and a brand new car!

I know you all knew we've been thinking about getting a new car for months now, and you probably also knew that we went to look at one Saturday (just to look) and ended up bringing it home that night. But as of yesterday, it is no longer on loan, the papers are signed. We are the proud owners of a 2011 Stormy Blue Mazda CX7! This isn't a great picture because I took it from my living room window, but I told Mike he could be the one to post pictures of it on facebook (so I cheated and did it here, haha). They couldn't clean it for us yesterday because there weren't any porters working, so he's bringing it back Friday and once it's all shined up I'm sure there will be all the requisite pictures of the car, us with the car, Isabel driving the car, and all the other cheesy stuff that I love. This is very exciting for us, we didn't expect to end up with a BRAND new car, but it was a way better deal. Mike wanted a Mazda and I wanted a family car, he wanted a stick and I wanted automatic, so this was the perfect match. Driving up to NY/NJ from Virginia is going to be no problem now!

Just a quick update...

Well, I don't have much to update on in regards to the move. The good news is that we're getting a decent chunk of money back on our taxes and that's taking a lot of the stress out of this whole process. We're almost definitely not getting base housing right off the bat. I'm disappointed but I can't say I'm surprised, we knew from the get-go that the housing in Norfolk was very limited.  What I'm hoping now is that we can move into housing somewhere down the road, even if we have to rent out in town for a few months first. Mike detaches from Great Lakes on March 16th and we'll be headed to VA to view in person some of the apartments we've been looking at online. He doesn't have to actually report to the base there until the 27th so it gives us some time to find a place and get settled. I also recently learned that he doesn't attach to his ship until April 27th, so that means we have at least a month in Virginia before he heads out to join them on their deployment. He also won't miss Easter or my 25th birthday, yay!

On the Isabel front, her new favorite activity is twirling. It's pretty cute. She's a tornado, like any toddler, but definitely a very funny and sweet little girl. I've taken up yoga and she loves to mimic my poses. Her downward facing dog puts mine to shame. I sometimes catch her reading books to herself and doing all the hand motions I usually do when I read them. She's also very attached to her baby dolls and I find her cradling them and cooing to them. I had hoped to skip the undressing herself milestone, but the last few days have proven that that's not going to happen. She's so far only figured out how to take off her pants and diaper, which means a naked baby butt runs through my living room at least once a day.

That's really all that's been going on here. At this point, most of the things left to do before we move (like packing) are still a few weeks in the future. We've just been living out a stomach bug, watching the snow fall, and delighting in the fact that we'll likely never have to endure another Chicago winter.