Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies….okay, this isn’t the condensed version of the classic The Wizard of Oz, and as you may have noticed from the return address, we aren’t in Kansas anymore. But like Dorothy, we survived the cyclone, of moving, that is.
Reflecting back, it has been a good year. It started out with Dave looking for a new job – Capital One decided to shut down their KC office by mid-summer 2009. I guess that would make Dave the ‘Scarecrow’, but looking for work instead of a brain. The combination of work opportunities and family lead us to follow the yellow brick road back to Virginia, where Dave found work at
Navy Federal Credit Union. While he is enjoying his new job, it was great that he had time off to help with the move and spend time with the kids this summer, although we did not even make a dent in the “Honey Do” list.
Speaking of the kids, they have shown the heart of the Tin Man as well as the courage of the Lion adjusting to the move, a new school, and their activities.
Before we moved, Tyler attended his first overnight camp with our Church. I think we were more scared then he was, especially because of the spectacular summer Kansas storm that decided to roar through the first night. Tyler continues to play soccer – he joined the
Annandale Boys and Girls Club travel team. He teamed up with a great group of boys and has excellent coaches who hail from England. Ty started the 3rd grade, and has not missed a beat socially or academically. He still enjoys anything sports related – he’s plowing through sports novels and even decorated his new room with Hokies, Steelers, and other sports paraphernalia. Dave and Ty also enjoyed going to the Steelers vs. Redskins preseason game.
Ellie was busy this summer, attending cheer camp and Vacation Bible School. She was very excited to start Kindergarten ½ days this Fall, and has made lots of new friends. After school, Ellie keeps busy with soccer in the fall and swimming in the winter. She also continues with gymnastics year round. She and Drew have a grand time reading and playing together in the afternoons waiting to pick Tyler up from the bus. Did we mention she lost her first two teeth?
If you know Drew at all, you will not be surprised that he insisted on not being left out while big brother and sis went off to school. The first day Ellie and Tyler left for school on the bus, he was NOT pleased (
see picture on the right), so we found a great pre-school for him. He calls it "Drew’s School". His personality is really developing, somewhere between class clown and daredevil with a whole lot of sweet in between. It seems not a day goes by that he doesn’t have a new bruise or bump from trying to keep up with Ellie and Tyler and he always succeeds in cracking us up with his silliness. He loves life and makes the most of it every day!
Melissa (guess she is Dorothy?) has been the glue that keeps the family together. She still manages to squeeze in a couple of days of work each week for
Booz Allen while taking care of the kids and house. Not sure how she does it, but my guess is it involves ruby slippers and flying monkeys.
Of course, we can’t forget our oldest child, Toto, I mean Aspen. She is doing well for an old lady of 14 years. She still loves taking walks and begging for table scraps. In fact, since we don’t have a fence, she has managed to take herself on numerous long walks.
In between taking the kids to practice, work, and the move, we have managed to have some fun. Before we left KC, we made a point to see several KS landmarks including the horse and carriage ride around The Plaza, the
Liberty World War I Memorial, and
College Basketball Hall of Fame. The highlight of the KC sites was the
American Jazz Blue Room, where we heard an impromptu performance by KC native and Grammy-award winner
Oleta Adams. She was amazing! We then moseyed over to the historic
Musicians Foundation Club for an after hours performance (opens at 1:00 am). We wrapped up our KS stint with a going away party, complete with a huge water slide.
Dave & Melissa also finally made it back to
Blacksburg for the first time in 10 years. We had a great time tailgating and watching
Hokie football. Melissa took Tyler and Ellie to see their great grandmother – not sure who was more excited, Grandma Trout or the kids. Dave continues to find time to run and mountain bike, and even ran a
50K for his 40th birthday. Tyler has started to join Dave on the shorter runs. Don’t tell Ty, but his old man has trouble keeping up with him.
We miss our dear KC friends,
Oklahoma Joes’ Z-man sandwich, and
Gates BBQ sauce, but we are happy to be able to call on grandparents to help with babysitting, and to enjoy birthdays and holidays with family, catch up with old VA friends and make some new ones.
One more thing…remember at the end of the Wizard of Oz, where the Great Wizard leaves Dorothy behind while he travels home in a hot air balloon? Well, we will be moving again next year. This time, it is only about a mile down the road, back into our old Virginia house.
Posting a few pictures taken a couple of weekends ago. One of the forgot joys of our old house was the amount of leaves to rake each year. This pile is only one part of the front yard, 6 days after picking up all the leaves. At least the kids enjoy it!
- This year the kids all helped, especially with removing the yucking pumpkins guts. Ty picked his design out of a template book. It was a little tricking, but it is supposed to be a flaming skull. Ellie's and Drew's match their outfits - a butterfly and very hungry Caterpillar. 
Sorry for the lag in providing update on the house renovations. Between getting ready for the move, the kids starting school again, and last minute details on the renovation, we have been a tad busy, but in a good way.
has been asking to run a race with me for quite some time. I toyed with signing him up for mountain bike race, but we haven't had enough time to train for it this year. 
During the last week of August, I took a day to visit the Steelers training camp at St. Vincent College. The campus is located in scenic Latrobe PA, in the foothills of the Allegheny mountains. Both Tyler and Ellie came along and had lots of fun. We watched practice, took part in the NFL experience and even got some got some autographs. While we came close to getting fan favorite Polamalu - he one person down from Ellie, we did get lasts year's number 1 draft pick, Ziggy Hood. 
There was plenty of stuff for kids to do - a whole NFL experience in which they could throw passes, kick a field go, go through obstacle course, and try one full pads. Take a look at the last photo - you can barely see Ellie's fingers sticking out of the shoulder pads
We
had small celebration for Drew's 3rd birthday last Friday. A bigger party at the pool is planned in a couple of weeks. For now, he enjoyed cookies and ice cream. If anybody asks him how old he is, he holds up 3 fingers and says "Tee"
The second picture of the outside is also taken from the front, but is from the opposite corner. You can still see the old garage that will become our new kitchen. Above the old garage, they have framed out the new Master Bedroom. The workers are putting on new roof and pouring cement for the foundation of the new garage, which you can see in the last photo.
Couple more pictures from the house renovation, this time on the second floor. These are before and after pictures from the second floor, which currently has master bedroom, (2) kids rooms, a study, and (2) baths. We decided to do was widen the hallway about 18", move the master bedroom out over the existing garage/new kitchen, then use the space that was the master bedroom to add new bathroom for the kids and new bedroom for Drew.
The second picture, is taken from within what will be the new master bedroom looking towards Ellie's room. You can see how much longer and wider the hallway is. The framing for the wall and door to the master bedroom is showing.
.
In case you didn't know, we are having major renovations done to our house before we move back in. When we moved back to Virginia last year, our tenants still had another year left on their lease. For the past year, we have been renting in the same neighborhood. We started the renovations about 3 weeks ago when our tenants moved out. Over the next few months, we thought it would be fun to post some pics of the work in progress.
This post focuses just on the kitchen area. We are having the wall between the garage and kitchen knocked out, and moving the new kitchen into what is the existing garage. The first picture shows the kitchen before work started. You can see the door from the "old" kitchen out to the garage on the right, and just a small bit of the door to the deck on the left. The second picture is the same view after the wall between the garage and kitchen has been remove. Pretty exciting!
The 3rd image is also a picture of the "old" kitchen, but taken from the opposite side as the first two. I was standing with my back to the garage facing the oven and sink. Do you like that faux brick backsplash? I know Melissa won't miss it. The last shot shows same view, minus the counters, cabinets, stove, etc. We are going for the minimalist look. 
Ellie has joined the swim team at our neighborhood pool - The Wahoos. We are not wild about the team name (kidding), but the team is good and the atmosphere great. Of course, Ellie is only 6, so we don't want to get carried away. She has great stamina and swims pretty fast. She needs to spend a little more time in practice on starts and finishes, but she is doing great for her first time. The first photo is start of 25 meter butterfly for 8 and under. She is in the bottom lane, with the white swim cap.
Most important, she has lots of fun with the other swimmers and coaches. Her first meet is Monday, June 28th. I hope to post update a couple of days after that. 
A couple of weekends back, Melissa took Drew down to Charlottesville to visit the grandparents and see a Sesame Street Live show. Drew had great fun watching Elmo, Cookie and the rest of Sesame Street. He also had a lot of fun helping Poppop plant his garden
.
We final went and got Ellie a new bike, without training wheels. She took to it right away, zooming up and down our sidewalk. She still needs a little time to learn turns. The good news is, she has learned how to crash from one of the best, her old man.
Ty was lucky enough to get a couple of autographs recently. The first one was at a book signing for Rick Riordan. He has written the popular kids books called Percy Jackson Series, based on Greek and Roman mythodology set in present day. The first one was made into a so-so movie, called Lightening Thief. The author is touring to promote his a new series based on Egyption mythology, called the Kane Chronicles. Ty got an autographed copy of the new book.
The second signing was at a card trade show. Steeler running back Rashard Mendenhall . Ty was very excited to meet him and get his autograph.
First Halloween back in VA was a success despite a little rain and Ty recovering from pneumonia. Ty was a rock star, Ellie Wonder Women, and Drew was Elmo. Drew really got into it this year, loving all the candies. Dave's parents made the trip up from Charlottesville too. Dad French was Batman to go with Ellie's Wonder Women.
We found a great pre-school for Drew to attend 2-days a week. St. Mathews Preschool is literally right behind Ty and Ellie's elementary school, making drop off and pick up easy. And Drew absolutely loves it! He calls it 'Drew's School'. He still misses Tyler and Ellie, but it helps now that he has his own thing too. Of course, it helps us parents a little too
As you can see, his teachers are really good. They create a warm and caring environment for the kids to learn in. Each week, he comes home with some project he worked on, and boy is he proud of it.
