On the road... again...

As this swirl of emotion was going on, we started driving again.  My father-in-law was headed to MI anyways, so he drove the first 4 hours, then I drove another 2 hours to visit my friend Jenn and her family for dinner.  No pictures, unfortunately I couldn't find my camera in the big repacking...  we changed into pajamas and drove another 2 hours to Chicago where we'd spend the weekend with my college friends.

I still hadn't found my camera, but we went on to spend the day at Shedd Aquarium. It is HUGE and amazing.  The kids' favorite part was a special exhibit on jellyfish.  Who knew there were so many kinds? Henri's favorites were ones that are upside down and algae grows on their tenticles.  He even turned himself upside down to show off to them. Valerie loved watching the dolphin come right in front of her in the tank.

On our way to Shedd, we stopped off at a motorcycle themed cafe for breakfast.  The boys loved the theme, including the sign to the bathrooms, my lovely 1st grader can read "mom, what does 'piss this way' mean?"  the boys charmed a couple next to us who had 3 kids between the two of them and they were on the last few days of a week without the kids. Henri ate off her plate and sat on her lap, Carter talked her into a backrub.

The kids and I met Kari's boyfriend who entertained them with his dog and balloon animals. 

We then moved over to Melissa's so I could see the home they bought gutted and brought up to a beautiful living space.  We picked up Paul at the airport and headed to the Kohl's children's museum. Luckily, Melissa did have her  camera. 

Then we headed to Dairy Queen

Then Paul promptly passed out after being up all night previously franticly unpacking boxes so I wouldn't have to come home to a packed up house...

The next morning, we headed off to our friends near Minneapolis...

My ex-husband and Drew worked together in the military and Andrea and I are scrapbooking addicts.
Paul enjoyed hanging out in the garage with the guys and wondered, "how come we don't have neighbors like that?"

We trashed their playroom...

The girls hung out...

We had hot dogs... 

We tried to take a picture with 5 children...

Drew tried to trade Valerie for his two kids...

Then we cleaned up...

That concluded the visiting portion of our trip.

In the great north...

While we with his family, Henri learned all sorts of new skills...

We found a house we liked, had an inspection done and were negotiating an offer on our house in WA, then Paul flew back to WA to go back to work.

While we were waiting for all this to happen, we took a trip to Zooz....

We fed giraffes, which I think was one of the most disgusting things I've ever experienced.  It wrapped it's tongue around my and Henri's hands and was scratchy and slimy. I'm never doing it again!

Not only were the "regular" animals entertaining, but Henri enjoyed the caterpillars tickling him...

We finally had found sun and were settling in.

Carter & Henri loved spending time with the girls in the pool and playing DS...

Henri had a big fall as he'll tell you "a big bump on the sidewalk"

Then there were lots of phone calls between Paul and I. Paul started having a change of heart. He wanted to stay in WA.  I was now the one arguing we should move to Ontario!  In the end, we agreed to head back to WA.  Paul called the real estate agents and explained we would not be moving.  We packed up our stuff back into the station wagon, minus about 3 suitcases we'll get on a future trip. 

It was a very emotional week. To have everything change, was very confusing and I felt a bit like I'd fallen down Alice's rabbit hole.  But, off we went to repack...

On the road...

We left on a Sunday night and drove while the kids slept and all the next day to North Dakota where we met Paul's parents. We stopped only when we had to and met them Monday evening.

Somewhere in North Dakota at a rest stop...

We met up with them and hung out for a day at a water park.

the kids liked the "skateboards" at the hotel.

Our corny view...

Saying Goodbye...

In the last few years as we've had more children, Paul and I have talked alot about spending time as a family being a higher priority than amassing as much money as possible. Basicly, that family time is more important than being rich.  We want to have enough money to live comfortably, but other than that, we want to enjoy our family.

That being said, over the past year or two, Paul has put family time over trying to impress bosses and trying to get bigger raises, etc. I have LOVED the fact that he would rather come home than put in a few more hours of face time at work.  Has it meant that maybe he's not advancing at work as quickly as he sees his coworkers advancing? Sure. Has it meant he's probably happier than them?  Sure.  It's a shift I've seen in our family dynamic that we are all glad for. It's been a shift for sure as we both worked probably 60-80 hours a week when we met.

So, as part of this, we've toyed with the idea of moving back to the East to be closer to Paul's family.  We've set it as a long-term goal and have kept it in the back of our minds. After a series of events (I would call God's hand, my aethiest or agnostic friends may call coincidental) we decided to try to do it this summer.  Paul would keep his job and work remotely, which would be difficult, but we decided the amount of time we would hve with Paul's family would make it worth the short-term sacrifice. 

I will admit, I knew as part of marrying Paul that marrying him meant probably heading back to his home sooner rather than later, but I was a bit resistanct. I'd lived elsewhere but having kids makes you long for being near your family. This presents issues when your families live 2500 miles from each other.  However, I had been praying for about 18 months for a feeling of peace about the move and also for Paul to start attending church (I normally take all 3 kids by myself each week).  As part of the move, I felt a calmness come over me and Paul offered to start attending church with me.  Both prayers for over a year answered in one week, so I agreed and packed up our house, put it on the market and packed up all of the children's and my clothing (Paul would stay behind at work until telecommuniting was possible). After packing up our entire house in two weeks and many showigs, all 5 of us and 4 wardrobes headed off in the station wagon.

Before we left, we said goodbye to some (we were keeping it quiet) including my grandparents...

Incidently, Valerie would use this walker backwards hanging on to the part where Henri's feet are and push it down the hall to the delight of everyone!

Valerie had her surgery to remove the cyst and the same week started cutting 6 more teeth to bring her total to 8.  You can tell how cranky she is...

We went for ice cream as showings of the house got us out...

It was all exhausting...

While packing, Carter took some pictures...

A beautiful shot of my backside...

This would be my favorite self-portrait by him...

Some nice pictures of the other kids...

Time to take a step back...

We had a wilder summer than I was expecting! I'd planned on lazing around, doing touristy things.  I'm far behind because of all the craziness that ensued, so I'm going to head back to mid-July and work my way up to the present.

First, mid to late July....

July 15th... who would be crazy enough to take 2 two year old boys and their siblings bowling?  Why I would and I drug my friend Jodi along with me.  We have  a local alley that has coupons, ramps to throw the ball down and tiny shoes.  While we were there we even ran into friends of a friend!

A random bowler gave Valerie this teddy bear... 

The boys would throw, then we'd watch as the ball, very, very, very slowly made it's way down to the end (or in Henri's case, sometimes someone had to throw another ball to help it make it way down) then the boys would cheer, "go, go, go!"

July 17th-Birthday party for Carter's friend

It involved a good, old fashioned pinata. Who doesn't love a good pinata. It also was a 1/2 day affair. In the pouring rain at a park. Luckily they'd planned ahead and put out several tarps and gotten there early to secure a good spot under the trees. We've had the cruddiest weather this summer! Normally one would think an outside party in the middle of July would be pretty safe from weather concerns...

What's funnier when the pinata has a hole in it's backside???

Getting candy. Remember it's mid-July. Everyone's nice and bundled up accordingly...

Even more mobile....

Valerie is 13 months and one week...

 

Scrapbooking weekend... yes!

I recently participated in the page swaps and brought only those and my border swaps to SSWA this weekend.

I completed 98 pages, including:

Valerie's first year album (she turned 1 on Friday)
up to last week in Carter's & Henri's albums
up to last week in family album

All I have left is our Hawaii trip from the spring, and I have lots of page swaps/borders that are tropical/summer themed.

This is not counting the 15 pages I completed last month doing the Inspired to Scrap class.

I was at the retreat 48 hours: 13 hours of sleep, 3 hours eating, the rest scrapbooking. I didn't get sucked into FB, no making food, no cleaning, no wiping bottoms. I also used 6 entire tape runner refills.

It was so great. Reentry is going to be rough.

Here's a video of me flipping through the pages that's 5 minutes long.....

http://youtu.be/YzilntzUfak