A Fun Trip Home

We had an awesome, and effective, trip home.  It was great.  Two family reunions, so we pretty much got to see everybody (except my brother Kyle who is on a mission :)) and family pictures with my husband’s side of the family.  We did 5 generation pictures with my great grandma, and visited with her for a while.  Lots of fires, marshmallow roasts, four-wheeling, and trampoline jumping.  Massages from my mother-in-law, and the best company in the world.  I helped my sister clean so she could move and got to hang out with my adorable nieces, met my new nephew :), went to track districts, caught up with a couple of friends, helped clean out the basement, and generally had a great time. Time flew and it wasn’t nearly long enough, but I’ll take what I can get. 

On the way there we flew standby on a C-17 (military cargo plane).  A new experience for sure, and very different from a commercial flight.  The 13 hour drive to Idaho from Travis AFB was…well, much longer than 13 hours.  I would have to think about whether I’d do things the same way again.

On the way home we stopped at the Ramada Inn by the Spokane airport.  I picked it for three reasons: the shuttle to the airport, the swimming pool (with waterslide) and the in-house restaurant.  We didn’t have a car so we weren’t going to go somewhere else to eat, and I wanted the kids to be entertained.  They were only in the pool for about 3 hours, haha.  The food was great, for a hotel restaurant, and didn’t give me indigestion as many before have.  They also had enough food for my boys.  Often the “kid’s menu” comes with little enough food that the boys could each eat two of the meals.  The hotel had no problem with all of our family being in one room, and a crib was there for us.  I think it’s my new favorite stopover in Spokane.  Accommodating and convenient.

Flying Allegiant was much better than anticipated too.  We brought all our own food, and water, because their prices were ridiculous for both, but that was expected.  They seated our family together because we had little kids, the flight was on time, and they didn’t have a problem with my one-year-old constantly walking up and down the aisle.  (It was that or listen to him scream.)  It all worked out, and the price was great.

Time to plan the next vacation!

Sealed Deal

Yesterday was one of those life-changing kinds of days.  We signed for the house.  It took a long time, and I have a huge “packet” of papers to keep for years to come that I am not even sure I understand.  That’s okay.  I’m pretty sure Shawn understands most of it.

We get to move in on Friday.  All of our belongings will come right around Thanksgiving...and then I will probably have a yard sale.  My furnishings don’t really match the new house.  At all.  The laminate floor is a very dark gray.  My light wood things will clash horribly.  I’m sure I will get it figured out.  I needed an excuse to get a new table anyway, haha.

Apparently my husband loves to run.  I guess you never really know everything about someone, especially when they are constantly changing.  He’s known at work for his speed, and regularly leaves all his coworkers in the dust.  Some people have fun in the strangest ways :). 

I drink tea.  Well, not really.  What I really drink is tisane, since I never use tea leaves, just herbal infusions.  I’m drinking a cup now, anticipating having my own house, with my own kitchen things and herbs, so I can drink 3 or 4 cups of tea at night if I want (I make a large pot of it instead of a mug in a microwave).  Because sometimes one just isn’t enough.

My children are stoked.  They packed everything in their room this morning before breakfast.  They tried to pack the car as soon as Shawn got home too.  There’s been a lot of jumping up and down for joy today as kids counted down days and hours before we go live in our new house.

Embarrassing moment of the week- so far: I walked up to the house to do the final walk-through, stuck out my hand, and addressed the owner as “Brother” instead of “Mr.”  Since the church is across the street and there are several LDS families in the complex he was familiar with the term.  He nicely corrected me- “Oh no, I’m not Mormon, but there are several big Mormon families very close.”  I stammered an apology...not Mormon, he owns a bar in Waikiki :).  Shawn patted me on the back later and told me I don’t get out much.  It’s true.  The only people I’ve talked to much are the ones at church on Sundays.  I think I’ll take up a hobby that forces me out into the community.

All Roads Lead to the Ocean

I am posting on my blog, which means I have a computer   My laptop is not yet fixed, but I’m sure my husband will get around to it someday.  I’m typing from a free computer Shawn obtained at a yard sale (free because they weren’t sure all the parts were there or if it worked).  After buying a few cords and erasing all their stuff off of it, he has assured me that it works wonderfully, telling me how wonderful the ergonomic wireless keyboard and mouse are, and how top-of-the-line the computer was when it came out.  I’m just glad that though my husband doesn’t fix things around the house very often, he’s very handy with a few pieces of metal and some cords.  Second, sometimes yard sales pay off. 
And this is several blog posts combined into one.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE OCEAN

We are in Hawaii.  We’ve been here almost month now.  Most of the time, the boys and I have been in the hotel rooms.  The other day, Teddy told me how we were moving to Hawaii.  It’s been pretty hard to convince him that we’re already here.  Guess I should have made a bigger deal about it when we stepped off the plane, but I though they all understood.  I was trying to explain what an island is by telling them that we’re surrounded by water.  If you follow any of the roads on the island long enough, you’ll get to the ocean.  That made me slightly claustrophobic, but I guess any body of land is the same way...it’s just a lot smaller here.

How am I liking Hawaii?  I don’t know yet.  I haven’t seen much of it.  I love the hotel staff :), and the weather is great.  The ocean is warm enough that even I will swim in it.  The people are nice, and though the traffic is horrible, the people are nice enough to let you in where you need to be anyway.  I do not like the restaurant food at the hotel.  That’s okay.  I can usually manage to eat in the hotel room instead.

I’ve been warned about centipedes and scorpions.  Haven’t seen any yet, but I’m sure I will at some point.  Cockroaches are supposed to be plentiful, but I haven’t seen any of them yet either.  I probably need to get out more.  We have, however, seen, caught, fed, and played with lizards.  They are everywhere.  Little tiny geckos.  At least, I think they’re geckos.


HOW TO BUY A HOUSE

I’m still not sure.  But we’re working on it.  I’ve been on the phone a lot, faxed a lot of papers, signed a lot of papers, hunted for the correct papers, and stayed up nights redesigning “my” kitchen in my head.  Still scheduled to close on the 19th.

DAILY LIFE

Every morning the kids do their chores.  Which makes housekeeping happy.  Our housekeeper says we have very well-behaved little boys who don’t run around the room and scream like a lot of the other children.  I think she’s listening outside the door at the wrong times :).  And that they are so good to be so helpful.
We have a devotional most days.  It consists of a song, prayer, scripture or gospel/life topic, and a short discussion of our plan for the day.

We also try to go to the pool for an hour most days.  I know, nothing like the ocean, but it’s what we’ve got close at hand for the moment.  Funny, an hour a day and Teddy barely looks caucasian anymore, haha.  Okay, a little exaggerated.

I’m practicing more in the crockpot and reading up on education (homeschool mostly) and herbs.  I have grand plans but most of them have to wait a little while.  We’re planning a vertical garden (Thanks for the suggestion Miguel ) and several other projects for our new home.

Homeless

     I must say, as much fun as I’m having visiting family, and as grateful as I am to be able to be with Shawn on the weekends, traveling gets extremely difficult after a while.  There’s no real routine, a lot of time in a car, I have a difficult time sticking with goals (fitness goals for instance, or budget goals), tracking expenses after a while, etc.  It’s tiring too; you’re always on the go, packing or unpacking, looking for the toothbrushes, worrying about washing the clothes, or how you’re going to work out the meal plans.  Especially the food- planning meals in a motel with no fridge or even a microwave is just ridiculous.  I’m extremely grateful to be staying with family during the week. 

     Theo is my most needy child as far as routines go.  If we don’t do the same thing every time it can seriously upset his entire day.  This is a child who can throw a fit for hours over a single diaper change if you don’t have the right diapers—Huggies, with Mickey Mouse on them (which I totally spaced the other day when buying diapers…it’s gonna be a fun month).  So he’s been telling me every day that he wants to go back home now, to California.    He is not taking the news well that there is no more home in California, even though I try to get him psyched up about the new house we’ll be going to in Hawaii.  Right now, he’s just sad he doesn’t have any home at all.  (Olie is also telling me he wants a house now please, and he wants to not stay in hotels anymore!)  I feel for the kid, all of them really, even though I do get a little flustered when one of them goes around telling random people we’re homeless.