June - September

It's been a while since I've blogged, mostly that is because it doesn't seem to work anymore. A lot has happened since May. June we moved into the new house. We've been going to the Mars Hill Farmer's Market every Sat. and have become familiar with the farmers and other vendors. We went to a play in Mars Hill, Cheaper By the Dozen. I started to go to Asheville Bikram's Yoga. Many friends and family have visited including my Dad, Page's family, Jeanne and Richard, Kathleen, Jenni and her Mom, Leslie and Becky, Kyla and the boys, and Soapie. We've had two House Warming parties and entertained more than 20 people at each. The one on Sun. was mostly Ben's work friends from Bristol. We've played in the river and made friends with the neighbors Dave and Patricia. I've sent out change of address cards and received my new address labels. Helen and I walk down to the mailbox every day and I dip Helen's feet in the creek each time. I'm still working at Mountain Yoga and the Muscle Factory on Wed., teaching 4 classes. I still have lunch with Cindy (sometimes), Nancy, and Ben on the days Ben comes into JC with me. We are headed to Flagstaff, AZ Sept. 6th to visit Ben's brother Lars. He will meet Helen for the first time. Helen can walk with the help of furniture and her friends, she is eating 3 meals a day, and making sounds. I stopped breast feeding in Aug., my goal was 6 months, and I reached it. It wasn't the easiest thing for me to do and Helen stopped wanting to breast feed after 4-5 months, so it was all pumping for me, and I couldn't produce enough milk for it to be really worth it. Helen has tried many foods. She loves Patricia's chocolate cake, Oreo filling, cherry pop sickles, bananas, most fruit, peas, sweet potatoes, carrots, and honey nut Cheerios. She hates squash. Helen is mostly a joy to be around, except when she's tired and cranky. My high school classmate, Wendy Lawrence came to take photos of Helen Aug. 14th. The photos turned out beautifully. She is such a beautiful and sweet baby. She loves to laugh and have a good time. We got our Mars Hill Library library cards the other day. We've tried most of the restaurants in Mars Hill and our favorite is the Latin Restaurant. Ben works 3 days a week, but it feels like more because he is gone the whole day long. Lately he has had 3 day weekends, which has been wonderful. We went to Mount Mitchell last weekend and ended up in JC for the Cardinals game with Nancy and the St. John's members. We still haven't been to church here. We keep meaning to go, but with Ben's schedule, we tend to sleep in and get distracted with things to do around the house.