life in Oak Harbor

I thought it might be time to post some pictures of what we've been doing since we moved up to Oak Harbor. Things have gone quite smoothly for us. My mom flew to Washington with Levi and I and helped us get all our household goods and start unpacking. She helped a lot and we were really grateful that she was able to come. Things are so much harder to do by yourself when there is a toddler involved, so I was very appreciative to have the help. We got our stuff on Tuesday and she went back to Gig Harbor on Thursday afternoon, and we already had SO much done. Now I have everything put away in it's right place, and the house decorated. I think after so many times of doing this I have it down.
Here is a picture of the front of our new house. I took this sometime in the first few days we were here, and that tree has already changed to mostly yellow. That's fun for me since I haven't had Fall in 5 years. And those are rose bushes lining the front of my house. One of them has flowers blooming. When you walk in the front door, you turn to the left and there is the doorway to our kitchen.

Our kitchen is the fridge and cabinets and those things on one side, then an Island with the burners and more cabinets in the middle....
Then the dining table, pantry (which I use as a closet) and the door to the carport on the other side. It's a nice open space. Mom started unpacking the kitchen things first and we had that settled and right within a day I think. I was excited to put things up on top of the cabinets as you can see in that first picture.

Then, as you're still in our entryway, you look to the right and that's the hallway to all the bedrooms/bathrooms. Also our coat closet, and that first door before the hallway is our huge laundry room. There are shelves built in there for storage too. There is so much in there and it's still roomy. I'm very happy to have my washer and dryer back after 3 years. As soon as you walk in the front door you're greeted by our living room area. The next few pictures are different angles of that space.
That door to the hallway has a slider door that comes out of the wall to close off the back of the house. It'll be useful when we want to stay up watching a movie while the kids are sleeping. Plus it blocks off any route of escape when we're all sleeping.
This is the view from standing at the start of that hallway. over beside our computer is the backdoor to the yard. There's a little patio and a nice sized yard, with a hill.
The first door down the hallway is one of the bathrooms. This one is directly across the hall from Levi's bedroom door. This is the kids' bathroom. The only thing interesting about it in this picture is that Levi is in the bath. But I'm pretty excited about having it. I'll be able to just leave the kid's toys in the tub and close the curtain. Levi calls it his bathroom, so it makes him feel bigger and a little more independent.
Levi's room is the first bedroom on the left. It's kind hard to get a picture of, but here it is.

The next bedroom on the left is the nursery. It's the same shape as Levi's and it's not decorated or anything set up at all. So I didn't take a picture. I'll do those in a couple months when we get it all finished. Then our master bedroom is on the right.
There is where the master bathroom is. It's no bigger than the hall bathroom, but I really like having it right there in our room. It's lame, but we've never had that before. I appreciate it in the middle of the night when I have to go to the bathroom for the 10th time.

This is the outside patio. You can see the Ocean and mountain range from our back yard and all our windows on the backside of the house. It's a really pretty view. That's what Levi is gazing at here from his swing, looking like a little old man.
This is the park behind our house. That orange house in the distance behind the slide is ours. We go to the park a lot!

This is the same view we have from our backyard and windows. It's very Washington. We went for a walk and ended up at the park this evening as the sun was setting. I didn't have my camera; it probably wouldn't have done it justice anyway. But the sky was beautiful setting over the shoreline.
On the last day that Grammy was at our new house she bought Levi a train track and trains set. It's his first. He played with a simple little circle set at "Xander's house" while we were in MO. He loved it and wanted to just play with it all day. Well, that and the kitties of course. But now he has his very own.
Doesn't this look like it should be a Christmas morning picture? If I take it again in less than a month, I bet our tree will be in the background already!
Levi wanted to help me decorate the walls. I started the nail for him, and he was actually able to get it all the way into the wall with that little plastic hammer. He says he's "strong enough." It must be the hot dog.

Speaking of Christmas, we'll end this post with an almost seven months "lovely baby bump"(as Nathan sings it) picture of me looking ready for Christmas morning. Or maybe I am Santa Clause. "I didn't even get to jiggle my belly like a bowel full of jelly." There's a friends quote for those of you who will get it.