Pictures of our sweet girls

Sorry for taking so long to update. We're still figuring out our slower internet connection. In the mean time, check out some great pictures of our sweet girls from a friend of ours in Colorado Springs. http://www.kristiannephotography.blogspot.com/

Luminatis find a home

Here's our new house! This is the side view and shows our and our neighbors carport. For those who are unfamiliar with the military, these are very typical military homes. (Kate is waving hello to you from our driveway.)

Here is a front view. The "courtyard" is ours as well as the shed. There's lots of great storage in this house. Kate likes to call the shed "the barn" which is pretty funny. The ocean is behind us and you can just see strips of blue on really clear days. (And there's that cute little girl following me again...maybe she needs a home?)

What a joy to be settled and not be moving around anymore. It's funny--on July 19 we moved out of our townhome in VA and on Sept 19 we moved in to this home in CA. Whew! Our current house is about half the size of our old house, so most of our furniture is waiting in the carport, to be stored at a later date. It certainly is a bit of an adjustment living here, but we keep up frequent visits to the beach (and commissary) which are wonderful additions to life in Monterey. It's very foggy most of the time but when the sun shines through it's just gorgeous. Jon started classes this week and he's thrilled. We keep kidding him about his starting 21st grade. What an overachiever! Well, every PhD needs another masters degree, don't you think?

We are also thrilled that both moms are here this week to help us finish setting up the house. They have been such a magnificent help. I can't begin to list all their fantastic accomplishments, but will attempt to at a later date. Thank you so much to both Nana and Gram! We miss you Grandpa and Pops.

And one of our newest additions: Kate in her big girl bed. She was so excited about her bed when the movers were moving the stuff in she kept shouting at them "my big girl bed with blankets and pillows!" It was great. They laughed and smiled at her, and how could one not? She and Ellie are sharing a room, but considering Ellie is still having trouble sleeping through the night, Ellie is consigned, once again, to the closet. We're working on it, though!

We have arrived and Happy 4 month bday Ellie!

After a total of seven days in the car (four then a 2 week break then three more) we have arrived in Monterey, CA. Hurray! We are SO glad the tediousness of driving is over. Though, seriously, our country is beautiful--we have driven completely across it and it's so amazing. The rolling, treed hills of Appalachia, the corn and soybean fields of the midwest, the great Mississippi and Missouri rivers, past the arch of St. Louis, into the grassy plains of Kansas that turn into the barren plains of Kansas, up to the feet of the Rocky Mountains jutting out of the stark earth, across the incredible Glenwood Canyon into the earthy mountains of Grand Junction, through the astoundingly diverse canyons of Utah and Arizona, speeding through the vast desert of Nevada and into the desert of California which gives way to the verdant (yet smoggy) orchards of central California and finally to the salty-smelling, gull-filled central coast. What a privilege it was to drive across our land from sea to shining sea. :) And though the canyons of Utah tried to stop us (our temperature gauge in the Focus gave us some trouble there) and the desert of California tried to derail us (flat tire just into the Mojave Desert) we have survived and are now enjoying the beautiful fog and dazzling sunshine near the sea.

We hope to get our housing settled this week (more on that in a later post) and that's really the end of our travels because we've been in transition since 19 July, when we moved out of our home in Virginia. It's about time to settle again. Right now we're at the hotel on the Naval Postgrad School, which is in this old historic building that looks like an old mission. We've been to the beach several times and Kate has a love/hate relationship with the water. She always wants Daddy to take her to the ocean, but when we get there, she's afraid of the water and wary of the birds. It'll just take some getting used to, I'm sure. She's always up for adventure, though, and we're so grateful she's not allergic to her carseat after such a trip.


Pikes Peak, Colorado Springs, CO. One of my most favorite sights.


Black Dragon Canyon in eastern Utah. Yes, this is Utah!




Another gorgeous canyon in Utah.




Traveling back in Jon's childhood. Alas, Edwards Air Force Base is in the middle of no-where, CA. This is for you, Gram and Pops!





Happy 4 month bday to our sweet Elliana! Here she on her first trip to the zoo.
Here are a few of Ellie's accomplishments in her short life so far:
--been in 14 states
--lived in numerous hotels
--slept in three different closets
--switched from six feedings a day to five, and now back to six
--slept uncountable hours in her carseat

She is already rolling over both ways. One day she rolled from belly to back and the next day she went from back to belly. We were amazed! She's done great in the car and now that we're finally not traveling each day, she is having a harder time adjusting to "normal" life. So we're working on that. But she adores her sister, loves to smile at her daddy, and sweetly lays in her momma's arms. Happy fourth month bday, Ellie! We love you so much.






And last but not least...Monterey Bay! The cypress trees are on the point, and the beauty is apparent even though it's a foggy day.

Birthday Bash

This past weekend, we had a chance to celebrate the birthdays of two of the three Luminati girls, Jen and Kate. Kate turned two and Jen turned ... another year older :^). As we are still in Colorado on our way across the country, the birthday party turned into a minor family reunion with all four Grandparents as well as Aunt Beth and Uncle Evan (the newlyweds), Jon's grandparents Brownie and Belle and Kate's cousin Riley.

This year Kate finally started to get concept of presents. Here she is carrying one of the boxes around in a quest for some help getting the ribbon off.

Every time she managed to pull off some wrapping paper, she got a round of applause from the audience. We're not sure whether she had more fun in the unwrapping process or in playing with the presents themselves.

Here she is playing with her cousin Riley with a Barn that belonged to her Daddy when he was young.

Ellie was having a great time. She's just managed to start rolling over, but that wasn't enough to steal the show on this day.

Kate has discovered the Disney princesses, so Gram managed to get an appropriately themed cake. Which princess is that on top? Kate will have to instruct her Daddy. Mommy had a pretty purple cake of her own, but it didn't have that fancy princess.

Mommy and Kate blowing out the candles.

Cake eating is serious business when you're two.

A good time was had by all, but especially the little two-year old. I promise Mommy got some cake and presents too, but she didn't get as much applause or make nearly as big a mess.

Wish you all could have been here for our birthday fun. Next year the party will be in Monterey, so save the date!