And he's off!

The Ambrose Early Easter Hunt

His flight left this morning...I will post safe arrival info once I get it.

Thankfully, my sisters, Terry and Kathy are here staying with me (to watch Nora while I dropped Phil off, and console me when I get weepy). My parents come this weekend. After that I have the mirad of friends and support we have managed to gather around us the past 8 months we have been here. I feel so lucky to have so many people caring about us and checking up on us!

1/2 a day down...less than 370 to go!

Videos GALORE!!

They are uploaded and ready to watch. In an extreme attempt to get them all up before Phil left, I have pretty much all our current family videos uploaded, but not organized or labled. Sorry for the mess! But if you really want to see Nora in action, I suppose you will muddle through, right? ENJOY!

new site...

In an effort to simplify, this will replace our homepage. All the links are here, and all the news will be here too. Currently, we are just preparing for the worst day of the year, waiting to start so we can get it all over. Sad time. But I am hopeful that the year will go fast, communcation with Phil will be better than expected, and Nora and I will be able to take this time as an opportunity to visit family and friends more.

Any effort to help me stay positive is much appreciated!

He will be gone by Easter...

Nora throwing rocks

Well, we are in the final countdown days! Block leave has came and gone (with a week long trip through Canada and the Olympic Peninsula). Yesterday, Phil became the company commander for the old company he did his PL time in. Now, half days are approaching, and then goodbye.

If you can't tell, I am pretty bummed by the reality of Phil leaving. We have been preparing for this for quite some time; but I think no matter how much planning we do, we will never really be ready to live without him for a year.

Nora and I plan to be busy little bees over the next year! Hopefully that will make it go faster- to all my military moms out there, any tips for deployment with a 2 year old?

Breakfast with Dad

Phil takes command

Kisses on the beach

The best laid plans...

So, we had big plans this year for our Christmas holiday. As most of you know we were stationed at Ft. Lewis for 3 years before our short Missouri adventure and now we are back here in the wonderful gray PNW. Before Nora arrived on the scene, we had always planned to do all kinds of things that are specific to this area. Hike in the Olympic National Forest, camp on the Oregon coast, take a trip north to Victoria, BC. But when the time came to do it we ended up backing out or changing plans or choosing to just cuddle on the couch instead. Well, this time was going to be different. We moved back here and we were going to do all those things. "Were" being the key word in that sentence.

Our Christmas weekend was supposed to be spent in Victoria BC this year, however we ended up cuddling on the couch once more. Early in the week both Phil and Nora were sick and it seemed inevitable that I would get sick too. In light of the money that was going to be spent, the energy we would exhaust trying to pack Nora around Victoria in the winter, and especially considering it was likely that all three of us would be sick for at least part of the trip; we canceled. And in true Ambrose family fashion we cuddled on the couch instead.

As it turned out, I did get sick. Thankfully, Nora is better, so it is only Phil and I battling our colds together. It was a cozy Christmas just the three of us. Someday we will follow through with our plans....someday.

We are loving homeownership!

Really? No, not lately. A few weeks ago, we decided to finally paint the laundry room and put up all the fantastic storage that we planned to put up months ago. However, as soon as Phil moved the washer out, we found black mold growing in the baseboard behind the machine. Thankfully, the moisture and mold were contained to a small area! Of course, small area doesn't mean it didn't turn into a home improvement black hole. Now, 3 weeks later, we have came to the conclusion that the problem is our washing machine! So, this weekend we are off to find a new one!

If that were our only recent stumble, things would be fine, but part of the reason resolving the laundry room issue has taken so long, is that we had a roof leak last weekend! Thankfully, that was also a fairly quick fix, only taking one day and the help of a couple really good friends.

Needless to say, the last few weeks our house has been causing us more stress than we would like . However, I am extremely thankful that all of this is happening while Phil is home.

Besides desperately trying to keep our house together, we are preparing for a fun Grandparent filled Thanksgiving! We are hosting all 4 of Nora's grandparents this year for a weekend of good food and "Nora-spoiling". It will be an adventure!

Nora had a few friends over for Halloween trick or treating last month....she surprisingly, really got into it! By the end of the night she was really attached to the pretty candy :) here is the photo evidence:

Busy weekends

September is already off to a very busy start! Labor Day weekend was spent in Spokane visiting friends and family and this past weekend Grandpa Warner (Phil's Dad) came to visit! During our time with Grandpa Warner we made it out to the Puyallup Fair-a first for Phil, Nora and I. What a blast Nora had!

We have all kinds of other adventures planned for the rest of the month! In fact, for the rest of the fall. Very soon I will have caught up on the pictures and upload them to our family albulm (maybe another week or so). Once that happens I will let you all know. Until then, here are a few from the most recent activities :)

Mommy and Nora petting the goats at the Puyallup Fair

Grandpa Warner, Nora, and Daddy checking out the booths at the Puyallup Fair

Grandpa Warner reading on of Nora's favorite Helen Oxenbury books

Nora and Grandma Ellen reading "David Gets in Trouble"