Moved

Hi.  I've moved to my new blog.

First day of school

Not even a self-imposed ban from blogging can keep me from posting pictures from the first day of school.

Hooray for kindergarten!

Does it look like we're settled?

The blogging hiatus continues.

My house still needs my attention.

And this family still needs a cocoon of privacy.

I'll be back by October.

Happy September!

Time out

I am taking a hiatus from the blogging world, until my real world has reached some semblance of order.

Or at least until I've unpacked the pillows and the can opener.

I may even return with a fancy new blog, just so you can have the pleasure of adding another feed to Google Reader. And also because I'm sick of this blog. I know that a blog is not a book or a movie or a cohesive narrative: but I like order, I like straight lines, I like definite beginnings and ends. And this blog is nearing its end.

Good-bye for now.

P.S. I have no plans to hang out on Facebook either. Any time spent in front of the computer screen will be passed lusting after living room furniture. (But I have the ottoman, by golly!)

Siblings

The bad thing about moving is that you have to be friends with your siblings.

There is no one else.

The good thing about moving is that you get to be friends with your siblings.

I know this from experience. And now my kids do too.

St. Louis

A week ago we left Texas.

This is leaving Texas.

There was no cutesy-rustic lone-star sign bidding us farewell and ya'll come back now. Just this train bridge and some litter.

Somewhere past Oklahoma (which was less flat and more green than I had expected) in the middle of nowhere Missouri we stopped to eat at a McDonald's straddled over the tollway.

We'd been in the car for quite some time, and I couldn't wait to get out of that thing. Until we got inside the rest stop complex and realized the a/c was broken. It was over 90 inside and stuffy. Suddenly I couldn't wait to get back in that car.

We didn't quite make it to St. Louis. We stopped in Springfield for the night. I have nothing whatsoever to say about Springfield.

Other than it was the first of many nights spent in hotels.

Monday morning we drove to the house in suburban St. Louis where I used to live. The neighborhood looks very nice.

This is the house where childhood slipped away. I guess they call it the tween years now.

Next we stopped by my old elementary school. Grades four through six. It was a very good school.

This is a picture of a storm drain. Many a fourth-grade recess was spent hanging out on that storm drain.

I have a story to go along with that storm drain. But not today. (Instead I refer you to Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood because when I read that book I thought of this storm drain, but it's been so long since I read the book that now I can't remember why I thought of the storm drain, only that I did. I think it has to do with that tween thing. "Tween" is a cutesy word, but I'm not so sure it's a cutesy time.)

David wanted me to take a picture of him in front of my former school.

Pretty soon David will have an elementary school of his own. Kindergarten is just around the corner. (Literally and figuratively.)

Of course Mary wanted her picture taken too.

The playground equipment has been replaced. But the blacktop is exactly the same with its hopscotch and foursquare games outlines in peeling yellow paint.

Then we drove here.

I was obsessed with visiting the temple in St. Louis. Since it was built after we moved from St. Louis, I'd never seen it, even though I have always felt a certain special affection for it, almost like it was my temple. When we lived in St. Louis, the nearest temple was in Chicago. Families had to make a significant effort and sacrifice to attend regularly. I remember very vividly the church members in St. Louis (my parents included) making the effort and the sacrifice to travel to Chicago, some 300 miles away.

But now the members in St. Louis have their own temple (conveniently located at I-270 and I-64). What a blessing!

Mary was happy to prance around the grounds. David was grumpy, as shown by this very pained "Cheeeeeese!" for the camera.

It is a lovely, traditional building.

Look at these sweeties. One little, one big.

I am so grateful to Greg for humoring me with a visit to the temple grounds. (Like I said, I was obsessed!)

Then we went to the science center in Forest Park. It is much much bigger than the last time I was there (twenty years ago!).

Our trip to the science center was a near-disaster. We entered the building happy and hopeful; we left the building grumpy and grouchy. And that is all I have to say about that.

Last, but far from least, we went downtown to the riverfront.

So we could go up this!

I love the St. Louis Arch! I think it's super cool. (Although there is something odd about it...maybe that it's in St. Louis? It seems out of proportion in size and coolness.)

Here we are, ready to descend down underneath the Arch. (Ugh. It was so muggy that day. The air was like molasses.)

Despite the fact we had pre-purchased our tickets, riding to the top of the Arch involved a lot of waiting.

Part of the waiting was passed in the Westward Expansion Museum. Mary and David decided to take pictures of their favorite parts of museum.

Their faves were undoubtedly these creepy latex animated robots. I just uploaded dozens of pictures of them. I will treat you to just three.

Sometimes I forget how little my children are, how they literally see the world differently.

Two more pictures, courtesy David and Mary.

After the museum and picture-taking, there was more waiting

and more waiting

and more waiting

accompanied by a lot of grumpiness.

At one point during your wait, you are treated to a full-scale, life-size replica of the top of the Arch. I thought this was odd. In five minutes (or ten, or thirty, or sixty) we would be at the top ourselves. Why did we need to hang out in a replica?

Anyway, at one point during the waiting, there were phones to listen to. Mary and David loved talking on the phones, but they were not so interested in what the recorded voice on the other side had to say.

Notice the Hello Kitty purse in the above picture. Mary has been faithfully taking it everywhere with her. She's so cute, with it slung on her shoulder.

Finally! Our turn to cram into one of the tiny white pods for a ride to the top on the tram. (Maybe the pods are so small to make the top of the Arch seem spacious in comparison.)

The gang peering out of a window.

David, 630 feet high.

View to the west. (My dad used to work in one of those buildings down there.)

View of the Mississippi.

I love this picture.

After having a look-see, we headed back down and out. (By the way, all the waiting was worth it!)

My cutie-pie on the banks of the Mississippi.

I love these three.

Exhausted, we crossed the Mississippi (on a bridge in our car) and drove to Pontoon Beach, Illinois, which has no beach or water that I could see, and checked into a perfectly generic Holiday Inn Express.

But to the astonishment and joy of David and Mary, they found bunk beds in our room!! Complete with themed sheets. (Isn't that weird? Or at least mildly unexpected? Really, I've never seen anything like it. The hotel was completely generic and unremarkable in every other way.) It was like the best thing that ever happened to my kids.

The next morning we retrieved our car that's been in storage.

I guess when your car's been in storage for a year, it shouldn't be surprising to have to do this.

Or even this.

The battery was soon swapped out.

And then we drove to Wisconsin.

(The a/c wasn't working in the Forester. Nevertheless, the kids INSISTED on riding in the red car. Wow. The power of novelty. They would emerge sweaty and hot, yet they insisted on riding with Daddy in the Forester. For the record, this was all during a major heat wave.)

We ate our first meal in Wisconsin at, appropriately, Culver's. I've never been a fan of Culver's. But it tasted so much better in Wisconsin! (I wonder why.....I'm working on a big theory about how chain restaurant food tastes better closer to the point of origin even though the menu is the same everywhere.)

David and Mary loved their frozen custard!

So, yes, we're in Wisconsin!

We've been painting at the house and living in a hotel for a week. Tomorrow the moving truck comes, and the amount of work that awaits us is staggering.

Needless to say, it's going to be a busy week.

Acknowledgments

Every post is better with a picture, don't ya think?

This was taken yesterday after a fun evening at the Flower Mound Community Activity Center with Tio, Tia, and Tia's adorable sweet baby sister, Denise. (This is the first time David and Mary have played with Denise, and they loved her. David commented, "I'm glad Tia and Tio finally have kids now." I explained that Denise is Tia's little sister, not her daughter, which was kind of confusing. I then pointed out that Tia Ale is so lucky to have a little sister when she's a grown-up. I asked David if he would want a baby sister when he's a grown-up. He did not seem keen on the idea. He sure likes other people's little sisters just fine, but he definitely thinks he himself should be out of the little sister business once he's a grown-up.)

So now that the photo is out of the way, let's move on to the business of this post.

I owe a serious debt of gratitude to some folks for making this year possible. And it's not the U.S. Air Force I have in mind. When I say "making this year possible," what I really mean is "making it possible to avoid institutionalization this year."

First and foremost, thanks to my parents. I don't even know what to say. "Thank you" seems lamely inadequate, considering we turned their lives upside-down. I am deeply grateful they had room in their home and in their lives and in their hearts to care for us. How will my dad survive now without getting Mary's breakfast every morning in the PINK bowl, or mowing the lawn without David's help? After a year of afternoons doing puzzles with Mary and riding bikes with David, my mom will finally get some time to herself...which she will probably have to spend reassembling her house in our wake.

Thanks to Grammy and Grandpa for opening their home to us on so many weekends. David will miss getting donuts and thoroughly enjoying all the fabulous toys Grammy's has carefully saved for her grandchildren--the Legos, the blocks, the car mat, the Playmobil sets, and so on. Mary will miss her early mornings with Grammy, her spot on the kitchen stool, and the treasures in the big desk upstairs. I am so very grateful for the friendship I've developed with Greg's parents. It was a blessing for me this year to see their example and experience close-up their love and support.

Thanks to my brother Dave and his wife Ale. There is no way for me to express what a blessing they have been in our lives. They were like angels. David, in particular, NEEDED that relationship with his uncle.

Thanks to all of the other family who has been here in Texas from time to time. To my brother Daniel, with whom we shared the upstairs for half the year, and who set the example for my children by leaving to serve a mission in Chile. (We're also thankful he introduced us to Bahama Buck's.) To everybody who came out at Christmas and filled our hearts during what could have been an empty holiday season. To aunts and uncles and cousins we got to see at other times, like Ben, Teresa, and "the Presidents," Matt and his kids, Uncle Daniel, Aunt Leslie, Aunt K and Cousin E, Aunt Marie, and Aunt Le and her kids.

Thanks to the super-dee-dooper fabulous teachers David and Mary had at preschool. And thanks to the friends David made and their awesome moms.

Thanks to the support we received from friends at church. I'm grateful for the friendships I made. I have learned so much from the women with whom I associated. They were wonderful to me and my children. (Also, hooray for visiting teaching!)

Thanks to my little Sunbeams. They may have tuckered me out, but they enlarged my heart, softening it, and opening it to more faith and hope and love.

Thanks to Jessica (who is not as outnumbered as before) for opening her home one weekend during one of the hardest months for me emotionally. I wish I could so the same for her now...but Wisconsin is a little far away.

I feel grateful for the love and support I have received from friends and family from afar. I have appreciated your prayers and your words of encouragement. Some of you I have even been lucky enough to see, be it here in Texas (Alisa! Diana! Mandy! Jen W.!), in Colorado (Deanna! Gina!), or Utah (Liz! Jacqui! Charity! Andy! More Aunt Marie! The Whole H Family!). I love you all.

I almost forgot. Roderick. Thanks to Roderick for pretending to be my kids' dog for a year. We miss you. (Yes, I said WE. I admit, I miss him too a little bit. If my parents ever wanted to drive to Madison for some crazy reason, I would let that dog in my house. Now that's one special dog.)

If I weren't so tired and IN THE MIDDLE OF MOVING, I'd write something reflective or perhaps even semi-witty. But like I said, I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF MOVING.

Also, I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF MISSOURI.

Ketchup

Greg asked me this morning what I wanted to do today. I responded, "Laundry. Oh, and catch up on my blog."

David overheard this and thought it was hilarious that I wanted ketchup on my blog. (I thought it was pretty hilarious too.)

So here is the "ketchup":

First, a picture of my kids at the DQ in some tiny town in the middle of nowhere West Texas that had nothing but a DQ but thank goodness it at least had that otherwise my firstborn would have been pooping in a farmer's field.

Second, a picture that proves you do not need a pick-up truck if you have a rack, some good straps, and a tall husband.

This pictures also demonstrates that, as any good Mormon man knows, there's nothing you can't do in a white shirt and tie. (This was a trip to Ikea after we attended the temple.)

Next, a typical view of the toy room at Grandma Evie's house.

Notice Tio and Tia totally engaged with my children. (Gosh, we are going to miss them.)

I suppose you could consider the above picture a BEFORE view this next picture an AFTER view. This is after I prepped the toy room for the packers.

Who votes we have too many toys?

(I do!)

While we have been working at my parents' house (sorting our things from theirs), we have been living at Greg's parents' house. David and Mary have loved swimming in the pool everyday and hanging out with Grammy and Grandpa. Mary has whole-heartedly embraced (after years of fear) the princess dresses in Grammy's toy closet.

And she's off.

Soon we will be off too.

Tomorrow the truck will be loaded. This weekend sometime we will set off to St. Louis, where we will pick up our other car and, at my firm insistence, ride to the top of the Arch. Then early next week we will arrive in Madison.

Now would be an appropriate moment for some reflection--on the joys of a family reunited, the bumps in the road to establishing a two-parent dynamic, the blessings of grandparents, my love-hate relationship with Dallas, the gut-wrenching good-byes that accompany every move, and, most importantly, how I got my dream ottoman.

Instead, all I'm going to leave you with is this.