Moving On!

We are leaving our underground nuclear test site and heading elsewhere. Should you want to continue on our little journey, please email jmbollman@yahoo.com, let me know who you are and we will send you the new blog address. This is our attempt to keep our blog semi-private. Thanks, and hope to see you soon!

Our little musician

I really should be packing and cleaning this morning...However, Moriah has made it difficult to focus and instead I want to sit from afar and watch,listen and enjoy the exceptional mood she is in.  She has been all over the house singing and dancing and making up stories to books.  She is in rare form as you can see from this video clip.  This is just a preview of what has been taking place since 6 this morning.  This is her interpretation of Old McDonaldS and Father NAbraham...

Wedding Bells

Lovin' Moriah's genuine smile!

We had the honor of attending Emily and Shane's wedding last week. Technically Emily is my sister-in-law's sister-in-law...ie. Luke's (Jamie's husband's) sister. It was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking. Moriah was completely mesmerized, infatuated, and overcome with joy. Her eyes were on Emily at all times and she cherished the moments when Emily so generously stopped what she was doing to pick her up, dance with her, or set her on her lap. Moriah spent the majority of the night on the dance floor twirling and spinning. The little boys wanted so badly to dance with her but she wasn't interested! Way to go Mo! I only wish I would have taken more pictures, but truth be told, I was too busy enjoying the wedding myself!

Luke in the background is looking like a very proud brother!




A cute video clip I caught...

Happy Easter

What a treat it was to have Lona and Luiz come for the long holiday weekend!  Jer and I needed the down time and the girls needed some undivided attention.  We did it all - went to the zoo, decorated easter eggs, ate great food, and still found time to relax and hang out.  Thanks for making the trip Meme and Giichan, and for bringing the easter bunny with you!  We love you!

FUN! Easter Baskets!

On a mission to find some easter eggs...

After finding all her hidden easter eggs, Moriah insisted on peeling the shells off ALL of them.

At the Zoo...












Meme and Giichan bring the girls new spring clothes...time to play dress up!

Luiz teaching Jeremy a thing or two on the guitar

Buds.

Okay, Okay, enough waiting already!

Our Big news I spoke of in our last post??? We are moving! (Again, *sigh*) Where, you ask? Boone, North Carolina. Why, you ask? Because moving is what we do best. No, not really. Jeremy has scored an AWESOME job with Mountain Lumber Company, one we couldn't refuse. FINALLY, we can see ourselves committing long term to a company and a town (*sigh*). Since breaking the news to friends and family I've heard nothing but good about the area - beautiful, very outdoorsy (skiing, hiking, white water rafting, fishing), great schools (second in the state), a great company to work for (received the Employer of the Year award from the chamber of commerce), a lot offered through Appalachian State University (for you football fans, they were the no-name school who beat Michigan in the season opener this past year), etc...

When will this be taking place, you ask? It already is! Jeremy started working last week. The girls and I are making a slow transition over the course of the next few months. We will be temporarily renting a 2 bedroom basement-apartment that the manager of the Mountain Lumber so kindly offered at a great price. Since housing is completely UNaffordable out there (the locals first question is "Are you looking for a first home or a second?), we are considering the option of building, which would be a dream come true for us.

And that, my friends, sums up the most recent excitement in our lives. I realize it is hard to keep up with us (literally) as we've moved one too many times. In the coming weeks our address and phone number will change - I will send a mass email out with our new contact info. You can still reach us at jmbollman@yahoo.com.

The Madelyn Madeleine

Lots of changes going on lately. Lots. Through it all the girls remain the same lovable, adorable, wonderful children we can't seem to get enough of. Madelyn turned ONE yesterday! Looking back, what a great year! We have so much to look forward to. Soon Madelyn will officially have teeth. Right now her top two and bottom two are just barely poking through. To mark her first birthday she officially started (Real) crawling. She loves to be outside. She points to the door, waves her hands, and says "Dye Dye".

More BIG news to come in the next post...(no, we're not having another baby)....

A trip to the park

The girls enjoyed a lovely trip to the park this past weekend.  It is one of our favorites about 15 minutes from Winston in Kernersville.  The ground is made of rubber mulch which is definitely a plus - no sand to brush off the girls.  

I can't tell who is more scared?  I don't think Maddie has quite figured out what is about to happen.





Moriah is a bit excited...can you tell she REALLY loves her sister?


I'm so proud of Mo.  Just 3 weeks ago I could barely get her to go down the slide on her own. Everytime we went to the park, she would steer clear of the slides...which left for swinging, and more swinging.  Finally 2 weeks ago she watched Claire (who is 17 months) go down on her own which convinced her that maybe she too could do it!  That same day at the park I looked for Mo and found her dangling from one of the openings of the playground equipment, about 4 feet in the air.  Another mom and I quick ran to catch her from falling to the ground.  The mother commented, "Saw that coming."  Not me.  Mo just started sliding - how was I to know she'd take up bungee jumping the same day?

Porcupines

Yesterday was a beautiful day - we sat out in the backyard for an hour before packing a picnic and heading to the park. While outside Moriah was concerned about Madelyn playing in the grass. "Is it porky on Maddie's toes?" Porky? Jeremy looked at me and said "prickly" and I guessed "pokey". An hour later while driving the topic came up again. "Dad (Moriah now calls Jer dad although we prefer the endearing term Papa), the grass is porky like porkypines!" Aha! That explains it!

More pictures from the park to come soon...

Last weekend we took a trip to the Raleigh Children's Museum and boy was it worth it! Moriah had a blast. Tons of hands-on activities, craft stations, and exploratory toys. They even had a special exhibit on the lives of Japanese children - everything from their classrooms to their bedrooms. I was very impressed with how much they invested into this exhibit. It brought back tons of memories - not that I lived this day to day, moreso just being exposed to it on a regular basis. Part of me wondered if the girls would ever experience what I did growing up or ever get to know the familiar sights, sounds and smells of where Jeremy and I met and spent a year of our lives together.

Snow Day

Last Wednesday night we unexpectedly got 2.5 inches of snow so we took advantage of it Thursday morning while it lasted. Believe it or not, all the snow you see melted by late Thursday afternoon. We went over to my friend Emilie's house to play with her daughter Claire. Luckily their backyard is part of an old golf course, which makes for great improv diaper bag sledding.


Fun video clips of the girls.

When I'm Bigger

A recent conversation Moriah and Jamie had at the dinner table:

Moriah: What's in your dinner?
Jamie: Chicken, potatoes, onions...
Moriah: I don't like onions.
Jamie: I didn't like onions either when I was little. Now that I'm bigger, I do. Maybe you'll like onions when you are bigger.
Moriah: Oh. Jamie, do you like rice season? (She is talking about furikake, a common seasoning Japanese people sprinkle over thier rice. Definitely an acquired taste and surprisingly Mo loves it.)
Jamie: No, I don't like it.
Moriah: Well, maybe when you get bigger you will like it.

Hello. How Are You? Goodbye.

Whenever Moriah has a pretend conversation on the phone it goes like this: "Hello, How are you?, Goodbye." It lasts maybe 4 seconds. It kind of feels like our recent visit with my parents which lasted all of 18 hours. They flew in last Friday afternoon with the intention of staying 10 days, however a family emergency came up and they had to fly back to Michigan the following morning. As you can tell from the pictures we made the best of the few waking hours we had. I love the (unstaged) shots of Moriah smiling - so genuine, so real.



A common pose for Madelyn:  Point in the direction she wishes to go





Skating in the kitchen rink







I love the way Maddie looks in this picture-


Maddie is very talented with her feet








 

Moriah's "heart hurt" when we dropped Bachaan and Opa off at the airport.

It was very interesting watching Mom interact with the girls.  For the first time I realized, and Jeremy pointed it out too, I am much more like my mom than I ever imagined.  As she played with Moriah it suddenly occurred to me that twenty-four years ago she was doing the same things with me...the very things I am now doing with Moriah.  Thanks Setsuko-Mama!  You've passed down some great qualities that help me enjoy being a mother to my two wonderful girls.

The body language says it all...

Home

A little overdue. Here are pics of the house. This is definitely the most "homey" a home has felt to us. We'd love to get some more artwork on the walls - all in good time.








Downstairs bathroom




Master Closet. It keeps going, and going, and going. I didn't know what to fill it with, so I decided to keep the girls' clothes in here too. Who has time to go up and down stairs delivering laundry?

Master bath


Girls' Bathroom
Office/Guest room


Pottery Shed
In case you are wondering, that red pot on the grill is our compost pot.  Jeremy and Moriah have a compost area in the far backyard that is coming along beautifully.  Should make for some good all-natural-fertilizer for our garden in the spring.