Home is wherever I am with you...

After living in Portland for over 12 years, our family is heading North to Seattle.  We are sad to say goodbye to our friends and this city we've grown to love, but we are excited about this new chapter in our life.  Whenever I pack up a home to move, it makes me reminisce about all the "firsts" we had there. 

Our sweet little blue house in Tualatin, we loved all 1060 sq feet of you and your 10,000 sq foot yard.  You were our first home and you were good to us.  We brought our first addition to our family home there (Deacon how we miss you) and held our first annual Yates Christmas party with seats running all the way from the sliding glass door to the front door and a rambunctious game of Pictionary.  You were good to us for 4 years and then we decided it was time for something a little bigger in anticipation of one day growing our family.

The Tigard house was where we went through our first major remodel and came out smiling on the other end.  It's also where we brought Merrick home and had so many firsts with him there.  First smile, first laugh, first roll over, first crawl, first step, first word... I could go on an on.  We also created friendships there that I know will remain strong even with miles between us.  It was hard to leave a home that created so many memories for us, but in 2010 we decided to make a bigger move and move from the suburbs to the city and to a home that was 70 years older than the one we were leaving. 

Rose City Park, you charmed us from the beginning with your location and sweet history.  Moving into a home that had been owned by the same family for over 60 years was a little intimidating.  To think of all the firsts this home had seen and the history it held for the family that was leaving.  While there were many things we wanted to change and update in this home, we didn't move as quickly as we had in other homes and some of the quirks came to grow on us and we learned to love you even more.  In this home we saw Merrick ride his bike on his own for the first time, where we sent him to Kindergarten and he learned to read and write and where he lost his first tooth. While there are lots of good memories in this home, there are also some sad ones as well.  After 12 years, we had to say goodbye to our sweet dog Deacon, I can only hope there are huge fields with no fences for you in doggy heaven. 

As I reminisce about each of these homes, I'm reminded of the song "Home" by Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros because as long as we are together, happy and healthy, it doesn't matter if we live in a huge home or a tiny apartment. "Home is wherever I am with you".

Disneyland

Travis and I decided late last year that we wanted to surprise Merrick with a trip to Disneyland for his 6th birthday.  After lots of research and planning, we got a trip booked in early January.  Lucky for us, the Handasyde family wanted to join us, which made the trip planning that much more fun!  Darryl and Rebecca told Dakota that she was going to Disneyland about a month before the trip.  Merrick took the news like a champ and was even excited for Dakota when he found out that she was going to get to stay the night with us before the trip and that we would take them to the airport in the morning. 

We had a 6:50 am flight, which meant an early rise time for all of us.  Merrick wasn't quite awake when we told him the news that he was going to Disneyland and it took a few minutes for the news to sink in.  He quickly ran and told Dakota that he was going with her.  The first excitement of the day was finding out that we were going to ride in a taxi to the airport.  I honestly think Merrick might have been just as excited about the taxi as he was about going to Disneyland.

Merrick & Dakota at the Orange County Airport sporting their "I'm with Goofy T-shirts" and custom Mickey and Minnie bags

The nice thing about an early morning flight was that we got to our hotel and dropped off our bags by 10:00 in the morning, which meant we had a full day at the park.  The first small hiccup in the trip was that the computer system at Disney was down.  Not a big deal if you have your confirmation paperwork with you to show that you have purchased tickets (unfortunately we did not).  Fortunately, they took our word for it and gave us tickets to the park.  How's that for customer service?  Travis was our navigator for the trip and had his handy phone and disneyland app that told him what the wait time was on all the rides.  We decided to ease into things and hit the Jungle Cruise first.  The only problem was our little boat ride turned into a short version of Gilligan's Island.  What was supposed to be about a 7 minute tour, turned into a 20+ minute tour as they had some malfunctions on the ride.  When we finally made it back to the dock, they gave us extra fast passes (for those of you who don't know what a fast pass is, it's like a golden ticket that gets you to the front of the ride line).  Again, Disney came through on the customer service front. 

The crew on the tea cups

I could bore all of you with the play by play details of our trip, but I'll save both you and I the time. I will bore you with lots of pictures, which as they say... are worth a thousand words. If you really want details, the next time I see you, be sure to ask.  What I will say is that we had a wonderful time.  I would say it was probably the best family trip we've been on and we created lots of memories. 

On the Mickey Ferris Wheel at California Adventure

Playing at the water park at our hotel

Tower of Terror - One of my favorite rides

Screamin' California was one of our favorite rides.

We surprised the kids with breakfast with the characters on our last day.

After our last day at Disneyland and California Adventure

Mr. M. turns 6!

It's hard to believe that Mr. M. is already 6 years old!  I know they say that time flies when you're having fun, but I had no idea it went this fast.  Merrick truly is the light of our lives, he is smart, sweet, funny, compassionate, inquisitive, and I could go on and on.  One of the things that I love about M is that he still loves to snuggle and get kisses and hugs from his mom & dad.  Since he's my only one, I savor these moments because I know they won't last forever.  I know the day is coming when he won't want a kiss when I drop him off at school and will be okay with a hug and then it will be no kiss and no hug and just a "bye mom" as he runs to his friends.  So until that time comes, we will cherish these moments with him.

Since M is our only one, he does tend to get SPOILED.  We've been planning a surprise trip to Disneyland to celebrate his birthday since January.  Originally we weren't going to have a party with his friends and keep the big celebration for "The Happiest Place on Earth", but once we knew for certain that we were moving, we decided to give him one last party here in Portland with all his friends.  We let him pick the location, and he chose Pump it Up.  So Friday, May 4, 20 of Merrick's closest friends (and their parents) headed to Pump it Up for a fun evening of jumping, sliding and cake. 

 The whole crew (let's see you try to get 20+ kids cooperate for a picture!)

M and his best buddy Zachary.  These boys are only 4 months apart in age and have known each other since M was born.

Megan and M.  Megan and M have known each other since the day M was brought home from the hospital.  Her mom and I walked many, many miles pushing the kids in strollers when M was an infant trying to keep him happy and to stop the CRYING! They both lost their first tooth this past week.  So fun that they reached that milestone together.

I lost my tof!

Merrick got his first "wiggly" tooth about a month ago.  We've been waiting and waiting for it to finally fall out.  Yesterday while we were at the park he told me that he was ready for me to pull his tooth out.  Knowing that pulling teeth can sometimes be messy (and the fact that just the thought makes my stomach turn) I told him we needed to wait until we got home and got Daddy to help us.

Daddy stepped up to the challenge and once he realized that his fingers were a bit too big to fit in little M's mouth, he got the bright idea to use floss.  Not knowing what the outcome would be, I excused myself and left the boys to handle the business of extracting the tooth.  Thankfully there were was no crying or screaming and after just a few short minutes, Merrick exited his bedroom with a small little tooth in his mouth and a gap in his smile.  I am so proud of him for being so brave and he wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy to make sure she brought him just what he wanted.

For those of you who can't read his letter, here is what it says

I lost my tof

Dear tofarei

Dear tofarei

I wot mune

Fum Merrick Yates

and yes, the Tofarei has tucked away this sweet note.