Marchant's Envasion

WARNING!!! SUPER LONG BLOG AHEAD!!!

So the last couple of weeks have been a blast. The Saturday after fourth of July all seven out of nine Marchant family members came to visit us from the great state of Missouri. It was a full house at the Marchant's. Cruz never got put down the whole week they were here. I had to threaten a few times to set a timer so every one could have an equal amount of time with Cruz. And I'm not talking about just threatening the siblings, I had to threaten the Grandparents as well. It wasn't until the night before they all left that they finally let Cruz roll around and show them how mobile he is. They were all so astonished. "Did you know he could do that!", ya and you could have too if you had put him down earlier. Oh well, Cruz loved all of the attention and it was nice having a break for a week. All I had to do was feed Cruz and every one else did the work.

We went to the beach on Tuesday. This was the first time a lot of the siblings had been to the ocean. I tried warning them that the Washington Coast was nothing like California. Needless to say they did not come prepared. Half of them didn't bring jackets. Brendan, his brother's Scott and Brian, and I rented mopeds and road them on the beach. That was a blast. While the rest of them huddled in the van sheltering themselves from the cold (they still had fun).


Wednesday and Thursday we went up to Seattle and did all of the fun tourist stuff up there. Lunch of course is always at Ivars, followed by Pike's Place. After that we went to the Ballard locks. We got to see a tugboat go through. Wow, those are a lot bigger then I thought!! I guess the big Cruise ships just dwarf them. We celebrated Brendan's brother's 18th birthday at Aqua Verde (great mexican restuarant by-the-way). Wednesday we went to the Seattle Aquarium and then the City Center to see the Space needle.


After all of that fun the fam left early Friday morning.

Last Sunday we celebrated Cruz's 6-month birthday (not really celebrated). I can not believe that the little guy is six months old. It feels like he has been with us forever. He is getting funner to interact with everyday. He has really found his voice and is super loud now. He loves to talk and sing. Brendan likes to sit in bed with him and says,"ba-ba-ba" and occasionally you can hear Cruz really put an effort in to copy him. He rolls over from his stomach to his back now, but only to the left. He'll roll until he runs into the couch or the wall and then he is stuck. It is really funny to watch, I am sure that he will figure out the rest really soon.

Cruz also wend to the Doctor this past week for his 6 month check up. Here are his Stats:
Weight: 17 lbs 1oz -- 45th%
Length: 27"-- 75th%
Head Circumference: 42 cm -- 10-25th% (He's got a tiny noggin, but it sure is a cute noggin)

We were concerned that he was getting a flat head, but the doc said that it is looking good and that he would not need a helmet.

He is healthy and happy and life is good.


We also have a new addition to our family. Last week we found out that our truck was in desperate need of a new transmission. We knew that it was starting to wear, but thought we could get another 10-15k miles on it before we needed to make any changes. So a few weeks ago we started casually looking for a new vehicle but really had no intentions of getting anything soon. We were interested in replacing it with something that would get better gas mileage but also be a functional work vehicle. The 2 vehicles we settled on were the Honda Element or the Scion XB both had enough room for the ladder to fit as well as all of the other inspection equipment. The Element has more storage room and seemed to be built a little tougher but gets worse milage from the xb and a 06 was the same price as a new Scion xb, Well if you cant tell we chose the xb, it is really fun to drive and is much more sports car than the truck. Plus we got a brand new car that we can hopefully enjoy for many years to come with out any concerns. Brendan misses his truck but is enjoying the new vehicle.