Grrrr... I gripe

I went to Ft Belvoir today. Its not really that far. I need to get the kids' medical transcripts transferred, so we headed to the hospital. I drove in circles for 20 minutes. No parking. Nowhere. I looked and looked and drove around and got someone pretty mad at me because I didn't realize it was a one way street. I was so turned around driving in circles and I never did find a place to park. It would have been a great day to get it taken care of since I only had Joshua and Callie with me- Dan took the week off and was home with the other 2.

Rather than scream and run over cars, I gave up. Who knows when I'll get it done now! I'm also irked that I have called every morning this week to try and get Joshua and Marian in for school physicals. They have none available. They keep telling me to call again and maybe something will magically appear. No luck so far. Its very frustrating, since the school technically won't let Marian start school until she has the physical done and paper filled out. Schook starts Sept 2, so I'm running out of time. I figure I'll call and demand other options on Monday. If they can't see me, maybe I can go out in town. We'll see.

After the fuitless hospital not-stop, we went to the commissary. It now takes me twice as long; The place is enormous and nothing is where I'm use to seeing it. We spent 15 minutes at the end, looking for the chopped ham that use to be in the deli meat section of the CP commissary. I couldn't find it anywhere. I finally went to the deli to ask. The lady said, "Oh, we have that right here!"

I was delighted until I got my package and discovered that her idea of chopped ham was not the same as mine. What I got was a pound of thick sliced processed ham. Sigh. I consoled myself by purchasing ice cream sandwiches and rethinking my menu for the week. Where on earth do they hide their deli meats and ham?!!

And now that I've gotten all my crankiness out, I shall go and eat another ice cream sandwich and have a much more cheery attitude!

Meet the House

Soooo, everyone wants to see the house. I suppose Kirsten wants to know what we're doing with the place. Due to laziness and the fact that I admit it may never be fully in order, I have taken pictures of it as it is at this very moment. Messy, only mostly organized, and with boxes and random items all over.

Since my mom had a much better handle on how to describe the house, I take her description out of her family letter and put it here-- The house is split level: Basement has washer/dryer in a fairly large storage room. Then the Man Cave. About 7 steps up is the entry level with a den, bedroom and bath. 5 steps up is the living room, dining room and kitchen. Another 7 steps up are 3 bedrooms and a bath. All the rooms are good sized. They have a screened porch in back and a fenced yard. A single car garage. The neighborhood looks very quiet and peaceful and just around the corner from them is a large park. The children were terribly dissapointed to discover it was only grass, trees, bike/walk/riding trail, and picnic areas. They wanted swings and play equipment.



This is the basement. It has 2 rooms and this is the wash/play/storage part of it. We do plan to have the mess in back a bit more sorted out. Dan still has 2 boxes of his papers and stuff to sort through. I still have to unpack all 500 canning jars and I don't want to. The goal is to have the storage stuff on the perimeter and the toy/play area should be the bulk of the room. (Just ignore the Calvin faced boy in these pictures!)



This is "the man cave" the other half of the basement. This is where I huddle over the computer. Behind me, where you can't see, because I am taking the picture here, it has some fantastic built in shelves for all Dan's law books that he never uses. We also put our futon couch down here for when you come to visit!

When you come up the basement stairs, you arrive in the lower living room. We have a couch, chair, TV, and yes, the ginormous elliptical machine. Yes, I have used it, and it is a nice thing to be able to see the tv while I "extersize", as the kids say.

Should you turn to the right at the top of the basement stairs, you'd see this- a short set of stairs to the kitchen. And if you were to walk past the stairs, you'd get to Joshua's room, a beautiful bathroom, and the screened in porch & back yard (fenced!). We'll talk more about the kitchen later.

If you walk through the lower living room, you reach the front door, and the steps to the upper living room. Yes, its a bit messy. But it looks spatious and it is. I like it.

If you stand in the living room, this is the dining area. I know, I still need to find places to hang my pictures. Since its not military housing, I have to be more careful of how many nails I wack into the wall, so I want it to be perfect! You can see the entry to the kitchen there by the microwave stand.

Should you stand in that entryway, this is what you would see. It is kinda fun to have the stairs to the lower living room there- the kids can run laps around the house there! Its a small kitchen and I'm still sorting out where everything goes. Once I get that done, it will be neater. It has to be, there's not enough space to be messy here.

Oh, I forgot. From the upper living room, you have the stairs to the 3 bedrooms upstairs, and the full bathroom. That's the girls' room at the end of the hall there.

And this completes our virtual tour of the house! We like it a lot. There are still the last 10 boxes of clutter to go through, and some organizing (hmmm, just realized that's pretty close to agonizing!) left to do, but we're happy with the progress. We love living next to a park, even if its not a playground! Its 1.3 miles to loop the trail and I had a great run there yesterday. We did go to a teriffic park today and the kids were happy.

Okay, I don't know why Marian was cross, but she was. We spent almost 3 hours here this morning and they were ready to stay longer. But I was hungry and Delaney needed a nap.

Our Triumphant Arrival!

Well, you already know there is never a dull moment around here! We did leave Monday morning for DC. 1058 miles according to Google. We spent 12 hours traveling and the kids were fantastic. We stopped just east of Lexington, KY and felt great about being over halfway there, and the worst of the roads were behind us. We anticipated a lovely, shorter day Tuesday. alas, that was not to be...

No, I didn't get a ticket! I was driving with my mother!! The car, which had been in twice already for radiator issues, suddenly began overheating and steaming. We ended up on the side of the freeway calling USAA. Can I tell you how much I LOVE their Roadside Assist program?!! We also had to call a Taxi- 2 adults and 4 kids won't fit in with the tow truck guy!

Here is the nice tow truck man. Joshua took this shot. He stayed with me while my mom took the girls on ahead in the taxi. The taxi guy got us hooked up with a back yard mechanic who took an hour and $40 to fix it. Whoo-hoo!

This is how we spent that hour! The double bonus is that the guy had his shop accross the street from a school with a great playground. The kids were thrilled. As was I. It still took a 3 hour chunk out of the day to get it all done. And then we never seemed to get in a groove. We stopped so many times it felt like we'd never arrive. But well after dark- around 11pm we did finally get to home-sweet-home!

And here it is! I love it! Its so roomy and the kids have so many different floors to play on. The yard is wonderful and the neighborhood is wonderful and Dan did a wonderful job of getting things set up. He actually was amazing. He had unpacked a LOT. And he had our room and the basement room pretty much done, so that meant there were 2 places in the house that were areas of serenety, with no boxes.

Aack! Where am I going to put all this stuff?!!! The kitchen is small, but we have worked it out and it is feeling like home. Dan is cross, but I put labels on the cupboards so I don't have to open every single one till I find what I want. Tacky? Yes. But not permanent.

The kids loved having my mom stay for a few days. And I did too! She let me and Dan go on a date to the DC Temple. That was the highlight of the week for me. Plus, she really helped me get things organized and to get a plan together for how I wanted things. The house feels like our house now and when I wake up and walk downstairs I look around and think, yep, I like it! there are still a bunch of boxes in the basement. We have to figure out how to store all the stuff that use to be in the garage.... that is this week's chore. Anyway, Mom left on Saturday. Dan and Joshua used the Metro to get her there and then they went to the Zoo.

Joshua had a great time at the Zoo, just him and his dad. Joshua liked the Salamander the best.

And today I finally got my internet! The nice cable guy came and hooked up the TV and computer and I am a happy girl! If I didn't have actual work to do, I would spend the rest of the day huddled down here at the computer checking on all the things I've missed this past week!

Out of Office Notice

Well, the van is 75% packed and the house is hopefully cleared out of all items belonging to us. Its been a crazy past few days, but I think I've gotten things organized enough and I think we'll fit everything into the van. Wish us luck!

Tomorrow we leave Arkansas for our new place in Virginia. We'll take 2 days to drive it and we should arrive Tuesday evening if all goes well. The computer is not internet-ed yet and will not have internet until next Monday (cross your fingers!). So I will be miserable and lonely, all cut off from my cyberworld. Farewell my friends! Have exciting posts for me to read when I finally return to visit you!

How I spent my summer vacation!

I have had a lot more fun this summer than I expected. Not that I dreaded it or anything. I was leaving my friends and going somewhere that I was not as established. Sooooo, I got the girls into Mother's Day Out 2 days a week and that was good for all of us. Joshua got to take piano lessons (thank you Wendy!) and we had a weekly playdate there. The library was a lot of fun with their summer reading program and all 3 older kids love to read. They get to read till 8:30 after they go to bed and as soon as I say its time to get ready (usually around 7pm), Joshua immediately puts on his jammies and grabs a few books and goes to bed! How awesome is that?!! Even cuter is seeing Marian perched on his bed beside him as he reads to her. Melts my heart.

One of the best things about this summer is that I got to see a garden at work. The number of cucumbers that were harvested was insane. Probably 10 of the darn things every morning! And they kept coming! I learned to can sweet pickles, bread & butter pickles, dill pickles and pickle relish. I also learned what to do with tomatoes- Salsa! Plus I made spagetti sauce and tomato sauce. I feel so domestic!! Lets see... the beans were plentiful as well. We froze a lot and had Jonathan's fabulous garlic beans for dinner at least twice a week.

And guess what I did today? I closed on a house. We purchased a little rental home and it closed this morning. As soon as we had the keys, we headed over to it and put in a little sweat equity as well. It was pretty stinking hot too. Joshua asked me if I'd had an accident because my pants were all wet. Nope, just sweat, and more sweat!


Here you can see the house as we bought it. The inside is great. It looks good. The outside... well, it was a wee bit unsightly! There were enormous bushes in front of it and the previous owner hacked them down and realized they needed to come out- thus the bare spot in front.

The girls were at preschool, so Joshua was my helper. He was so funny trying to unload these bags of soil. We made a very cute flowerbed over the naked dirt spot.

And here is is, all done in front. Much cuter. Like the shutters? Dad made them and I painted 'em. I picked the paint out myself and everything! Okay, so Mom did the screwing them in part, but I held them up!

The backyard was yucky. So many trees make for great shade and a big mess. We raked up what we could and bagged it. Here is a sweaty Joshua in front of the truckload of trash. And there is still more to go. We were too hot and tired and hungry though. We felt pretty darn good and called it a day.

It was the girls last day of preschool (okay, I call it preschool. Technically it is Mother's Day Out.) and they have enjoyed it a lot. This is our last weekend here. As a wonderful side note, Miranda is coming for the weekend! We love Miranda! And then we leave on Monday to drive the 1000 miles to DC and our new place and to Dan! He moved in our stuff last week. I'm going to be sad to leave here. I like my parents and the friends I have here.