There's no place like home...

We've moved! Saturday was the day we bribed, I mean, asked our friends to help us move from the condo into our new home. There were 13 of us, and there's no way we could have done it without each of our fabulous friends and their muscles! I'm especially grateful to my sis-in-law who took the kids outside and kept them from being trampled, and for my dear friend (who also called our condo 'home' for a few months last year) who packed some of the remaining loose items so well that I knew exactly where they were when I needed them as we unpacked. We were done in just a few hours with the big stuff, but we still had to return to the condo for some of the remnants and to make sure there weren't any buffalo-sized dust bunnies lurking in the corners for the new owner...

As expected, I was a little bit emotional about 'saying goodbye' to what had been our home for six years. I admit to being a sentimental fool, having to be the last out the door so I could have my one last long look at the place we have been doing life for more than half our marriage. Lucy was just a little bit teary as we pulled away, and I tried to be genuine in my feelings and reassure her that I was a little sad, too. She recovered pretty quickly, and then made up a song to sing to me. She sang that it's okay to be sad to say goodbye to the condo, but to be happy because we have a new house to call our home. She also told me to let her know anytime I was sad and she would sing to me again. It was so sweet, and it definitely helped!

Sunday was a fun day of unpacking and trying to locate things we needed. The kids were quite helpful, as you can see.

Mostly I feel like we were pretty organized, but I admit to spending a very frustrating half hour searching for the bag of screws so we could hang the paper towel rod in the kitchen. Ugh.

We met quite a few of our neighbors during the first two days we called this place home. On Saturday we met many of them out front as we were unloading the truck and assessing the piles in the garage. But on Sunday, the weather brought the whole neighborhood out in our backyards and on the roofs as we stood in a virtually windless place and watched a tornado forming just a few miles away! The beauty of the open landscape of Colorado allowed us to see this amazing natural phenomenon, and with our new house up on a hill, we had a bird's eye view as it tore into the landscape on the other side of town.

People saw us come out and shouted their hellos and waved to us over the fences or from their rooftops. One neighbor joked that we should have waited a week to move in, just in case the neighborhood wasn't here after the storm. It gave me goosebumps to watch, and we are so grateful to know that because it touched down in a rural area, there was no major damage and no injuries or loss of life.

We all went inside when the hail and rain came, but having a front porch allowed us to show Lucy the marble-sized hail.


An hour later, the setting sun returned and shone in stark contrast on the dark storm clouds that had passed to the east. A beautiful double rainbow, pictured here from our front porch, was the perfect way to end this first full day at our house, and a humbling reminder of God's promises to us.

Tomorrow is The Day

Tomorrow we sell our condo and buy a house, all within the span of about three hours. I've been packing like crazy, while still trying to keep my kids happy. Really, it's been a pretty good week, aside from one or two moments where I was so overwhelmed that I wanted to just crawl into a hole until September.

Today I got enough done that I decided we needed a break and I took the kids to the pool after naptime. It was great fun, and both of them were loving it. (Josiah sometimes isn't so sure of the water, but today he was all smiles.) As we swam, with the pool completely to ourselves, my mind kept coming back to all the little things that I will miss when we move. Today, it was primarily the pool! But I also thought about the great expanse of green grass in view from our windows where Lucy loves to play with her neighborhood friends. And the friends themselves.

I've been so excited to move into our new house! The more I tell people about it, the more I can hardly wait to settle in. But inevitably, change is hard, and as reality settles in, the sentimental side of me peeks through the cracks of my excitement. I'm just hoping I can hold it all together through our hours of closings tomorrow.

Use it or Lose it

As a member of our museum, I get a magazine each month with upcoming events, interesting scientific articles, etc. As I was browsing it over my bowl of cereal this morning I read the following tip for exercising your brain:

"Pack Your Bags: Planning trips, going to new places, and having engaging experiences with different people helps keep your brain stimulated and healthy."

With all our travels -- and assuming that packing for a move counts, too -- my body may be weary, but at least my brain is being stimulated. Looking at my schedule from July and for August, I'm on my way to becoming the next Einstein!

Somewhere in middle-America

I could barely remember my own blog address tonight as I sit here in Omaha, Nebraska, in a hotel room with my kids sleeping and my husband watching the Olympics. That's how long it feels since I've blogged! We have had a pretty incredible 10 days in the midwest, and we're on our way home, taking this break for what we hope to be a good night sleep.

There's so much that I'd like to write about, but I'll have to save some of the fun stuff for later. Since the month of August began, we have spent three whole days on the road in Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Day Four will be tomorrow as we finish our drive home. The kids have been phenominal travellers and we are so pleased with how well they have done as we've dragged them all over creation.

The purpose of our trip was to participate in the joyful celebration of John's sister's wedding. Since she planned to get married in Wisconsin, just two hours' drive from one of our favorite families, the Joneses, we made a sort of vacation of it. After spending a day on the way with John's grandparents and parents, we arrived in Madison and spent four days soaking up as much time with each other as we could. They also planned a day with us at the Wisconsin State Fair, which I can only describe as artery-cloggingly delicious!

Not only did we spend wonderful time with the Jones family, but our paths also crossed with dear old friends, the Kabuthas, who live in Kenya. They just happened to be in the US this summer, and just happened to be driving through Madison on the last day we were there. It was a brief but refreshing time, as it has been three years since we last saw them, when our daughters were the ages that our sons now are.

I could have stopped there and felt my cup was full, but on our last night in Madison, I also got to spend several very fast hours sipping coffee with my childhood neighbor and best friend Jess, who I reconnected with this past fall. This was only the second time I've seen her in the last 19 years, and it was such a sweet time togehter. I felt my cup was overflowing.

To top it all off, yesterday was my sister-in-law's wedding. John's youngest sister, Anna, was only 12 years old when I met her, but yesterday it really hit us both that she's no longer 'little.' She was radiant as a bride! The two days of rehersal and wedding festivities was exhausting and yet seemed to pass too quickly. Lucy did a truly beautiful job as a flower girl, and Josiah was a trooper through it all. (We took upwards of 800 photos, but you'll have to wait to see them until I get home and can sort through the best of them.)

We will finish our drive tomorrow, then as soon as we are finished unpacking from our trip, we'll begin packing for our big move which will take place in less than two weeks. Hmmm. I might not be blogging as much as I'd like to, but I'll at least update with some photos and maybe a few fun stories from these travels.

Good night from Omaha...