"Two hearts beating wildly..."

I was 12 when my youngest sister was born. She was the 5th of five girls, and I was the mother hen. I love the special connection that comes with sisters, and Kelsey and I had a great bond because of all the time I spent mothering her.

She was six when I went to college. I graduated college and moved back home for a bit, but I haven't lived at home in more than 10 years. And I spent all of my twenties enjoying friends and being gone a lot. Which means, I didn't get to really know Kelsey, and she was stuck in a time-warp as a tween.

This summer, Kelsey graciously volunteered to drive across the country with me and Nadine. That's right, my busy senior-year-in-college sister, who spent the summer on two (two!) foreign music internships, gave up two weeks of her life for me and my family. To help her frantic sister pack frantically. To drive from Maryland to Las Vegas. To help with a 3-year-old. Driving mostly sitting in the passenger seat.

She is a champ.

I very much enjoyed those two weeks with Kelsey, and I especially enjoyed our four days in the car. She is a remarkably good traveling buddy. I loved getting to connect with her as adults; I know she has felt separated from us other siblings. Whitney, my next youngest sibling, is five years older than Kelsey. It can't have been a fun position to hold, to watch all your siblings grow and not be at that point yet; then to reach that point, and have your siblings (or at least Jen) think you're still 12.

To make a long story short (too late), I am very grateful for our four long days stuck in a car, driving eight or nine or 14 hours a day. I feel it cemented my bond with my sister Kelsey.

(Non sequitur) And now she's getting married! I am so excited for her and Daniel. Truth be told, I have been secretly hoping for this event for five years. Kelsey and Daniel were friends in high school, then dated the last bit of high school and their first year of college. Daniel was gone for two years serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; he recently returned and they're getting married in December.

I began this post with my recollections of young Kelsey, because I was blown away how old (in all the good ways) she looks in these pictures. And how happy they both are. I love watching the interactions of couples in love.

Kelsey asked me to take their engagement pictures, and I was excited to use them as guinea pigs. I am not a terrific photographer, but it's a hobby I greatly enjoy, and I have a nice camera and good photo editing software (that I can't fully comprehend yet...). I am really proud of these pictures, though their success is largely due to the subjects.

We took the pictures at my parents' cabin in southern Utah, which is my Happy Place (I think that goes for all my siblings as well). It has many wonderful places for pictures.

They're such a great couple.

Our mom designed the railings. I've always thought that was cool.

Aren't they cute?!

She's beautiful.

Have you ever been photo-bombed by a horse? I have. (There's a horse butt behind Kelsey's shoulder. It cracked me up. I was distracting.)

 Ahhhhhhhh, love.

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I also made my family guinea pigs for my photography. We found a great place for family pictures, so I decided to experiment. The lighting wasn't great (curse you, shadows! Though also, hooray for shadow-creating-sun in Washington!) but I am happy with the result. We could re-do the pictures, but I am lazy and I don't want to get dressed up and drive out there again. LAZY.

I do love this picture. Hellooooo, Puget Sound!

The rest of the pictures are on the Nani blog.

That's all. Whew.

This post will make all the other posts wet their pants!

Alrightie, this post is about The Move. Where we drove 3,780 miles across the country, basically coast to coast.

We had two 14-hour + drives; I pushed my luck because Nadine did ridiculously well on the drive. I was so pleasantly and gratefully surprised.

My wonderful sister Kelsey allowed us to fly her out to drive across the country with me and Nadine (Todd drove his car). We drove caravan-style until Nebraska; then Todd drove to Salt Lake and we drove to Las Vegas. Todd took his anesthesia boards on the 29th, so Nani and I spent time away from Washington so he could devote his time to studying.

We were supposed to spend Independence Day apart, which was sad, but then Todd surprised us by making a less-than-24-hour trip down to Vegas. What a great guy.

Here's our Maryland house while I was being Crazy Packer Woman. The Army couldn't schedule movers for us (grrrrrr to them, and for waiting until two weeks before our move to finally tell us the truth), so I packed the house, with the help of my wonderful friends and Kelsey.

We're still fighting with the military to try to get this all reimbursed, and it looks like we won't, because of a weight miscalculation on our movers' part; so the moving saga continues. Arrrgh, Army!

Here's our huge ABF truck. We packed 27 linear feet. Holy crap. My wonderful father-in-law flew out to help, and we are so grateful, especially because he was so great at fitting everything tightly together in the truck.

We have been very happy with ABF, except for the weight problem. (The Army reimburses based on weight, but ABF charged us based on how much space we took up in the truck. So instead of the Army reimbursing us the entire amount we paid to ABF, on a last-minute move because of the Army's incompetence, they will only pay us what ABF mistakenly said was half the real weight.) But I digress....

Our last night on the road, we stayed in North Platte, NE. It's basically in the middle of nowhere, but it happens to be the headquarters of Cabela's, so they had astonishingly nice hotels (yay!). It also had this hilarious sign on their gas station.

While I was in Nevada, all four of my sisters happened to be there too (for a blissful week window). We haven't all been together in nearly three years, so of course we had a Ripp Girls night. Unfortunately Mary and Ashley weren't able to join us, but we had Maren, Kelsey, Maggie, Whitney, me, and Lindsay. Beautiful women, and some of my favorite people.

I didn't contact anyone while I was in Nevada, and I apologize, but the women above are my excuse for not seeing anyone else.

I have many other pictures from our time with my family, but they're on the Nani blog.

But before you click over, here's our house in Washington!

I really enjoy this house. I like the layout, I'm so grateful for the backyard, and I love having a garage. And surprisingly, I really enjoy Washington so far. That's easy to say in the gorgeous summer, but still. I like it more than I thought.

I'll attempt to show the layout, for those who haven't seen the house (which is most of you).

Here's our front door. (I took this in the kitchen.)

Facing the front door: to the left is the stairs, to the right is the family room.

The family room is still a work in progress, but I have our curtains up, the TV works, and all the furniture is in the right spot. Phew.

Randomly, one of my favorite things about the house are the wide stairs. Well, that and the fact there's only one set of stairs in the entire house, and no stairs to climb to get into the house (again, garage!!!!!).

I'm now a bit embarrassed to be posting a picture of our stairs. Ah well.

The kitchen is HUGE. And it has a gas stove. And it's my dumping ground for boxes. BUT, all the boxes are out of the garage!!! Now it's time to organize the house. As you'll see in a few pictures.

We have a wall of shelves. We didn't have nearly enough shelving space in our MD kitchen, and I've apparently been traumatized by it.

On the left is the valence material that was in the house before, and their opaque window covering; on the right is my fabric choice, and thermal curtains to block the sunset-facing windows (we don't have AC, and though the mornings are gloriously temperate, that direct sun bakes the house).

The dining room is in a walkway between the kitchen and the family room, in a corner. One window faces east, the other west (with thermal curtains), so I got these fantastic curtains to tie the room together. I LOVE LOVE LOVE these curtains. Love. They sold as only one panel, so I cut the panels in half and then sewed the cut side. I am so thankful I can do that kind of sewing.

Next to the main stars, down three steps, is the living room, a hall pantry, a 4th room, a bathroom, and the garage entrance. (The hallway to the 4th room, the pantry hallway, is straight ahead. The door in the far right is to the bathroom. Next to that door is the door to the garage.)

The living room has the computer, treadmill, and a couch. Right now it's a catchall, but soon it'll be nice and sparse. For Nadine's toys, I'm sure.

The pantry is basically two shelved closets, and it's AWESOME.

This 4th bedroom will be the toy room/sewing room. I don't want to think about organizing it.

The picture below was taken in the living room, with my back to the hallway (the exact opposite of that first picture of this room). To the right is the living room, and to the left is the kitchen and further through that is the dining room.

Upstairs are the three bedrooms AND the laundry. Upstairs laundry was one of the top three renting points of this house.

Our room is a nice light blue, though I'm afraid of how dark I'll feel in the winters, so I got fun yellow curtains for our window. It brings out the yellow in our quilt and I love the look. I also cut these curtains and resewed them.

Here's the guest room. I try not to think about this room yet.

 Aaaaaaaaaand now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for.... ;)

THE GARAGE

 I know, I know. It looks like . . a garage.

But we haven't had a garage in four years, and I've missed it greatly.

The other major renting point of this house is the huge backyard. Seriously huge. We also haven't had a real backyard in four years, so we're trying to remember to use it.

Bucket list, check!

One of the things I've always wanted to see is the sand dunes and tall grass of the Carolinas' beaches. We took advantage of our proximity to North Carolia (for the next 28 days!) and visited a few weekends ago. It was beautiful, and the weather was perfect (and we had a beach-front condo at an off-season price--eureka!). I have many more pictures on the Nani blog, but here are a few to tempt you.

Apparently the dunes and the vegetation are a natural barrier between the homes and the ocean. Picturesque AND useful.

I love this man.

Don't worry, be happy

Nadine and I flew home Friday night. Our flight was supposed to depart at 6:15, and we boarded at 5:40. We were some of the first people on the plane, and we settled into our seats--the seat pocket in front of me (I love how stewardesses say that like it's one word) contained Nadine's "it's my dinner now" bottle, my magazine, and my snack. The Benadryl was within arm distance too, just in case.

We sat and waited. And waited. Passengers didn't start streaming onto the plane, and I knew we were in trouble. Then the captain got on the PA and told us the water to the coffee machine and bathrooms didn't work (coffee, not important; bathrooms, important). So they told us to grab everything and get off the plane. Never a good sign. They said to wait an hour for an announcement.

So we waited the hour, then 30 more minutes. Also not a good sign. Then an employee finally announced our plane was broken and we had to wait for the next Hawaiian Airlines plane to arrive. At 11:15. Four hours from then. (Cue groans and then a really loud buzz of everyone talking on their cell phones; it cracked me up.) I bought People magazine to tide me over, and they offered us a food voucher and a Hawaiian Airlines voucher. We were placated.

But at midnight, 45 minutes after the passengers had disembarked the new plane, when the doors were still closed, we were less placated. Especially because as the passengers deplaned they saw the "6:15, Delayed" flight on the screen and gasped and looked at us with pity. THEN people started showing up for the 2:30 AM flight to Hawaii and really looked at us with pity. Though I looked at them with pity because they had our old plane.

We finally boarded, at the time we were supposed to be landing in Hawaii. Sigh. But at least the flight hadn't been cancelled.

However, the purpose of this post is not to complain; it actually wasn't as terrible as it sounds. I want to gush about how wonderfully the delay was handled by a five-month-old baby at her bedtime, because it proved what a good-natured baby she is. She slept for four of the six and a half delayed hours, then slept nearly the entire flight. Which meant I got to sleep. She is such a great baby for whose chill and pleasant personality I am so thankful.

Oddly enough, this perfectly describes our island baby.

During my flights, I learned two cool baby-traveling tricks.

1. Playtex Drop-Ins bottles are wonderfully handy while traveling. You can just throw away the liner and don't have to worry about cleaning an entire bottle on a plane (we normally use Dr. Brown's, which are especially hard to clean, so this really is a coup for us). This means you don't need to have three or four (or five or six) bottles taking up valuable space in the diaper bag.

2. Most baby formula companies probably do this, but the Similac we use is available in liquid form. I've wondered why you'd use this

product, but then I realized how convenient it is to not have to mix formula on a plane (this is especially true when traveling without help). You can even put a nipple right on the travel-size formula container; no pouring required. Fantastic.

*The trip also reaffirmed my love for the Munchkin Formula Dispenser. This is one of the best baby products ever. The container allows for enough formula for three bottles, and because airlines let you carry on liquid formula, I had three 8-ounce ready-made bottles and enough formula for three 6-ounce bottles. After the delay, I was especially glad I brought that much.

We're flying again in a few months, so do you know any other cool plane tips?

Here today, gone toMaui

My dad had a shirt with this saying, and I always thought it was the coolest shirt (apparently I've been a word-nerd for a long time).

Earlier this week we went to Maui with my dad and sister. We had a great time, and it was wonderful to spend time with family.

We stayed in Lahaina in an oceanfront room (hooray for military discounts!). It was gorgeous, and so fun to fall asleep to the sound of waves. From the lanai we could see turtles and many, many whales. Maui is the best place to see them. We saw spouts, fin slaps, and breaching whales. It was so cool.

Most mornings there was a rainbow, and I was obsessed with the rainbow and palm trees and ocean. I took far too many pictures of them, but I actually got some really good shots.

Like the other Hawaiian islands we've been to, Maui has a blow hole. But unlike the other islands, few people seem to know about this one and it's not fenced off--we hiked right down to it and stared into the hole. Quickly though--we had to watch the ocean to gauge whether a huge plume was coming. It was really cool to see the water swirling around, and then to jump back as the water rushed through. The water would go 25+ feet into the air sometimes. We got soaked. Two days later my hoodie hadn't dried; it's probably still damp.

The rocks around the blow hole are gorgeous, as were the many stark colors.

Near the blow hole is this gorgeous view.

There's also a heart in the rocks. Probably not natural, but fun nevertheless.

Besides Waikiki (which we avoid like the plague) Hawaii doesn't have many tourist shopping areas. Which is part of the islands' charms. But it was nice to spend an afternoon in Lahaina looking through shops.

We finally got a picture with the cool trees.

We also went to Iao Valley. It was pretty; very windy. Also, Whitney almost kicked a giant centipede of sadness while we were there. Huge scary bugs put a damper on being outside.

My requisite Hawaii pictures (well, besides a picture of a bug, which I didn't get) are cool plants. This one looked like it was tie-dyed. Totally a rastafari plant.

And I loved both these flowers. The first one looks like it might be some kind of ginger plant, but the flower is different from any I've seen and I love it.