Peach Jam...Yummy!

I am kind of a jam snob (thank you Mom). I cannot stand store bought jam. Since getting here I have been on the hunt for anything I can turn into homemade jam. Here's what I found today - fresh Georgia peaches at a roadside stand. During nap time I made two batches of freezer jam. I'm so excited to have a peanut butter and peach jam sandwich tomorrow for lunch!

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Before:

After:
YUMMY!!

Just in time for Sunset!

Our new place is a few blocks from the beach so last night after dinner we decided to go for a walk on the beach. We hadn't been for about a week so it was nice to go down there. We found tons of really cool shells and saw yet another amazing sunset!

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Daddy with Megan & Daniel

Sunset on the beach

Smiley the Fish

Meet Smiley our new fish.

Megan named him Smiley cause he always smiles at her!

We have been promising the kids that we would get them a fish when we moved. Well the day finally came last Friday. Megan and I were unpacking boxes and out came the fish bowl. After getting asked about 20 times about when we were going to get a fish...we went out and got when when Steen got home from work. Were were planning on getting a 25 cent gold fish, but apparently those don't exist around here. Only a variety of tropical salt water fish! We were lucky to even get this $10 betta. I guess we are going to need to upgrade to a salt water tank if fish are going to be in our future. I actually think that would be cool.

Unpacking...

This is what I've been doing this week:

UNPACKING lots and lots of boxes.

(I could have had the moving company do it -but they were MEN. Enough said!!)

I unpack while my children do this:

Take naps

Take naps in forts made of the boxes I've unpacked:

Have more fun in the forts they make cause I haven't gotten to there toys yet...

And at the end of the day when we are all pooped out we go for a swim in our pool.

This is what we have been doing for the last 4 days. Fun, huh?!!!

Family Pics are here!

Right before we left Vancouver we were able to get some family pics taken down on the waterfront of the Columbia River. We are so happy with the way they turned out. I pulled these pics off of Lindi's photography blog. In a few days we will get our CD of pics in the mail. Thanks Lindsi for doing such a great job with our fun (and crazy) family! Enjoy...

St. Andrew's Bay

This morning we went to St. Andrew's Bay State Park. It's about 3 minutes from the beach house we're staying in. We started off by going out on the pier. It goes out pretty far into the ocean. A few guys were fishing off the pier. We noticed some commotion and saw that one of the guys caught a shark. The kids thought that was pretty awesome. Then we went on a little hike to an alligator pond. We got lucky and saw two nice sized gators. The kids were a little scared, but they thought it was pretty cool. To cool off we went over to this sand bar and went for a dip in the ocean. We had so much fun. We are definitely going to have to go back to this park and spend more time exploring. They even have a camping area so when it cools downs a little we may have to go for a night or two.

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On our way to the gator area.

We found one!

Here's Megan posing with the two gators in the background.

Here we are cooling off in the ocean.

Sunset

Last night we were playing at the beach when the sun was setting. The sky looked like it was on fire. The colors were just beautiful. Now I know why they call this place "home of the most beautiful sunsets".

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday to the worlds greatest Nana!!

May your first birthday in the Philippines

be a great one! We are thinking of you today

and want you to know that we are so

proud of you. We LOVE YOU so much!!

Happy Birthday from the kids:

A Day Full of Firsts

Yesterday (Monday) we had a day full of firsts at our house!

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Steen started his new job at the Navel Above Ground Warfare Systems Center as an Engineering Phychologist. He is super excited about his new job and the opportunities it will bring for him and our family!

We had our first visitor in our beach house yesterday. He was stuck between the screen and the window. I conducted a rescue mission and freed this cute little gecko. Which by the way are everywhere around here!

Natalie rolled over for the first time. She gets quite mad when she does it - hence the mad face she gave me for the pic I took of her! She doesn't like being on her tummy too much.

Yesterday and today we are having some crazy weather. It has been pouring and pouring with almost constant wind and thunder storms. It's actually pretty cool to watch. The kids aren't too happy about the rain. They want to be playing out on the beach not stuck inside all day long! This is a video we took yesterday from our front foyer area.

A walk on the beach...

So we told the kids we were going to go on a walk to the beach today after dinner. We got our sandals on and headed out and Megan asked, "How many hours is it going to take us to get to the beach?" Steen and I thought it was super funny that she asked that. I think she is used to long car rides to the Oregon coast. When we told her it would literally take ONE MINUTE she couldn't believe it. This is going to take a little getting used too - but it is going to be great!

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Yeah for the beach!

A double yeah for the beach!

In the next few days we are going to get our suits on and go for a swim in the warmmmm water!

Mommy and Natalie hanging out. This was Natalie's first time facing forward in the front pack. She loved it!

Road Trip to FL - Day 8

Today is our last day in the car and it's Florida for good! We only had a 5 hour drive so we took our time and were able to make a few stops at some parks. The bugs were out in full force today. I guess that's something we are just going to have to get used to around here. We had lunch at Church's Chicken. It was pretty yummy. PCB, here we come!

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The girls all ready to go for the day!

Welcome to Florida - the sunshine state!

We even saw Elvis along the way.

Here's Megan on the beach. We are going to love it here!

When we pulled into our beach house we just had to take this pic - we drove a whopping 3,320 miles. And for about 3,300 of those miles the kids we're great!

They have some pretty fancy restaurants here. Last night we went out to one with Steen's friend John. They had a huge fish tank in the center of the restaurant. Daniel and Megan were pretty distracted while we were eating dinner, but it provided some great entertainment for us.

We are here and loving it. It feels more like we are on vacation rather then living here for good. We are renting a beach house right now until we can find a place to live. We have been looking at several different houses since we got here and think we found the perfect one last night. It even has a pool! We just need to get moved in and then all of you wet and cold Washingtonians can come visit us in sunny Florida!! Today we are hoping to go to the beach and check this place out a little more. Check back often to see what our new adventures in Florida are like!

Road Trip to FL - Day 7

Today we mainly did a lot of driving through a few different states. We didn't see much along the way. But we did get to visit our friends The Kunkles. They recently moved from Ridgefield to Memphis, TN. Rachelle (being the super cook she is) made us some yummy southern BBQ. We had a great visit with them and the kids had lots of fun getting there wiggles out with Ryan and Marin. We spent the night in Birmingham. Our last hotel till Florida!

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Welcome to Arkansas!

Welcome to Tennessee!

All the Jensen and Kunkle kiddos!

Welcome to Mississippi!

Welcome to Alabama!

Here is a pic of a cotton field we saw in Alabama.

Road Trip to FL - Day 6

After spending the night it Topeka, KS we headed for St. Louis. On our way we stopped at a few church history sites - Liberty Jail and Independence, MO. After visiting the sites for a few hours we headed to the famous St. Louis arch or gateway to the West. We had a nice relaxing day and it was really neat to visit Liberty Jail where Joseph Smith spent about 127 days. We also drove over the bridge from St. Louis and entered the state of Illinois, but we didn't get a pic of the state sign.

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Welcome to Missouri!

Here's Daddy and the kids in front of the sign at the jail.

Here's Megan and Daniel in the play area at the Independence visitors center. I think they would have made fine pioneers!

Megan and Daniel thought this Christis was pretty cool.

Here is Steen in front of the archway in St. Louis.

The kids are all tucked in and ready for bed after another long day in the car!

Road Trip to FL - Day 5

We had a great stay with the Johnson family. They were great hosts and it was so fun talking with them and especially meeting there cute little daughter Sarah. After leaving Denver we headed on I-70 straight on threw to Kansas. It was quite the adventurous day. We went through a few dust storms and two crazy rain/hail storms. So as of right now we have driven a little over 2,000 miles. Just a few more hundred to go until we get to Florida. The kids have done great so far. Kansas City, St. Louis, and Memphis - here we come...

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Here are the big kids sitting on the front steps getting ready to say there goodbyes.

Megan took this pic of all the adults - not too bad.

Welcome to Kansas!

I made Steen pull over and take a pic of me in front of a sunflower field. They are everywhere in Kansas. They are beautiful!
Here we are in the car in one of the most craziest and kind of scary rain/hail storms ever. We had to pull over cause it was coming down so hard. The road looked like a river. It was fun though!