The Big Move (June-Nov '12)

Middle of May-ish 2012:

We were still living in Utah and waiting and waiting and waiting to hear back from Talisman Energy about Daniel's job offer down in Texas. Just to recap- he had interviewed in April, they told him they'd like to hire him for the Operations Engineer position, but they couldn't officially offer him the position until it was approved by several levels of upper management. Three months later, he was called with the job offer, but we'll get to that!

In the meantime...

Uncle Steve and Aunt Jess made a pit stop in Utah on their way to Idaho so we met them for lunch. They hadn't seen Owen since he was 3 wks old, so I think he was a bit more fun to interact with this time around. Owen received a truck and car set as an early birthday present. Thank you, Jess and Steve!

This is one of the pictures I use now to teach Owen the names of all of the family members who live so far away. :( He says, "Eee" and "Je" for Steve and Jess. The kid's a freakin genius!

While we spent month after month at Papa's, we improvised with toys/games/stuff for Owen to do since  most of our things were still in storage. Owen developed a fondness for tents and climbed up under our blankets pretty much every day asking for "En again peese" (Tent again please). 

On Father's Day in June, I told Daniel that I had a surprise gift to give him before church. A few days earlier, I was kinda suspecting that I was pregnant again, so I secretly bought some tests at the store. I wasn't completely convinced that I was pregnant, but I decided I would test on Father's Day morning just to elevate the excitement a bit. Sunday morning came and sure enough, two tests confirmed what I was wondering (I took two just to be sure!). I had them both hidden under a fake gift bag and told Daniel to look under the bag for his Father's Day gift. I think I got a pretty great shock out of him, followed by a heavy dose of excitement and a celebratory "Good Job" pat on the bum. We snapped this picture to "commemorate" the moment. Owen wanted to put the pee sticks in his mouth, so we chucked them out of reach. By the looks of this picture, he was pretty disappointed with the whole event. 

Since we had nothing to do while we were living at Papa's in Utah (no job, no school, no callings, no baking dishes to even make food for someone else!), we went on walks at least once a day pretty much every day. Papa's place was across the street from several open soccer fields lined with a walking path, and two or three playgrounds. Since Utah summers can be deathly hot, we always packed plenty of water and snacks for Owen, and we usually found him sitting in a puddle of water by the time the walk was over. Or, in the case of this picture, Owen would dump his drink onto his stroller and splash it around for a good time. All good preparation for moving to Texas in August during a summer heat wave!

Another way Owen takes after his Dad...wild morning hair! 

Fourth of July came and went without too much partying for us. All I can remember is that we had no clothes to wear to be around people who expect even a small level of cleanliness, let alone anything red, white or blue, so we spent most of the day doing laundry and over-eating in true holiday fashion. We did drive to an open parking lot to watch fireworks when it got dark, but Owen was scared/tired of the loud noises and Black Cat squeals, so we retired early. We have had two years in a row of very "blah" Fourth of July celebrations, so next year we will be stepping up our game! Owen was four days old last Fourth of July, and we were sleep deprived. So, Daniel and Owen and I spent the evening like this:

The onesie was obviously too big, but I at least wanted to dress him up for the occasion!

Back to the present...Here's a slew of pictures taken of Owen sometime between May and July 2012 (11-13 months). 

 

He's getting to be such a big boy and show off more of his silly personality!

Well, I can't forget to mention one of the most important events of the summer: Owen's 1 year birthday!! Although, in true Katy, unorganized fashion, I forgot to charge my camera to take birthday pics, so I relied on my "always photo-op prepared" friend, Allyson Taylor, to snap some shots of the day. 

We spent the morning/afternoon celebrating the wedding of one of my wonderful friends/roommates, Ashley Smith (now Collett). 

Then we headed back to Sarah's to make Owen some birthday cupcakes and let him open his presents from Chi Chi and parents.

Having fun listening to the animal sounds on his new puzzle.

Then we stripped Owen down to enjoy his cupcake without any cares about where the chocolate might end up. 

Happy Birthday, my handsome!

About a week and a half after Owen's birthday, Daniel finally got the call we had been waiting for all summer long. He was offered the Operations/Production Engineer position he was wanting with Talisman Energy in The Woodlands, Texas. For about a year prior to this point in time, we had been hearing how The Woodlands was such a beautiful community and a great place for families, so we always kept envisioning moving there somewhere in the back of our minds. Daniel graduated in December 2011 and as March 2012 was coming to an end, he still had no job offers. We took a leap of faith and bought Daniel a ticket to Houston in mid-April to set up interviews with some prospective companies. For weeks prior to his visit, Daniel tried calling Talisman to set up an interview, but it wasn't until he was sitting in Denver on his layover to Houston that he received a call for an interview time. Daniel seemed to "just know" that he was going to be offered the job after the interview was finished, but we had to wait months and months until that feeling was confirmed. Needless to say, we learned a lot about "waiting on the Lord" and "trials of faith" during that waiting period. We also learned to trust in God, be humble, and follow the promise,"He shall lead thee by thy hand and give thee answers to thy prayers". He was offered the position July 9th, and we started making plans to move by his start date of August 6th.  

One of the MANY perks of this new position was the all-expenses paid trip for Daniel and I to do some "house hunting" before our big move. It was hard for me to consider being away from Owen for more than 6 hours because I had never done that since his birth, but I got brave and let him stay with his loving aunts. Daniel and I enjoyed every second of alone time together! Talisman put us up in the Hyatt on Market Street, which was a far cry from any other hotel stay we've had at Super 8 or Best Western. We were both so excited to be sleeping on the same bed again (and it was king sized!) for the first time since December. We immediately fell in love with Waterway Square in The Woodlands, and we were stoked to discover this is where Daniel's office building is nestled perfectly along the waterway. 

 Our fancy (at least to us!) hotel room

Waterway Square has lights up all year long, so we enjoyed a late stroll and dinner. 

The waterway is lined on both sides with walking/bike paths and...

 

a splash pad which is less than 500 feet from Daniel's office, which you can see on the left in the background. Owen LOVED going to this splash pad when it was ridiculously hot after we moved here.

 

Now that it's closer to Christmas time (yes, I'm catching up on the last 6 months), all the trees along the waterway are covered with Christmas lights, the fountains coordinate with Christmas songs, the air is crisp (like 70's crisp), and the strolls with the family are perfect. 

Alright, back to the timeline...

Another perk of the new job was a great relocation package from Talisman. They shipped our cars to us so we didn't have to drive them across the country (which probably would've ended in the Alero dying somewhere in New Mexico), and we got first class flights to our new home. I didn't go on an airplane until I was 20 yrs old, so I think Owen is pretty dang spoiled for having a first class ticket at the  ripe ol' age of 14 months! Owen loved all of the free snacks, as did we, and he was content watching "Signing Times" on daddy's lap for about half of the trip. By some miracle, he also fell asleep on the flight and woke up just in time for landing. It was the best flying situation we could ask for with a child!

Talisman put us up in temporary housing for the first month and a half, which saved us big time on rent and groceries, so Owen tried to enjoy every inch of the space!

He was constantly climbing around in the cupboards...

pulling out the pots and pans...

finger painting with the soap...

playing with leftover boxes...

climbing up onto the couch to try and squish behind the cushions...

and putting his own "artistic touch" on the tables, floors and walls. 

Even though the water felt like bath water during the month of August, Owen loved going to the swimming pool at our housing complex. He liked to play under the waterfall and have Daddy throw him up in the air with a splash landing. 

Since all of our personal items besides clothes were still in storage, we had some pretty ho-hum days, which usually included:

Watching "Signing Times" or "The Wiggles"

Visiting Daddy at work

Messing around with anything mom uses for hair or make-up

Learning to "cheese" for pictures

and getting grumpy when he was sick of it

and feeding Big Bird leftovers from meal time. 

In mid-September, we moved to our apartment which we'll be renting until our house is built. It felt great to be surrounded by all of our own things again and to have a place to call "home", even just temporarily. We decided not to waste our time decorating or unpacking since we'll be moving again in six months, so our apartment is a blank canvas for Owen to "decorate". 

  It didn't take Owen much time to start pulling everything out of our drawers...

Or to play hide and seek among Daddy's shirts...

He fell in love with the deep garden tub in Mommy and Daddy's bathroom (love his bubble-covered bum in this picture)

And to our biggest surprise, he hasn't tried ripping out all of the open wiring that we conveniently have laying all over the floor for him.

Owen likes to climb in his toy boxes and read his books...

or come show Mom what he found inside the box...

Our apartment is within 5 minutes of lots of shopping and bike paths, so we've spent many nights biking around the community...and buying too many things. Owen fell asleep on the ride home one night...so cute. :)

With all of the holidays coming and going, we have enjoyed lots of community events. Owen got to help us collect a bunch of seeds from the Wildflower Festival, and the Pinecone and Flower mascots surely made their way into his dreams that night (for better or for worse). 

At the petting zoo, Owen was giving the llama the stink eye after he tried spitting on him. 

Owen loved exploring the fire truck and getting a Fireman hat... 

But the BEST event of all was meeting ELMO while at a community event where local restaurants let you sample free food!

 He couldn't take his eyes off of Elmo, even while stuffing his face. 

And ever since he got that fireman's hat, he can't stop putting it on and looking at himself in the mirror. 

Can't blame him, he's a stud.  

 On a side note, does he look like Daddy or what?!!!

 For Halloween, I wanted the three of us to dress up with a theme, so Owen was a police officer and Daniel and I dressed up as robbers, but we forgot to get a picture with all three of us! Oh well, Owen's the cutest, so he's all that counts. 

And finally, here's some random pictures of our big guy. It's late November, and Owen is almost 17 months old, weighing in at about 20 lbs, sportin' 7 front teeth with almost all of his molars sprouting up, and nothing but the cutest, fluffy, blonde hair and big, blue eyes to boot.  

 He finally weighs enough to face forward in the car!

 He looks way too old in this picture! Stay my sweet little baby!

 

 Out on a pizza and waterway date night with Mom and Dad. 

And we wouldn't be accurately remembering these times without showing the big forehead bruises that come with the life of a curious and active little guy. 

We love and miss all of our family and friends, especially during the holidays! Wish we could be with you!