Getting settled in

When I looked at our archives to see where I needed to pick up, I was a little surprised to see how behind I am....but only a little.  It has been one heckuva year...which is putting it mildly.  I get the feeling I'm going to look back on this past year and wonder how I accomplished anything at all, much less that I *only* got a year behind on blogging while doing it.

After the finally-chronicled road trip to Texas, we spent the entire rest of the summer unpacking.  I drove into the garage with the kids on Saturday evening and we woke up Sunday morning and started opening boxes.  We actually decided to stay home from church that week partly because we lost track of time, and partly because we had no idea where we could find clean clothes at all, much less church clothes.

I had all sorts of grand plans to leave our apartment so clean and tidy for the movers...but when push came to shove I was actually more concerned about enjoying the rest of our time in Pennsylvania and left the place a wreck.  This translated into our things getting put into boxes where they lay.  Not to mention we had to be creative with storage so even though boxes were labeled by where they were packed, we really had no idea what we were going to find until we opened it.  So in order to really put things away we kind of had to open....EVERYTHING.  Luckily it was a small apartment and we moved into a very, very large house.

We tried to manage the chaos by keeping the packing materials in piles.  The kids thought this was pretty neat.

With everything all strung out every which way, Bridget particularly was left to her own devices to find things to play with in lieu of actual toys.  She never seemed disappointed with her alternate treasures.

And, sweet girl that she is, she even eventually realized what we were doing, picking stuff up and putting it away.  So she was always being so helpful by bringing me things I obviously needed.  While using the bathroom.

The kids, as per usual, handled the time of upheaval extremely well.  These people seriously blow my mind because any time I need them to, they more than rise to the occasion.  I have no doubt that all of our children are all going to thrive as adults because they roll with the punches so much better than I am able to, even  now.

There was lots of exploring the new house and climate--it only took three days for Elliot to not need to ask where the bathroom was every time he needed to go and one day when I was sweeping a gecko leapt out from underneath the kitchen rug!

There was lots of reading.

LOTS of coloring.

Though not always on paper.

Lots of playing, especially with our new-to-us recliner from Heber.

Lots of breaks for snacks, for feeding the body.

Lots of breaks for snuggles, for feeding the soul.

Lots of little, and sometimes less little, home projects.

And lots of errands to help us set everything up.

Lots of new STUFF.

And, in the spirit of being honest that we don't lead ENTIRELY charmed lives, a few more challenging moment as well.

But somehow...we did it!  We got all unpacked and settled in before Grant had to report to work in the middle of August.  And it was such a huge relief to knock that one down, there is truly no rest for the weary as we had to immediately gear up for the school year, and then dive head first into baby preparations.

It's kind of a miracle that I'm only a year behind on blogging...