First Day of Preschool!

Yes, I've been a tad behind in posting any updates since the Leppers landed in Portland. We arrived June 15 and had a nice long & lazy summer of trips to the park, mornings at the library & exploring our new stomping grounds.

But... as all good things do... it has come to an end. 3 weeks ago, I went back to work, full-time and last week Drew started preschool.

I won't bore you with the details about my job... well, maybe I will... but in a separate post.

Drew started preschool 3 mornings a week last Wednesday (after a wonderful Labor Day camping trip... again, details to follow in another post) at Hummingbird Preschool - a neighborhood preschool out of a cute craftsman-style home, about a half-mile away from our house. Mark and Drew can easily ride bikes or walk if the weather permits.. and by most accounts, it will only "permit" for another month or so.

Since Drew was in full-time daycare since he was about 3 months old, he jumped right into preschool like it he was born to be there. He is a fairly social kid (says hi to everyone on the street!) and was starting to get a wee bit bored with just mom & dad as his closest friends. Now he has 9 other kids to hang out with.

I learned that most people start planning for preschool in January or February - we started in August. It evaded my attention that preschool is not the same as daycare & you are on the school-year calendar. Eek! But, God was gracious & the stars all aligned and we found Hummingbird Preschool - with an opening - and very close to home. Perfect!

We were happy with this school because they really focus on letting the kids play and be kids - not pushing a huge academic agenda. The mind of a 3-year old is a sponge & will absorb lots of new things but we really felt strongly that we wanted him to have a play-based, creative school for now & we can worry about his calculus abilities later. Play while you can... you only get to be a kid for a few years and being an adult is boring.

All that said, here are a few pictures from the first day of preschool. Please note that Mark is in charge of getting him ready & I probably would have made a few attempts at getting his hair to lay down a bit more. But not dad.

ps: we are growing his hair out for a real haircut before my cousin's wedding later this month. The shaggy look is not really what we're going for. :)

XOXO!

Portland - We have arrived! Watch out!

Greetings from Northeast Portland!

We finally arrived in our new city last Friday and here I am, over a week later, finally getting some updates! Holy Cats, I'm slow! 

In my defense, it's been a bit hectic. You know.. moving, and all. 

We pulled into town at a bit before 5pm on a Friday night - honestly, not the best time to be trying to navigate through the city for the first time but I did ok. Only 3-4 wrong turns. 

We quickly met with our landlady for our keys and then unpacked our car/truck and let the pets get acclimated. I have to say, the cats & dog did great on our 2-day trek north. I figured Zoey, our golden retriever would do fine since she's been in the car a bunch and she would be with Mark, whom she adores. I was not-so-convinced about our cats - Freddie & Foxy. They don't care for traveling. 

On day one, Freddie did meow and cry from our house in Orange County until we came down off the Grapevine. (For those of you not sure how long that is... roughly 2 hours) Then she mellowed out. The rest of the trip was fine... except once when I slammed on the breaks to avoid the back end of a Subaru. They were not thrilled about that. 

Our POD showed up on Saturday morning & we spent the entire day unloading it. It was a large project but it was great to get it all finished. We felt like champs. 

*side bar comment*

If you ever plan on moving, I highly recommend using a POD. The whole process was great & easy and I can't say enough about the convenience or ease of the whole thing. Kudos, PODS - nice work!

So, 4 billion boxes, 2 huge trips to Target, 1 trip to Ikea and many beers later... here we are. So far, we LOVE Portland. Ironically, the day we unloaded our POD it had to have been in the high-80s if not low-90s. It was hot. And ever since, it's been raining. Still, it's been great. 

Drew and my mom made the trek up from NorCal the middle of last week & Drew has adjusted seamlessly. At one point, he did try to convince me that his tooth brush had fallen down in the drain, but I assured him that happened at our old house. (sorry, new owners... forgot to mention there is a toddler tooth brush in the drain. oops!) But at least Drew is considering this house home now. 

Now, a few pics.

Our front door. We live in a duplex & we have the back unit which is 2-floors (plus a basement - score!)
I love the color scheme of our house - grey & salmon. Purrr.
BTW, those are Drew's blue curtains - not a classy tarp over the windows. His Robot room required blue curtains.
Only now do I see the striking closeness of the color to a tarp. Hmm...

The view from our sidewalk. Little stairway up to our walkway. 

This is the front of our house. That is our garage door on the right (and my car).
The window above belongs to our neighbor, as does the left side of the driveway.
My car fits in pretty well around these parts. 

A happy dog.. and some toes that need a pedicure. 

 Once our house is a bit more put-together, I will post more pictures. I am sure no one wants to look at a bunch of pictures of rooms with boxes in them... so I'll hold off until we are a bit further on our unpacking.


xoxo

Moving on up... geographically speaking

Well, I know it's been a while since I posted last BUT I have a good reason - we've been super busy.

To bring everyone up to speed on the last few months... we have decided to sell our house & move to Portland!

This has not been a quick decision - it's something that we have been discussing and re-discussing for at least 2 years. After a few long talks & a quick visit in December we decided to go for it. We worked like crazy on our house every weekend since Christmas trying to get it looking as good as possible, de-cluttering, cleaning, etc. Finally, on April 17th, we put our house on the market.... and sold it within five days. Holy Cats!

I will try to post more about our move & all the fun that comes along with that over the next few weeks. Thanks for bearing with us over the last few months - I am so happy to be able to talk about all of this now! No more hush-hush!

Anyway - so excited to bring you along on this crazy adventure of ours.
The Lepper Colony heads North!

Cheers!

photo credit: sweet southern nights

Ragnar Wrap-Up

Well, I did it! Actually, WE did it! My team - Directionally Challenged - finished the Ragnar Relay! It was a great experience and I am pretty sure I will be doing it again. It was a true physical & mental challenge for me but I did great - finished all of my legs and feel like I contributed to my team. What an awesome feeling! 


The race started in Huntington Beach - our team off 11 (one runner had an injury that kept him from competing) in our team shirts ready to go.

My husband was runner #3 and I was runner #6 so we had a little bit of down time while waiting for our turn. I kept busy by reading educational materials.

My first leg was in Yorba Linda - it was fairly short (2.7 miles) but it was also 98 degrees out so it made the run a bit more challenging than normal. Each team member has to hand off a snap bracelet to the next runner as they enter the exchange. First photo is Aimee (runner #5) handing off to me. She had just finished an amazingly difficult run up a hill - she was a machine! 

And I was off!

Normally I would never post pictures of me running because no one needs self-deprecating photos like that to be on the internet but this one actually didn't make me cry so I thought I would prove to the world that I was running!

By the way - can't you just see the heat?!

We skip forward about 30 hours or so to the end... my van, runners 1-6, had finished our final legs & were headed to the finish line area to wait for our final runners to complete the race. We stopped at our hotel to check in on our way and they welcomed us with this fancy sign - how thoughtful!

The Ragnar Relay is a great experience - if you're a runner or aspire to be one - this is a great challenge & I highly recommend it. The key is to have a great time & we had one for sure! 

PS - I need show you the cool medals we got - but it deserves its own post!

Ragnar Relay

This weekend Mark and I are participating in the Ragnar Relay - for those of you unfamiliar with the Ragnar series it is a 12-man relay & our race is from Huntington Beach to Coronado Island in San Diego. If you're not from this area and aren't sure how far that is... our route is roughly 200 miles. I have been very intimidated by this race & training for it but today I feel ready... which is good because the race is Friday. 


I was never a team sport player growing up and I do not have a competitive spirit when it comes to physical activity. Trivia games, yes - running, no. I actually think it's the scariest part of running this relay - not whether I can run it, but whether I can run it in time to keep my team on track. No pressure! 


Wish me (and the rest of our team) luck! I'll post pictures of the race next week!

Video Premiere

I finally figured it out... and the video is out of my phone and coming to you live! Well, maybe not live.. but it's here! And sort of blurry! I took some new videos with our actual camera last night too. I see this being a new trend for us - videos actually capture how hilarious Drew is right now. He likes to chat & make noises of all kinds. I swear I heard him say "mama" yesterday - but not "dada"... we haven't been practicing that. Only "mama". Anyhow, video will show what a funny guy he is.

I'm so proud of him! I am also realizing that I need to get to the store & get my child safety stuff stat! No more sharp corners in our house (which really could be beneficial for all!)!