Recent Happenings

Our "Dr. Seuess Tree" next door

Hello, everyone! We have been settling in more and more, although I've hit the point of diminishing returns on unpacking. Will the garage ever be empty of boxes? Will the avocado tree ever be planted? I will let you know if either happens!

I was inspired anew yesterday when in a friends' garage that actually had room for two cars to pull in, and boxes all neatly shelved on the side. They have been here for three years, though...

Bud's recent adventure with a kid fork. He has now officially graduated to using the grown-up variety! (We still give him the plastic ones sometimes, but he likes to bend those in half).

My favorite folks at the beach. The kids had a great time at the ocean--Pixie in the water with J.D., and Bud (like me) thinking the water too cold for swimming. This was the day I lost Pixie's glasses in the ocean...

J.D. and Pixie heading out for a Saturday morning "date" to the Wharf

We're all pretty excited about the new picnic table. We even have breakfast out there sometimes! On this particular morning, Bud ran and put on bumblebee rain boots so he could get outside as soon as he found out we were having a "picnic"



Smoke from the Zaca fire, as seen from our front porch last Friday afternoon



You can never have too many avocados! No, really! (Forget milk and honey, give me fresh guacamole)

The scene at the crib

Last week, I finally got to talk to my friend Kim on the phone. As I called, I thought I heard Bud waking up...but then there was silence for half an hour. Back to sleep, of course, I assumed...wrongly. He had reached from his crib a box in which was wrapped a fragile item, and with some delight (apparently) had dismantled the whole, scattering the shredded paper hither and yon. When I finally went in to check on him, I decided to deal with it in a few minutes, after I hung up...

A ridiculous plan, as all of that shredded paper was clearly too much fun to scatter around in a private ticker-tape parade. I didn't think to get the camera until AFTER we'd started cleaning up, by the way...

We are enjoying a great visit this week with our niece. I hope to check in again soon, but this should you give you a picture of what our last few weeks have been like! J.D. starts teaching next week, so summer is offically coming to a close...with "junior" close on its heels. We're inside the 5-week-out mark now. I'm not sure which is a bigger day on the calendar for September, Notre Dame's home opener v. GA tech, or our due date of the 23rd! (just kidding). Since we don't have cable, we are joking about scheduling the delivery so that we can watch the Michigan game in the hospital... :)

More soon...I hope

Wildlife in the West

Our none-too-welcome "squatter"

Just a short note to comment on the wildlife we're enjoying (or not, as the case may be) in our new home. Within the first few days, we were serenaded by the flock of feral parrots that roams the neighborhood, as well as a pack of coyotes that roams Parma Park/San Padre National Forest (just north of us). The bounteous lizards were obvious from the start (on seeing them, Pixie usually says, "A lizard! Don't tell Aunt Natalie!"). J.D. called me on the cell phone from about 30 yards away to come and see the 3-ft king snake slithering across the path as he and the kids walked back from the playground; our neighbor has spotted a bobcat; we have a local screech owl; there are apparently outdoor rats that live in the undergrowth; we have a "gopher town" in our own yard; and the California quail have been fun to watch strutting around out back. By far the most exciting (!) was the discovery of two black widow spiders under our back porch eaves. The one in the picture above had a main body easily the size of a dime. I had never seen one before, and found them quite sinister. J.D. dispatched them both, and we haven't seen any since... Not quite the urban living I was expecting!

more local wildlife

Pixie's four-braid day. The day before, she had wanted three braids (a little trickier). But we went back to clips yesterday when she asked for five. Maybe next week...

Dandelions really have become my favorite flower (it's a good thing!)

Smoke from Zaca invading the sunset last night

For those of you following the news, you may have heard of the "Zaca fire" in CA (it's been burning since July 4th, and they don't expect to contain it for about four more weeks, so it's become newsworthy). It is still about 8 miles from us ("a good two-days' burn")--there have been favorable winds for most of the week--but fire trucks from all over have been cruising the neighborhood this week to be familiar with the area in the event that it is necessary. !!

Thanks for checking in!

Moving In!

We were all pretty excited to get to the house. D and S arrived a few hours after we did and helped so much to get us "functional." The only problem with that (if it IS a problem) is that, as we figured out later, Bud thought we were at Boppy and Grandma's new house. We have been gypsies for much of the summer...

We have explained over and over that it's our new house. I'm not sure if it's working. I think he thinks the name of the building is "Neuhaus", since that's what he yells everytime we pull down the driveway. I'm guessing it'll sink in eventually.

P & B playing "drive-thru" in the back yard ("Bud! Do you want to go get food through the window?!?")

Pixie's new dance studio (I'm loving how easy it is to keep that tile clean...)

No doubt foraging, I'm just not sure for WHAT

We have everything we need: beds are all set up...

...as is the kitchen (as you can see behind Bud). First meal for the kids in our new home: rainbow goldfish, popcorn, strawberry-yogurt-covered raisins, and cheetos. YeeHaw.

Sing-along time with Boppy

Dis-Oriented at Last

DAYS 5-6

We made it!

Well, I don't know whether anyone is still checking the blog, as we've been here for more than two weeks now. We really DID make it safely. We didn't have high-speed internet though, and after the night it took me 20 minutes to pull down e-mail I basically gave up. However, we are now back in business, and here's the last installment of our travel log! Nothing too exciting except for the excruciating heat (whenever we got OUT of the car--we are so thankful that our a/c worked so well on the trip!) and making it to the land of palm trees...

We arrived in Santa Barbara on the 10th, and had a couple of hours to unload some furniture from the garage (where all of our things had been stored since June 20th) into the house before heading off to the title company to sign a pile of papers. J.D.'s parents arrived just before we left, and kept the children while we went into Montecito to sign away (definitely not Kansas, again...although I don't know how I can be so sure, as I've never actually been to Kansas).

We are definitely starting to settle in. One bonus about unpacking is that every time J.D. or I need some "focus time" to unpack something, we can just open up a box of toys that P & B haven't seen for 6 weeks and they are engrossed for 40 minutes or so.

OK, I hope to get up some house photos really soon. For now I have to do some church research/driving directions for the morning...oh, how we miss Rez!

Tuesday morning, in California at last, Pixie and Miss Bonita called to wish Nona a Happy Birthday. We miss you, Nona!

Even now this doesn't look like a big deal to me, but I took about a zillion shots of the Colorado River basin...the narrow swath of green in the middle of hours and hours of desert was so refreshing to the eyes that I couldn't snap it enough. When we stopped in Needles, CA (just over the AZ border) it was 111 degrees! Perhaps to the chagrin of employees, P & B used the INSIDE of the McDonald's as a playground (fortunately we were the only people there for most of the time). It was too hot out! (plus they didn't have a playground)

Yes, it's the first In-N-Out Burger visible from I-40 as you head West...(in Arizona, for those of you who are wondering).

Sesame Street CAN be extremely riveting. After our swim, Pixie and Bud kicked back with colored ?cereal? candy? with Elmo and friends while I packed up. J.D. was on his way back from the muffler shop. Pixie is still singing a song she made up about "Muffler Magic" (the name of the shop).

"Occidents" Happen

DAY FOUR

J.D. with Muffler

Hello again! After waking up in Albuquerque, we met up with Aunt M at an extremely cool New Mexican restaurant for breakfast (would that be toast or a tortilla?). On our way to Flagstaff, we definitely hit the American Southwest. Beautiful! Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing we hit...

The Prizm had a collision with a huge retread that was unavoidable (OK, I guess J.D. COULD have chosen to either (a) try to bump the 18-wheeler next to us off of the road, (b) flip the car at about 70 mph (speed limit 75, folks), or (c) run over the retread. I have NO quibbles!!). Anyway, the amazing thing is that the muffler held on through no man's land/Navajo country all the way from New Mexico into Flagstaff, where J.D. gave it a temporary fix about 3 miles from his Aunt C's house. AMAZING!

I was so glad through all of the car chaos that back in Georgia, J.D. had occasion to remind me of the verse in James about the same mouth that praises God not being used to curse, as well. Through the uncertainty of timing (we did need to get on the road, since we're closing on our house Tues) we rested in God's care. As it turns out, J.D. was able to get to a great muffler shop early Monday morning (THANK YOU C and D!!) and we were on our way by noon, the kids and I having had a morning swim and breakfast at the hotel.

In Flagstaff, we were able to visit with the B. clan and guests, who included J.D.'s Dad (our visit was a total surprise to him!). It was a fabulous, restorative time.

OK, my family is literally waiting for me in the car. I'll be in touch soon!!

P & B with Aunt M

DAY THREE

"Welcome to New Mexico"--yes, Thank you!

We finished our longest mileage day today--531 miles! We are safely in Albuquerque, and glad to be here. After a yummy sleep-in morning, we had a bit of a late start and finish, extra hour for Mountain Time notwithstanding :). Tomorrow morning we get to see J.D.'s Aunt M for breakfast, and then off to Flagstaff, AZ for more family reunioning. We wish you a refreshing Sunday, too.

Pixie gives me some pointers for the blog this morning.

I'd love Don Quijote's opinion on which angle to take against these guys...

Frazz finally gets to make friends with an "orange truck"

Gather ye daisies while ye may...for soon it's back into the car with ye!

We happened upon real, award-winning barbecue in Amarillo. It was great! (See the star?)

They take being Texan very, very seriously. (And, don't mess!)

Sure, it was fun to climb way up to the top...but someone has to go up and fetch Bud when it's time to leave--and that someone isn't the pregnant lady (maybe J.D. wanted an excuse to go down the slide).

Ice cream all around!

Our dragon cloud pointed us into Albuquerque (I really, really hope I'm spelling that right)

The "Everything's OK" Corral

DAY TWO

Although we could see thunderheads for most of the day, it seemed as if I-40 (and thus our route) was specifically designed to weave us through the storms and give us clear sailing into Oklahoma City. What a blessing!

We watched the Deep South fade away and got our first tastes of the wide open spaces to come. Just over the AR-OK state line, J.D. got tea to drink and it wasn’t sweet! Oh, dear! The beginnings of culture shock…not that we didn’t have some of those in the South, too. :)

Today was a little rougher, what with not-quite-enough sleep, but the shorter day (only about 8 hours total en route) and a delightful evening have been restorative for everyone. We arrived in time for a family swim before supper, as we had hoped!

As I type J.D. is reading to Pixie and Bud from “Little House on the Prairie.” It is fun, I think, for Pixie to get to move West to a new house along with the family we’ve followed from the Big Woods. Our crossing of the Mississippi River wasn't nearly as exciting as theirs, though...

Please thank God with us for a wonderful day. Tomorrow night I hope to be checking in from Albuquerque!

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas yet!


Recharging the batteries (theirs and ours!)

A hundred (or two) miles of yellow wildflowers did not lose their refreshing-ness

The end of the road for the day!