Lots of Changes!

Big news - I'm an aunt again! My sister Kearsten had a healthy baby boy this past Saturday - his name is Neal Range Gardner. I am so happy for my sister and her husband! It still doesn't seem real that she's a mom. I must admit, it's been nice though to talk to her about all of the pregnancy and labor stuff - I've always been fascinated by that, and because she's my sister, she spares no details! Although I don't know exactly when it will be, I am so excited to meet him! I don't have any pictures of him to post, but hopefully soon! I've seen some of his online photos though - what a perfect little baby!

In other news, we have a new apartment! We move in August 11th and we can hardly wait. It's been fun to live in a house with a yard, but we are so excited to be in a bigger place! We're moving up to Lynnwood, which is about 13 or so miles north of here. Although it's too bad that we're giving up such an easy work commute, rent is much cheaper over the county line. :) It's a two-bedroom apartment with a balcony, so hopefully we'll be able to stay there for awhile. Pictures to come once we move in!

In exactly two weeks, my family - minus Kearsten's family :( - will be in town! We're taking them out to the peninsula to show them our favorite vacation spot for a few days. I've been looking forward to this for months, and now that it's almost here, I can hardly wait! To make things even better, they are bringing Mikka with them! We originally planned to drive down to get her at the end of the month, but then found out she can ride in the cabin of the jet. Woot! So, for obvious reasons, this week has seemed to DRAAAAAAG. There's just so much that will be starting to happen in two weeks!

I guess it's good in a way that I still have a couple of weeks. Last week I caught a cold (the freaking second one this summer!) and yesterday a giant cold sore emerged on my lip. So, as of now I feel like a mucus-filled, sniffling, balloon-headed, nasty fungus with a huge puss-filled wound on my lip. Graphic, I know. It's scary. Seriously, when I answer the phone at work, I can't even say my own name - it sounds like "Biquel". So, the next two weeks are a good thing - it will give me time to get back to my normal self.

On a completely different note, I've been studying up on a couple of old college courses I took, as well as reading up on castles for a history book club that I am in. The theme for this month is "Someplace you wish you could visit but can't". Can't as in, the place either no longer exists or it's not used in the same way it was. And this place has to have been built or come into existence between the years 1-1600. So, I chose medieval castles. While it's not a specific place geographically, I thought it would be fun to study a little more about. In doing so, I became nostalgic about my trip to Romania with Adam, where I saw my first two castles:

On the steps at Bran Castle. This is the castle famously known as "Dracula's Castle". However, this castle never belonged to Vlad Tepes - it's questionable whether he ever even visited it. It was built in the late 1300s as a garrison/fortress to protect one of the main trade routes in the area.

This is a view of inside - looking down at the courtyard. I fell in love with this castle! I originally wanted to do my reading this month on this particular castle - alas, the majority of the information I found is about Dracula. I did find a couple of pages of actual history on the place, but that's about it.


This next castle is Peles Castle. It's not medieval - it was actually built in the late 19th century by the first king of Romania. It was absolutely beautiful and the surrounding area was just breathtaking!


This is my favorite photo of Peles Castle - can I please live here?


So there you go - a little history lesson mixed in with the pictures!

Two weeks and counting... :)