This isn’t directly about Joshua but it’s the biggest thing going on for us right now so I’ll update you all on what’s going on.  As you know, we’re moving to Tacoma, Washington in May for Erick to start his pediatrics residency.  We put our house on the market to sell (despite the horrible housing market) & got 3 offers within 4 days!  We even got 2 offers for much more than our listing price!  We’re officially under contract right now & are just waiting for the bank to approve the sale (crossing our fingers it goes through quickly!).  For the first time ever, our house has been spotless for the last week while we were subject to short-notice showings by realtors.  In all, over a dozen realtors came by with clients—not too shabby for just a few days.  We took a ton of stuff we had stored in our bonus room, nooks & crannies, & other random cupboards to a storage unit so the basement was converted into a play area for Joshua.  He’s enjoying having a new area to explore & it’s nice not having toys all over the living room like before.

I found a house for us to rent in Fircrest & we’re really excited about it (I think Erick’s gradually warming up to the idea—he initially wanted a cheap place near post but there wasn’t much to choose from so we expanded the search parameters).  Because of the chaos involved with selling, I’ve been adamant about renting when we get to Washington so this should be a lot less stressful.  No more having to take care of everything on our own—I miss being able to call the landlord if something goes wrong again (not that that has really been an issue for past homes but it’s still reassuring).  I’ll post photos of our new place when we get there.  The landlord e-mailed me tons of photos but they’re all with the current tenants’ things all over so the photos will wait until later.  You’ll just have to trust me that it looks nice.  My dad comes out next week & will drive one of our cars to Seattle which will be a big help both having him here to supervise Josh while I get things done & for the car transportation issue.  A road trip with a toddler strapped into a carseat for days on end didn’t sound like a good idea so Joshua & I are flying out on May 19th.  Erick & his best friend Ray are making a road trip after graduation so hopefully he’ll make it before our household goods shipment arrives!

As for “Joshua stuff,” he & I went to USU for the spouses club’s annual spring party & egg hunt a couple of weeks ago.  He was pretty moody all day & that evening I discovered why:  all 4 of his second molars broke through in the same day!  Despite the teething pain, Josh had a great time at the party.  He ran to the field of eggs with the other little kids & gathered up tons of little plastic eggs which he put in a friend’s basket because his mom forgot to bring one for him (I know, I’m a horrible mom!).  Joshua had a great haircut experience the other day which I’m especially excited about given his previous haircut in December.  If you remember, it ended quite badly with the cops coming to make sure a screaming child was OK.  This time, we went to Kidville (a super-expensive kiddy gym) where he got to sit in a fire truck, pop bubbles, watch Dora, & play with toys while the woman cut away.  It wasn’t cheap but it was worth every penny to get his mop of a head taken care of finally!  The funniest thing was that he woke up the next morning & was mad because I didn’t take him back for another haircut right away!

The weather is gradually improving after several cold & rainy days so we’ve been able to go to the park a few times.  They opened up the carousel & train at the park down the street during spring break so we went twice to ride them over & over again.  We used up 10 tickets riding so many times & that still wasn’t enough for Joshua!

Joshua keeps talking more & more, & his intelligibility is improving so much.  He loves to count everything, whether it’s counting the steps as he climbs the stairs, pieces of food on his plate, or toys in his new playroom (our converted bonus room formerly used for storage).  He’ll count really quickly from 1-12 & then skip to 14, then 11-teen, & then 20.  He’ll even count in Spanish which is really cute to hear (as is pretty much anything he says to my ears).  Josh asks “what that is?” a lot—he really has non-stop curiosity about everything!  Joshua’s finally enjoying singing & will ask to sing random songs out of nowhere.  Whenever he hears music he’ll start dancing or twirling around & he spontaneously likes to say “shaka shaka boom boom” as he wiggles his butt (I think he got this from an episode of Dora the Explorer, his favorite thing ever to watch on TV).