and all is right again

Reasons why we are feeling more comfortable:

1. I have a library card. It may take a few trips to really figure out this particular library, but there are books in the house again. Jonah read all of his in one afternoon. And look at this selection of Bill Peet books! I've been wanting to get my hands on Chester the Worldly Pig after reading somewhere that it was Bill Peet's favorite of his books.

2. We have eaten half of our meals outside. We used to spend tons of time outside. In the past two years, that has dwindled somewhat. I won't blame Arizona. Plenty of people spend tons of time outside; for that matter, we went to lots of parks and splash pads ourselves. I'm just a homebody, so the ability to say, "go run around outside!' is a major plus. We already have a spot picked out for a picnic table.

3. We have internet. Hallelujah!

a house!

To everyone who has been praying, thinking, hoping, and worrying about our wandering selves, never fear. We have a house!

We are thrilled. It's cute and old and out in the country. Let's see how we like country life. We think we'll like it, but I guess we should give it more than 10 hours before we declare one way or the other.

Don't ask what my zip code is. I don't know yet! I think we are on county land outside Dallas, but don't quote me on that yet either.

We feel so blessed. Our landlords (who live up the road) took the kids out to their amazing garden and encouraged them to each pick and taste all the tomato varieties. The wife offered to teach me how she cans her tomatoes. The husband offered to plow me a spot for a garden if I want one (I do).

Now if I can just get the musty smell out of my bathroom, this will be perfect. 

Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio

(That exhausted me just typing it out.)

Monday in Minnesota was great. We saw parts of campus (beautiful), ate a Minneapolis creation known as the Juicy Lucy (a cheeseburger where the cheese is inside the patty), went swimming in the lake, and walked around town on our way to the lake and back for ice cream. On our walk, we saw a cool depiction of the space between planets that I'd love to recreate in school.

 The kids were excited to see the lake but not really sure if they wanted to swim. In fact, when we arrived, Jonah said he'd rather plat at the adjoining playground, which was an acceptable choice as well. That is, for the first five minutes until the lake looked like too much fun. Then in he went. In Caroline went. In Dixie went. Yes, you read that correctly. The dog who has never once voluntarily gotten wet (not in a pool, lake, stream, point, sprinkler system, bathtub, or rain storm) frolicked in the lake. It was mysterious and funny.

While we were eating ice cream that evening, Jonah said, "I wish this was North Carolina. I told JoJo I'd find some parks and ice cream places for when she comes to visit, and there are just so many here!" On the drive the next day, Caroline said, "I wish we were swimming in the lake again with Uncle Quintin."* We all had a great time. The kids were especially fond of Meredith, Quintin's cat. Jonah said he would be sad to leave the kitty and Caroline was distraught at night because she was sure the cat was going to run away while she was sleeping.

After our rest and recovery in Minneapolis, we headed out on our long drive. The drive we had been dreading since we made our plans weeks ago. We were in the car for 11 hours of driving. Yuck. The kids, as always, did just great. They were cheerful and mostly entertained themselves. We stopped outside of Chicago for lunch, but the pizza was barely warm by the time we found a park. There was a park right down the street, at least according to Google, but we drove past it twice because the playground equipment and benches were all gone. All that was there was overgrown grass. We did eventually find an even more awesome park, but that drive time did hurt the freshness of our Chicago-style pizza.

About 90 minutes before we stopped for the night, Miriam started crying. It was a long last hour and a half. But considering how long the day had been, that's not so bad. The kids played games and had snacks and drew pictures. Josh and I listened to Serial and old mix cds we'd made in college. News flash: I'm not great at compiling mixes. My stuff was all over the place as far as tempo and style.

We spent the night after our massive Tuesday drive in Indiana with my college roommate Anna-Lisa. We got there late enough and left early enough that we missed JC completely, which was sad. Still, we felt totally comfortable sitting on her couch, even though it had been years since we'd been together (and never in Indiana). She and I stayed up to an hour I haven't seen much since college. It was fantastic.

Wednesday morning we drove the 3 hours to Ohio. You'd think 3 hours would be short, but it didn't really feel as short as I thought it would be. It was still long enough that we were eager to get out of the car when we arrived. Jonah and Caroline ran rampant through Jenny's house and helped themselves to Mat and Tempe's toys. We had delicious Thai for dinner. We shopped at Jungle Jims. We ate at quite possibly the best ice cream parlor I've been to (the ice cream was fabulous!). We stayed up late playing video games and board games. The kids had their first baths in weeks. All in all, it was a three- or four-day weekend crammed into one overnight.

When Josh took the job in Dallas, I was worried about this drive. I've been worrying about it pretty constantly for months. But this has been one of the better vacations we've taken. It was nice to take a quick break and to see so many new places and people we love. We've already discussed and plotted when we can be together again.

Today: North Carolina! (By way of West Virginia and Virginia)




*I said we can when we go to visit again. Jonah said that wouldn't be until Caroline is like five. Caroline said, "well when I'm five, JoJo said I can have a pedicure. Is that okay with you, Mom?"

Minnesota again

It may be unusually warm here in Minneapolis, but we are loving the weather. Yesterday, we walked to church. True, the walk took an hour because we were going at a pace set by the youngest children, but it was fabulous. We looked at all the houses and landscaping and went window shopping for Quintin and Molly when it comes time for them to buy a house.

Then after the naps (much needed), we headed to the lake (I should say "a lake" since there are quite a few in the immediate area) for an outdoor concert. Other than Jonah noticing there was music playing (and getting excited that some of it was from Star Wars, the kids played on an awesome playground with about 800 other Minneapolis children. Q, Molly, Josh, and I barbecued and visited while the kids dug in the sand and climbed to their hearts' content.

We rounded off the evening with some late-night ice cream and staying up way too late talking. I've never really known how to spend the Sabbath on vacation. I like to go to church, but it's hard to feel rested in a hotel. Between the nap and the walks and the beautiful scenery, it was a perfect way to spend the Sunday. Today: more of Minneapolis. Tomorrow: Indiana! (..and Wisconsin and Illinois)

Iowa and Minnesota

Today, we slept in. It was fabulous. Of course, "we" doesn't include the dog and therefore doesn't include me, but a happy husband and three happy children made up for it. If I have to get up early, I'd rather be up early by myself.

Then we spent the morning driving to and visiting the areas in Iowa where Josh's grandparents lived and are buried. Caroline was very interested in going to see "Icky Boy's" grave and wanted to know what color shirt he would be wearing. A few minutes later, though, she declared, "I don't know if I like Icky Boy." Really, I think she was processing her thoughts and feelings about the day. I love to get an idea of what's going on in her head (more on that at the end). Once we found the headstone, she noted the Q (one of her favorite letters) in McQueen and declared it to be Uncle Quintin's grave.

The area around the cemetery was beautiful. Josh announced that southwestern Iowa in July is paradise. The jury is still out on wintertime.

After the morning exploring, we had a late lunch at a cool park in Des Moines. The kids would have been happy to play twice as long, but they were tired and hot after just 30 minutes. That humidity, I tell you. Jonah isn't quite so sure about how sweaty it makes him. As we drove through Iowa and in to Minnesota, we passed billboards for some interesting museums: the Danish American museum, the balloon museum, a SPAM museum, and a tourist center for the covered bridges of Madison county. I could tell Josh wanted to stop to see the bridges, but we pushed on.

Four hours later and we made it safely to Quintin and Molly's house in Minnesota. I've seen pictures and heard about the house, but it's never the same as visiting myself. It's adorable! As I put the kids to bed in the basement, with the door to the outside wide open to let in the cool air, I noticed a firefly bobbing through the room like their own miniature nightlight. Caroline also shared her concern about the cat, who had wandered off. Both kids were very upset that the kitty had run away. I told them all about how cats like to wander, especially in the evening, and assured them that she was probably just out hunting. After laying down for a few minutes tonight at bedtime, Caroline sat upright and confessed, "I'm just worried about my new friend." We'll settle down here for a few days to get the road out of our eyes and see the beauty of Minnesota, which Quintin has said is the best place in the world in July.

Iowa (but mostly Nebraska)

I wanted to like Wyoming, what with the wide open space and all. I did not. The drive was dull and I made the mistake of driving past a town at lunch time since Miriam was asleep and it was over 3 hours before we found anything to eat. Then we stayed in a pretty miserable hotel in Cheyenne and I had dry cereal for dinner, not being willing to eat McDonald's for the second time that day. Did I mention all that in the update yesterday? Probably. It was memorable, I guess.  

Nebraska started out much the same (both in scenery and frequency of cities), but Josh has declared that the eastern part of the state is beautiful. After a grumpy morning (remember what I said about the timeout?), we had lunch at a beautiful park in North Platte. "Had lunch" might be an overstatement since only Josh and I actually consumed any food, but we did stretch our legs and find a cicada emerging from his shell. 

And then I said, "with a real smile this time," and got this:

The highlight of the day for me was singing along at the top of our lungs to songs from Frozen as we crossed over into Iowa. There was much laughter and clapping. Thank you, Mom, for the cd. And thank you, Josh, for the idea. It was much better than what I had planned: telling the kids to just be quiet for a few minutes and to stop touching each other. 

Now we are in Iowa for the night. Some quick observations: when we pulled up to the hotel just before dusk, a group of boys was playing baseball in the parking lot. Our car was parked in the outfield, so wish our windshield luck. The highlight for the kids was probably (finally) getting to swim in the hotel pool and then eating pizza on the floor of the hotel room. I saw my first fireflies of the trip. My glasses didn't fog up (like they did the first time I got out of the car in Mississippi during the move to AL), but the humidity is distinctly huber here than anywhere else we've been this far. Next stop: Minnesota!

Wyoming

I thought I would post updates every day for all of our adoring fans desperate to hear how this cross-country move is progressing. That obviously didn't work out as planned. I forgot how exhausting moving is. It took me a few days to recover from getting out of town on Monday. Speaking of Monday, the kids spent all day at the Hills' house. Eliza came over and helped me clean. If I could pick a family to emulate, the Hills would make the short list (which is actually part of the reason we decided to go ahead and homeschool, but that's another post for another day).

So, back to the trip. Everyone is healthy and rested. We drove late Monday night to St. George, Utah. Then we had a leisurely morning at the hotel (and mini naps) before heading up to see Rosalyn in Mapleton. We loved it. It's so nice to have a clear picture of where she is. The area is gorgeous and it didn't feel strange at all to just be hanging out in her home. We spent the nights at Kailtyn's parents' house and the days park hopping and napping. It was a long few days getting there and a very welcome few days of rest. I was either so tired or so entertained that I didn't bother to take pictures. Other than a few shots of the kids in the car that I've been sending to the grandmas, I took one picture in three days. I'm actually pretty sad about it considering the friends/family we were with. Now that we are traveling through new places with fewer loved ones, I'll try to be better. 

Today, we are driving across Wyoming. The kids have been so great. There have been a few moments of crazy, mostly centering around the fact that Miriam wants to be laying down to sleep (me too, kid), but the vast majority of the whining in the car has been coming from the front seat. From my seat, actually. I've had to put myself in timeout a few times to have an attitude check. Lunch today was 2 1/2 hours later than planned because there's not much between the west side of Wyoming and Laramie. We made amends with the little folk by eating at a McDonalds so they could play. The meal left plenty to be desired (especially when the ice cream machine malfunctioned), but the play place seemed to do the trick.

Tomorrow, I add another state to my lifetime list. Nebraska, here we come!

the tooth fairy's vacation

I remember being the kid who would nurse a loose tooth for as long as possible. I never wanted to pull it out or to have anyone else pull it out either. So I tried to be patient with Jonah and his loose front teeth. When it got to the point that he was no longer eating half his food and wasn't brushing very thoroughly (to avoid wiggling the teeth), though, we stepped in. 

And when I say "we," I mean "Josh." Teeth are so slippery! I tried my hand at pulling the first tooth Jonah lost ages ago, and it was not something I care to repeat. 

So here he is in all his glory:

As for the tooth fairy? She was on vacation last night and forgot to pay a visit. Luckily, she has a gold dollar coin she thinks might make up for her delay. (50 cents a tooth, people. Inflation is real.)

Dixie (according to Caroline)

We interrupt this I'm-either-packing-or-avoiding-packing programming for something too funny not to record here. Today, during dinner, the kids and I were discussing Dixie's age. We got her as a puppy from the animal shelter, but we figure she's about a year older than Caroline. This is how the conversation went.

Me: So next December, she'll be 5.
Caroline: On my next birthday, I'll be 4.
Me: Yes, and about then, Dixie will turn 5.
Caroline: And then she'll turn into a person!
Me & Jonah: Wait, what??