Jonathan & Lindsey's Family Blog

At the beginning of the year we adopted fostered an adorable bearded dragon. Marshawn came into our lives shortly after a high school friend posted pictures of her new beardie on Facebook. I was sitting next to Avery (who’s been asking for a lizard for years) when I scrolled past the picture and paused. He was so cute wrapped in a furry blanket! I showed Avery, and thus began a conversation about possibly looking for one. The following day while walking with my neighbor, who is vet, and I asked about her knowledge of bearded dragons. Two days later a friend of hers, who was moving out of the country, contacted her asking if she knew of anyone who might want a – you guessed it – bearded dragon! They could have it and all the gear for free, she just wanted him to go to a good home. Next thing we knew Avery and I were at her house cuddling with the thing and then loading his tank into the back of our car. You can imagine Jonathan’s face when he walked in the door!

Marshawn was super cute, funny, and overall a pretty cool pet. Avery enjoyed caring for him and didn’t need much prompting to do so. But there were a couple hangups. For one, reptiles can be stinky. Not bad, but just kind of reptilian. And Marshawn’s tank was a few feet from Avery’s bed. Furthermore, they can carry Salmonella, and after a little more research, we started to feel less okay about having him roaming the house with Layla around (children under five can be more severely affected by Salmonella). Then we serendipitously adopted a puppy, (I’ll get into that in my next post) which further complicated our lives and to-do lists.

Fortunately there was an easy solution. Shortly after adopting Marshawn, my friend, Jacqui, came over with Hayden & Brooklyn to meet him. She said Brooklyn had been lobbying for a bearded dragon for years so she was excited to meet him. The stars seemed to align perfectly. When the honeymoon wore off for our family, we knew where he should go, so we asked, and the Lotts took Marshawn in. I’m so happy with the way this all worked out. Avery got to have his fun with the little guy and appreciate the work involved, and then we got to send him on his merry way to a home that would appreciate him even more!

The post that started it all…

The cats were enthralled
     

Even Jonathan got some snuggles

Jacqui & Marshawn

Here’s some of what we were up to in January:

Fun at preschool

Playdates!

Jonathan went to Salt Lake for work and made a glass project with his team

Here’s a little more of what we were up to at the end of January:

Ballet season started for Layla. It’s her first year of tap and they are doing a recital to “When I’m Older” from Frozen II.

At the park

Sometimes Avery and Layla like to run home while Kieron and Silas ride their bikes. Layla keeps up pretty well!

Swimming lessons for our little mermaid

Basketball season wound down for Silas

Yoshi & Suki keeping watch

Jonathan took the kids skiing in January. Layla was beyond excited, and apparently fearless on the bunny hill. Silas was an old pro, and ready to move on to more advanced stuff with Kieron.

Getting the gear ready

A couple days later Jonathan took Kieron and Silas up. They had a great time riding the lift and bombing down!

 

While the middle two went skiing, I took my bookends to Bellevue Square. They had fun filling up on candy at The Sweet Factory.

A stop at the pet store to pick up essentials. I remember looking at fish just like this with Uncle Scott when I was little.

Avery helped Layla put together a Lego Friends set we picked out at Target

A week-and-a-half after winter break ended we got hit with a big snow storm. Of course it came at the beginning of the week. The kids had two snow days followed by a day back at school. We chose to keep Avery home from middle school after I called to ask about road conditions in Fall City and decided it wasn’t worth the risk to send him. Poor Kieron and Silas were fit to be tied and didn’t understand why they still had to go to school down the street.  It turned out about half the other middle and high school parents decided the same thing, many of whom called the school district complaining about the decision to keep school open (poor district can’t win). Anyway, they got the message and school was closed Thursday and Friday.

We had a lot of fun sledding, building forts and igloos, and eating snow ice cream. I have to say, this was the best snow break yet, largely in part because our youngest is 3 1/2 and I’m not pregnant, which means we can ALL actually get out and play!

A little sledding injury from the Snoqualmie Community Park