Catch up

Hi Ya'll,

This year has been an amazing one and filled with so many things to be thankful for.  Here's a quick summary.

January
Eleanor Grace was born.  She weighed in at a healthy 9 lbs 6 oz and is much loved by her siblings.  With three January babies and an anniversary too January is a month we CELEBRATE.

February
After six weeks of being colicky Ellie becomes a happy mellow baby and starts sleeping through the night.  With Dad studying for his final radiology board exams and mom Young Women president all feel like prayers have been answered.  We also went to Utah for a funeral that was heartbreaking.  Grateful for the gospel, for a brave sister, and amazing nieces and nephews.  A trip to Moab provided a little balm for the soul and some great pictures.

being a "rock star"

Cousin love

"I can do it"

March
Quite frankly this month is a bit of a blur.  I'm sure baby and board studying took up much of it.  Dell and I did get to take a quick trip to Boston over spring break to try and find a place to live.  While we couldn't find a place to rent we did fall in love with the area which made the upcoming move even more exciting.

swimming in the guadelupe river

April
Dell traveled for half of this month.  Presented at a conference in Vancouver BC (where Dell got to hang out with his parents) and had a review course in North Carolina where he got to see a brother and a bunch of friends.  (And study like a madman.)  We also put our home on the market and had it under contract in 3 weeks-- without a realtor.  Wahoo! And since nothing stresses Anna out like selling a house, we are really grateful it sold quickly and that the buyers were fine with not closing until after graduation.

Eating a 3.5 lb cinnamon roll at Lulu's in San Antonio

May
Dell took and passed his oral boards.  Imagine hours of being grilled by brilliant people in mulitple specialties with any minute detail of radiology considered fair game.  This is a brutal test.  So thankful it is over.  And in a complete miracle we found the perfect apartment at the last minute in our dream area.  Whew.  I was starting to really worry about being homeless through fellowship.


June

Dell graduated from his Radiology residency (yay for Dell!!! but how we miss the wonderful people he got to work and learn with), Anna was released from YW president (sob), we loaded up the moving truck with 12,000 lbs of stuff, (How did we ever get so much stuff?) and we said good-bye to San Antonio and all our dear friends and family there.

Dell's residency graduation.  The center 8 are classmates outside four run the program.

We took a long meadering path to Boston visiting friends and family along the way.  Once in Boston we had to spend two more weeks in hotels waiting for our apartment to be available.  If anyone ever wants Anna's "how to live out of your car for three weeks" tutorial let us know.  We used our time without a home to explore a little of Boston but were so grateful when on June 30th we could move into our new apartment.  We are also grateful for military housing and military discounts which allowed us to have a roof over our head at prices that made our 3 weeks of homelessness more affordable.

Little Air Force recreation area on the coast.

July
Dell starts work and we finally get unpacked.  Nothing like being without your stuff for three weeks to make you appreciate all your stuff.  And to realize you don't need a lot of it.  A second purge takes place.  And Anna starts trembling at the thought that this whole move has to happen again in a year and so decides not to unpack a third of the boxes.  Which considering the new home is a 1/3 the size of the old is probably a good idea.

Make way for ducklings statues in Boston Public Gardens

Walden Pond /Thoreau's house

Pirate girls

Red Sox Baseball

Swimming Lessons for Henry and playing for Ellie and Lizzie  at the lake down the street

Wingaersheek Beach-- best sand ever!  And the smile's pretty good too

August
Relish summer in New England.  Beach, forest, Berry picking...so much to do!

Blueberry picking at Blueberry Hill Maine

We also discover that our street is full of boys Henry's age when everyone returns from summer camps the last week of August.  Enjoy concerts and a movie at the park across the street every friday.  Anna's family comes to visit and historical sights are enjoyed by all. Also get to visit Dell's brother in Philadelphia.  So fun to have family close by. We load our entire family on our new kayak to explore the concord river and get many a funny look.  What you never saw five people on one kayak?  And since Ellie hates the kayak and has to be bounced by Dell the whole ride Anna does all the paddling.
We also... (see pictures)

Militia drills at Minute Man National Park

Kennebunkport Maine

Peach Picking (or peach smooshing as Lizzie is doing)

We drive to the Berkshires for Boston Pop's summer kids concert.  There's a tent where kids can try different instruments.  Lizzie loves the violin.

Ellie at Tanglewood.  Ellie really did love the music.  I just love this face she's making. (the back of the performance hall opens up to the lawns)

September
Henry starts second grade at his new school.  His new school is a 5th the size of his old school with only 300 students.
 Dell's parents come to visit and we bike and fish at Cape Cod and ride the battle road between lexington and concord. 

Fishing Cape Cod at Sunset

Henry at the old North Bridge

Apple Picking

October
Fall in New England.  Enough said.  It is really as magical as everyone says it is.

Lizze and the lake (ok pond)

Yes, Ellie is asleep in the backpack.  And yes, she can breath like that.  And this picture just doesn't do the colors justice.  Just amp everything up a bit.

November
Grateful for all of the wonderful people in our life.  As we put together our holiday cards this year it was wonderful to think about each of you and how you have touched our lives for good.  THANK YOU.

Much love

The Dunns (Dell, Anna, Henry, Lizzie, Eleanor)

Halloween

Halloween

Halloween was a perfect day.  The storm (the leftovers from hurricane Sandy) had brought some nice warm air with it and so temps were in the upper 50s.  Henry was the green ninja from Lego Ninjago while Lizzie was Rupunzel and Ellie was a flower.  I was so excited for Ellie to be a flower.  I've had the costume since Lizzie was a baby but it was too hot for Texas.  Perfect for Boston though.  And best of all Dell was able to get home a little early and go trick or treating in the village with us.

Girls on the front porch

(don't you love our pink house?!)

We started our festivities by dressing up and walking with our friends to our neighborhood center/ "the village" where the stores were providing trick or treat fun for the kids.  What a great atmosphere!  Lots of adorable kids running around, parents pushing strollers, and leaves crunching under foot. 
     

 Lizzie racing to the first store (an amazing bakery.  I am drooling just thinking about their morning buns.)

After the trick or treating we all came home and had soup in bread bowls.  A family from the neighborhood joined us as did a couple from Dell's work that are from Brazil.  They had never done trick or treating and it was really fun to wander the neighborhood with them during our second round of trick or treating.  (And I must say that our neighborhood is pretty amazing for trick or treating.  The kids ended up with several full sized bars each and we only hit about 10 houses.)  The downstairs neighbors came up after the second round of treat or treating for apple cider and pumpkin squares and we all stayed up way to late talking and laughing.  The next morning the kids turned in their candy for their Halloween treat (a nerf bow and arrow set for Henry and a lego friends set for Lizzie) and we sent the rest of the candy off to operation shoebox for them to share with the troops in Afghanistan before Dell and I could eat too much of it.

Boston

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for the long hiatus but here's a post to help catch y'all up.  In June we sold our home in San Antonio and headed off to Boston for Dell to do a Body Fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess.  We are loving Boston and having grand adventures every weekend (which I'll post about soon.)  But for now here's a quick peak into our life in Boston.

First technically we are in a little suburb of Boston that is the perfect blend between urban and suburban.  There's a park across the street and we can walk two blocks to our bakery, toy store, and candy store.  Happiness for everyone.  Our street is quiet and filled with boys Henry's age which makes everyone happy.  They roam the street popping into each others homes and it's what I've always wanted in a neighborhood.  Dell takes the train in every morning and most days I can walk to where I need to go.  We love it.  Oh and our neighbors are super friendly.

Then there's our apartment.  We lucked out!  We rented it sight unseen when one month before we were to move we still hadn't been able to find a place that would either rent to a family with three kids or was in our price range/close to train.  We were getting desperate and praying lots.  But after place after place fell through one day Craigslist had a ad for an apartment in our dream area and even said "kids welcome."  And it is perfect.  Our wonderful mothering landlord lives next door and she adores our kids.  She fixes things fast and is so grateful and impressed every time we mow the lawn.  Renting from her is great.  And then there's the place itself.  We were nervous having only seen the few pictures Janet was able to send before we moved out but we are so happy with the layout/everything.  It's one of those thank heaven for unanswered prayers sort of things.  We'd been praying and praying that we could get an apartment a couple of streets away but ended up with a place twice the size on a quiet street with lots of kids and a park nearby for the same price.  We are grateful.  So here's a quick tour of some of our Boston home.



 The Living Room

See the door with the sheer curtain?  That's where you enter our second story apartment.

 

Just to the left of that door is a small hallway where we have our "mud room" of sorts.  That hallway also leads to a coat closet and the stairs to the upper floor where the three bedrooms and second bathroom are.   Here's a picture of the "mud room"

  

The living room has lots of nice windows and the huge catalpa tree outside makes it feel a little like being in a tree house.  You may notice that we don't have a full size coach in our place.  That's because our couch couldn't make it up the stairs and instead of renting an hydrolic crane to lift it through the window for 400.00 we decided to just make due with a loveseat for a year.  :)

  .

The door in the living room heads out to the 3 season porch or "lego lab" as Henry has named it.  He has to share a room with Lizzie so to give him a space of his own the porch is his.  We got a space heater for it and plan on putting up window film to help hold heat.  Here's hoping it will work through winter otherwise we may have to shuffle rooms around upstairs and put Lizzie and Ellie together.

"the Lego Lab."   I love how light and bright it is.  Henry has all of his revolutionary war figures lined up on the window sill right now.  Usually it's full of lego creations.

 

From the living room you can enter either the dining room (left/east) or the playroom (right/west).  (The main floor is kind of one big circle which the kids love to chase each other around.) 

 I love the dining room!  Our big table fits perfectly and there's a built in hutch where we have all of our art/school supplies.  We all gather at the table to do our homework every night before dinner and with the huge east facing windows it's a wonderful place to breakfast as well.  The big tree out the window just lost all its leaves but it was the most glowing red/yellow ever this fall.

  From the dining room you walk past the main floor full bath to the kitchen.  I love my kitchen!  My favorite thing about it is this pantry.  It fits all my food (including food storage) and most of my dishes.  It's bright and light and I have told Dell if we ever build a house a want one just like it-- okay maybe a tad bit bigger. 

 Here's the rest of the kitchen.  It faces south and is pretty warm and bright.  I sometimes wish the windows were larger but in the summer they are just the right size.  :)

 

Kitchen from the other side-- see my pantry?!  Sorry about the aprons in the foreground.  Totally forgot to take them down when taking the picture.

 

just off the kitchen here is our back door-- which I use the most since it goes to where the garage and car are.  Behind the closet doors in my laundry area which was doing laundry and covered in Halloween stuff so I kept the doors closed.  :)

 

Here's another view from the kitchen so you can see how the house is one big circle.  

 

 So from the kitchen we move into the playroom.  I love how it is just off the kitchen and how Lizzie and Ellie have a bright safe place to play.  Still trying to figure out how to decorate-- any ideas would be appreciated.

 So that's the main floor.  No pictures of the top floor due to two napping kids, a quilt in progress and Ellie's room being painted atomic peach.  Trying to decide if it's worth painting when we are only here for a year and as long as you don't turn the light in her room on it's not too bad.  :P

A little bit of Memorial Day morning fun.  Standardizing the noses does highlight somne other family resemblances. Maybe we'll have to try it with a wig or something...it is only a few months until I'll be back to being the one with the least hair in the family : )