Then There Was All of the Driving

Somewhere very near the Mississippi River crossing, the recent Midwest flooding was hard to miss.

 

As in I had to just drive right through it.

Then There Was the Actual Moving

The cat was not really amused when we got in the car and drove west for our east coast move.

The children didn't mind so much when I ordered two trays of 40 Chicken minis the next morning as we started day 2.  The folks at the restaurant tried to dissuade our order, but we were undeterred.

There was not one left over.

While We Were Out

We went ahead and closed on our new house in North Carolina!

 

And we welcomed ourselves in before having to pack up and head home for now.

 

The kids had no problem finding their living area and settling in. Thankfully phone service is good there.

 

Strikingly similar to our previous house in Texas, we think we'll make ourselves right at home during our April through June staggered move.

 

And, I have no high hopes that this will actually organize the flood of shoes, but perhaps it will help keep them dumped in an out-of-the-way area for at least a little while.

Let Fall Begin

Since it seemed it would never go below 80 degrees in Chicago during September, the girls and I headed north to Minnesota for a quick weekend with my parents.  Where the weather did not disappoint, and we had a brief snow storm the morning after we arrived.  With a fire, football, and chili on hand, the girls settled in.

 

And my dad was a sport to take me fishing. 

Thankfully, we got that task of fishing, catching, photographing, and releasing within about 25 minutes because it was cold out there.

 

Much more comfortable.

And warm.

And relaxing.

 

Particularly since the boys had been tasked with getting me a new car back at home over the weekend. 

Nine years, 175K miles, and sedentary layers of who-know-what--it was time.

Forget Jamaica

Stuffing our faces at the Mercantile in Pawhuska, OK,

and wandering about the Pioneer Woman's Food Network Kitchen at her ranch,

 

And maybe pretending that we were just staying in one of the guest rooms there...

My spring break highlight, for sure.

Good Grief

We celebrated the boys' birthdays over two different nights, neither of which were their birthdays.

But we managed the Minecraft cakes, as requested.

 

We were in a parade.

 

We had a visit from grandma and grandpa.  During which we quit our Girl Scout troop on the boys' real birthday, but that is a different story.

We rode the bull.

We made a mess, and showed extraordinary good will when boys unwrapped girls gifts...

 

We ate chocolate, in many forms.

We got some really good presents.

We took our only chance to see Ben and Alida sing in choir at 7 am one morning in the hallway at school.

Parents Night out was canceled, only we didn't know it.

But that is another story.

We made cookies.

We picked out a dog.

We rode.

We visited Strategic Air Command.

We found snow in Nebraska.

We spent New Year's with grandma and grandpa airplane.

We came home and replaced the attic ladder, so we could store all of the Christmas mess.

 

And they are still not back to school yet today.

The sun will come out tomorrow.

Seriously, We're a Touch Strange

I'm entirely unclear when this happened,

but every time they are together and see a full moon, they howl like a pack of wolves. 

At this point, we had already been in the car for about eight hours. 

The reverberation in a closed in car is mind-numbing.

Home for the Holidays

 And after a long trip home after the Thanksgiving break,

 Our first order of business was to begin preparations for the biggest holiday of the year.

 We put up the tree and let the kids loose to decorate it.

And to take the pictures it seems.

And now, we're mostly ready to snuggle up and enjoy the month.

That's How We Roll

 The interesting thing about hotels and the Stubers.

We have to lie.

We have yet to find a hotel that will allow us to book six in one room.

They may have enough sleeping capacity for us to very comfortably fit six in one room, but they can't let us do it. So on these days, we just have three kids.

 The morning fog made me nervous for the rest of the day, but about an hour later it was as if we drove straight out of a wall.

 There was open-mouthed un-abashed napping.

and overall, road tripping was pretty fun.

But, we'll leave it at that.  There are no pictures of the return trip with a van and a moving truck and a very long day.

Road Trip

 We had our first ever experience with Buckee's on our trip.

Where the kids chose...carrots for dinner.

 And cheese,

 And carrots.

 Well Ben at least embraced the idea of road trip food and had a hot dog.

And happiness reigned for the first leg of the trip.