I think that I’ve spent a whopping total of 10 days in Grand Forks since May 27. And since I don’t blog while I’m traveling, that’s made for a pretty sparse summer as far as our family updates go. However, sparse is probably the last word I’d use to describe how our summer has actually gone. To give you the brief run down, here’s where we’ve been:
May 27 – May 31 Pennsylvania for the Krouchick-Gearns nuptial celebrations
May 31 – June 2 New Jersey/New York visiting family and attending my little sister Katie’s orchestra performance at Carnegie Hall (also saw Aladin on Broadway!)
Night of June 2 Flight to Rome
June 3 – June 10 Rome
June 10 – June 16 Paris
June 16 – 18 Granville, Mont San Michel, Bayeux, Normandy
June 19 – 21 Lourdes
June 22 Land in MSP
June 23 Travel back to Grand Forks
June 24 – July 1 Begin packing and preparing for our move
July 2 Fly to Oregon, Josh stays back in ND
July 2 – 9 Visit family, enjoy my home state and mom throws me a baby shower
July 9/10 Flight back to ND, arriving at 11pm. Drive back to GF and arrive home at 12:50 (thank you, Jess for our lovely conversation on my otherwise boring drive home!). Spent all day resting and trying to motivate myself to continue the packing process
July 11 Back to tackling our list
During those dates I also went into work a few times to help train the new guy, we had our first ultrasound, sold our futon, in the process of selling our Subaru and I’ve outgrown several pairs of pants.
So, as you can see it’s not so easy to deliver the detailed updates in a prompt manner – there’s just too much good stuff to share and not enough time to write! What I’m hoping to do is write and share pictures from each day in Europe, but I’m not going to set a schedule for how quickly that’s going to happen (don’t worry, I journaled pretty decent notes along the way so I won’t forget!). In between our usual updates you just may occasionally see a flashback to a particular day from our pilgrimage. I will, however, move chronologically through our pilgrimage. Slowly, but chronologically.
Honestly, I can’t even promise how frequent our regular updates will be considering that we’re uprooting our life in just a few short weeks. Additionally, I’m not checking email nearly as often, and when I do I usually read but do not necessarily have a chance to respond. When we do arrive in PA, we plan to continue living without internet. We’ll see how that goes with Josh’s school work and may reevaluate if he has a lot of online components to his courses. I say all of this to give realistic expectations of how much online-Ashlie you can anticipate to see. I will continue to blog! I enjoy it, and Josh and I like the ability to look back on our written memories. But life is taking a major shift (new state, new school, new home, new tiny human being…) and it will require me to live fully in the present moment. But still feel free to call and text us! We do love hearing from our loved ones – our lifestyle just isn’t conducive to multi-media communication 🙂
In the mean time, here are some pictures from the baby shower! My mom did an amazing job – she’s the best! She BBQed scrumptious flank steak with cherry sauce, chicken with some delicious spices, made a big, fresh salad, pasta salad and the best cupcakes ever. We played a couple of games, but mostly spent the time enjoying the company of family and good old friends. Thank you to everyone who celebrated with us! Baby Dill loves you all!
The rest of my Oregon excursion was just as great. The weather was perfect 75 – 90 degrees. I got to see loved ones and relax a little every day. Mom and I spent a number of hours watching the hummingbirds in her backyard and maybe too much time finishing season 3 of Haven 🙂 Poppy, mom, Shelly, Bernie and I went and got tacos to celebrate Baby Dill, also! It was all very simple, and just right. Lots of relaxing, prepping for the shower and spending time with the fam. Perfection.
a dillightful adventure 
Good times. The nursing cover finally came – it’s cute. I added it to the box. Miss you. Loves!
Look at you! Growing and smiling and being beautiful! Cheers to your many adventures – day-to-day and lifelong! Love you 🙂
Always love our chats! I’m glad you got some time to renew your spirits in the lovely PNW! xxxx