didn’t really have a birthday party planned, but we did have a little impromptu one with some friends and let her open presents.  She got her “big” presents when we got back to the house: a new Disney Princess bike and a balance beam!  She loves both.

That last picture I took on her birthday at exactly 9:25pm, the time she was born.  :)

Saturday afternoon we went to the pumpkin patch with our friends David & Claire and their kids (and Claire’s mom & brother too!).  Anna had a great time with the boys and I got a lot of great pictures.  Here’s a few, but check out the whole album here: http://theboghs.com/photos/thumbnails.php?album=104

Tuesday, Anna started preschool!  She goes Tuesdays and Thursdays for 2 hours each day.  She had a lot of fun and seems to love it.  She’s very excited because she gets to go on her first field trip with her class next Tuesday to the pumpkin patch (again).  I get to go with her so I’ll be sure to get even more pictures.  I didn’t get a “first day” picture on Tuesday, but here’s one of her right before going in on Thursday.

Tuesday afternoon we tried out a new gymnastics class.  In hindsight it was probably a little much to do her first day of preschool and first day of gymnastics in the same day, because she was pretty tired.  The class that they put her in was way above her level…all 6 year olds (though it was supposed to be a 4-6 year old class) and I think the instructor didn’t really know what to do with her.  Here are some pics of her on the beam though.  The rest start here in the Fall 2009 album on my website.

So I think that pretty much catches you up with what’s going on with us.  Anna and I both have colds now, but hopefully those will go away soon.  We’re trying out another gym class next Wednesday (not on a school day again!) and hopefully this one will be a better fit.  ‘Til next time…