Mud Room Project

Before Trek started school, he wanted to do a project.  (He loves to build things).

Our new house doesn't have a coat closet or anywhere to put shoes or backpacks, so he decided to design a mudroom shelf that held everything.  He asked me for input of what I'd like it to have & he built it perfectly.

Lorien was his helper for this project.  She helped him pick out the wood & helped saw the pieces & nail it together.  She's a WONDERFUL project helper.

First he built a shoe rack that held 16 pairs of shoes.  That way all 8 of us could store 2 pairs of shoes there.

Then he added the beautiful grey wood on top for the coats.

Finally, he added hooks so we could hang the hats & coats on it.  It's perfect isn't it?  I love it.

Getting Settled

When our stuff finally did arrive, my piano didn't make it in one piece.  I'm devastated.  I need to find a craftsman to come & fix it for me.  I love this piano.  I've had it since we got married.  I hope the leg is fixable because I don't think I ever want a new piano.  I love this one.

Cadence got settled right away in Marching Band.  For 3 weeks she's been at the high school practicing for 8 hours a day 5 days a week.  She is playing in the Pit (playing piano) & is loving every minute of it.  I can't wait to see her field shows.

Lorien made some new friends at church & attended girls camp here in Alabama.  It was definitely different than camping in California.  They had cabins & bathrooms & A/C & BEDS!  She enjoyed it & met lots of new girls in our church.  It was a great experience for her to have as a newbie here.

It took us exactly one week to unpack all our boxes & get everything put together the way we wanted it.  We were SO happy to sleep in our own beds & have our own things again.

And the boys got a new bunk bed here.  It's a triple-decker like the girls' & they love it.  It's perfect.

So everyone is happy now.  We have our toys, our beds, our pots & pans, & all our stuff.  We are HOME.

Our "Secret Garden"

We have a pretty big backyard at our new house which is WONDERFUL.  It's fenced which is nice as well.  The fence has a door that leads back to a little hidden mini-forest that belongs to our property.  We called the owner & asked about it & he said that it is part of the property, but nobody ever goes back there because it's overgrown & gross.  I asked if we could clean it up & he got really excited.

So . . . we cleaned it up.  We removed the branches & leaves, killed the weeds (TONS of poison oak & poor Trek was covered in it for 2 weeks), & did some bug prevention stuff.  Talk about some crazy bugs here.  We found a spider that spit poison (Trek got that one too & his hand burned for 2 days), an orange catapillar with spikes, removed a beehive (Trek got stung in the back), & killed a bunch of ticks, fire ants, carpenter ants, & who knows what else.  Poor Trek got attacked by everything.  He's my superman.

Then we dug a path down the slope (the whole thing is sloped to the main road) & put in stones to make a staircase down to the bottom trees.  We are hanging 2 hammocks down there in the trees since it's beautiful & shaded so I can read outside whenever I feel like it.

Next, Trek built a stone platform & attached a rope to the big tree in the back to make a rope swing for the kids.  They LOVE that swing.  They get on the platform, grab the rope, & jump.  It goes SO high.  They can't get enough of it.

We still need to tame the other half (it's a HUGE area), but the fun half is done & the kids are enjoying it so far.  We're pretty proud of it.

You Swallowed a WHAT?

As parents, we never know what to expect in these moves.  For the most part, the kids have dealt with moves fairly well.  There's usually a few tears, but everyone adjusts well & we've never had any serious issues.  This time was different.  Craiger just hasn't been himself since we started packing up in California.  He's gotten quiet, has started acting out a bit, & I think is just scared.  My heart hurts for him.  I love him so much.  Trek & I have been working extra hard to give him some extra attention & to talk to him until he readjusts.

The day after we arrived to our new home, he came into our bedroom after bedtime to tell us he swallowed a quarter.  A WHAT?  A quarter.  He said that he was feeling scared & he had a quarter in his hand & all of a sudden he put it in his mouth without thinking about it & it just "went down."  Poor kid.  He totally knows better than to swallow a quarter, he's just out of sorts right now.  So off to the ER we went.

Yep, there's a quarter in my kid's stomach.  The doctors were just relieved it didn't get stuck in his windpipe.  They gave us 2 weeks to have it come out "on it's own" before they'd discuss surgery.  They sent us home with a poop bucket, gloves, & several sticks to sort out his "stool" for the next 2 weeks.  Talk about a NIGHTMARE.

Sure enough, 2 weeks to the DAY, his quarter made it's way through his entire digestive system & said hello to us again.  We washed it really well & put it in his baby book as a memory.  He told me after it came out that he will NEVER put anything in his mouth that isn't food again.

Cute little guy.

*As an update, Craiger is adjusting really well to Alabama.  It's been almost 4 weeks & he's happy, healthy, making friends, & just being his old self again.  

New Adventures Begin

We made it safe & sound to Prattville, Alabama on July 9th, 2018.

Our new home is super cute & fun.  It's bigger than our house in CA, but still small enough to keep clean which makes it perfect.  It has a big front & back yard that opens up into a small forest that spreads down to the main road behind us.  We love it.

Unfortunately, our mess of a move continued to our move here.  Our stuff was supposed to be delivered on the 11th or 12th of July was still in CA & the moving company couldn't find a driver to drive it to AL.  We were basically told to just deal with it until a driver could be found.  It could be a week, it could be a month.  We didn't know.

However, Alabama has my favorite smoothie shop: Tropical Smoothie Cafe.  We had one in VA & I missed it while living in California.  I know where I'll be going on Friday nights.

While we were in Vegas, Tuhk gave us Trek's dad's old milkshake maker.  Trek's grandparents owned a diner when Trek's dad was a little boy & this milkshake maker has been with the family ever since.  It's a POWERHOUSE.  It's awesome.  Tuhk inherited it, but decided to let us use it until he has a family someday.  We didn't have any furniture or bedding or dishes (or anything really), but we did have a milkshake maker so we made milkshakes to keep our spirits up.

I got all the kiddos registered for school.  It was quite the ordeal (having to go to the county health department to get our health records transcribed, over 72 forms to fill out, etc.), but we got it done.  All 6 kids will be in school this year. . . 4 different schools.  1 at the high school, 1 at the jr. high school, 3 at the elementary school, & Canyon will be at his very own school just for Kindergarten kids.  It's adorable.  It's an old schoolhouse in the historic district.  It even has a bell tower.  I love it.

We signed up for the YMCA & took the kids swimming to beat the heat while we waited patiently for our household goods to arrive.  Trek enjoyed the fitness rooms, & I'm loving doing zumba 3 days a week.

And we were able to go to church for the first time here.  The ward here is very small (maybe even the smallest we've ever been in), but it's a sweet ward & we're going to love it here.

Our household goods finally arrived on July18th, so we were only a week or so late.  A LOT of our stuff was broken.  It broke my heart.  My poor piano lost a leg, our bed didn't make it, & several other casualties happened.  That's military moves for you.  You just never know.  But you move on & try not to think about it too much.

We are happy we are here.  We are VERY glad to be officially moved in & we are excited for new adventures in Prattville, Alabama.

Day 5: Sweet Home Alabama

Day 5 was our shortest drive which was good because we couldn't wait to just get settled.

I've never seen the Gulf of Mexico before.  Now we live SO close to it.  Mobile, AL is just 3 hours from us & it's right on the coast.

We made a short stop through Mississippi & then it was on to . . . 

SWEET HOME ALABAMA!!!!

Day 4: New Orleans, Louisiana

We woke up on Day 4 really early so that we could make it to church somewhere in Houston, Texas around 9 am.  It was a little early for the kids, & they slept for most of it.

But church was great.  It was a nice break to the long days of driving we were doing.  After church we got back on the road & soon we were crossing the Mississippi River.

Once we crossed the Mississippi, it seemed like we were constantly crossing swamps & rivers.  The whole area around us was wet.  It was the weirdest thing.  (I'm not a huge water person so I felt like I was driving over "not land" all day.  It was green & beautiful, but very wet.

We hit Louisiana & the green just took over.  It was gorgeous.  It reminded me of Germany.  The western United States just don't understand what the word GREEN means.  The Eastern United States do.  It's beautiful.

We hit a grand total of 7 crazy rainstorms between San Antonio & New Orleans.  After being in a part of California that rarely sees rain, it was refreshing to see so much in one day.

About 6 hours before hitting New Orleans, our A/C died on us.  We drove without A/C for about 2 hours before we literally couldn't take it anymore.  The humidity outside was killing us, & the heat inside was unbearable.  It was like driving in a wet oven.  We pulled over at an auto zone to find our freon pipes completely frozen solid.

The mechanic helped us to thaw the pipes & then we added more freon & the A/C started working again.  Hallelujah!

We arrived in New Orleans around 5 pm.  We stayed at a cool little Airbnb in the French Corner of New Oleans.  It was perfect.  We had an entire 3 room apartment all to ourselves & Bourbon Street was just around the corner.

We took the kids to look at the beautiful architecture & history of New Orleans.

I will admit, I was unprepared for Bourbon Street & New Orleans in general.  I knew it was crazy around Mardi Gras time, but I didn't realize it was pretty crazy every day.  (It's not a place for kids.  We'll just put it that way.)  I had to make my kids look at the ground for the most part.  It was pretty funny actually.  My teenage girls kept gasping in disgust & then would shield their little brother's eyes.  ha ha ha.  They're good kids.

But the architecture was gorgeous.  It's such an old city & it's just spectacular.  I'd love to go back one day, when there's no people/bars/strip joints & just study the buildings.

The cathedral was gorgeous.  There weren't a lot of people around the cathedral so we spent a lot of time there.  The kids enjoyed running through the park & I loved the details of the building.

But of course we couldn't go to New Orleans without some good food.  We opted for beignets for dinner.  Super healthy, I know . . . but man, were they delicious.

We stopped a Cafe Beignet & it was amazing.

I will never forget those beignets.  They were amazing.

Then we headed back to the Airbnb & crashed for the night.  One more day of driving.