The Day Before the Day Before School

(The St. Croix river valley, viewed from the windows of the car on the way to church this morning.)

So tonight is the second to last night we'll spend in our little apartment before the chaos of school and extracurriculars (whatever they may be) and Scouts/YM/YW and, probably eventually, church callings descends.  We spent our second Sunday in our new ward and found everyone to be exceptionally nice and welcoming.  One family in the ward even had us over for dinner earlier in the week--see? exceptionally nice.  They live just one street over in our neighborhood and have kids our kids' age & that's such a blessing.  Their daughter even told Elise she could find her at lunch and come and sit.  So kind!

I've felt very calm and settled since we've come here, which I'm chalking up as one of them multitude of God's blessings we've enjoyed in the midst of all this.  I know myself well enough--and I know life well enough--to realize that this relative calm will pass, and that there will probably be some bumpy spots, especially as the kids get established in school and the rest of what makes up their lives.  And as the house gets finished, too, and we make that final move.  But I've really been enjoying the opportunity to just be with my kids and my family without anything else tugging at me: no classes to teach, no Webelos to plan, no homework to oversee, no soccer practices to run to.  We've just been, well, hanging out.  And although we've occasionally impinged on one another's space, everybody's been getting along remarkably well.

And speaking of space!  I'll stop rambling and post a few pictures.  Here's the fabled apartment, in all its glory:

This would be the kitchen/dining area.  Obviously.  Now, if you're interested in picturing us in the kitchen/dining area, you'll be better prepared to do so.  And here are the kids in the family room, which is, of course, just off of the kitchen/dining area:

You'll notice all three boys huddled around a cardboard box on the floor.  Forrest ran a cable from our bedroom to that little corner so the kids could set up their all-important computer.  We stuck it on top of an end table and used the boxes for the keyboard.  The mouse sits atop one of Wyatt's dinosaur books.  It seems to be working.  And Elise is watching (what else?) some Comcast On Demand sitcom of the iCarly, Suite Life, etc. etc. ilk.  Cue laugh track!  (Oh, the laugh tracks.  They are boring themselves into my skull.)

But we don't just sit around and stare at screens all day, oh no sirree.  We do fun stuff like take the boat out on Lake Elmo.  ("Elmo?" Wyatt said, and giggled.)  And, I know, I forgot the camera, which was too bad because it was a gorgeous day.  Blue sky, calm water, nobody on the lake.  Minnesota: the land of driving 5 minutes and putting your boat in the water.  Nothing like it!

We also went to the Minnesota State Fair on Friday, an activity which non-Minnesotans can't really comprehend unless you've attended (like Grandma and Grandpa Sweat).  We went on a blustery, downright COLD Friday (earlier in the week it was low 90s and humid, then blamo, it's 57 degrees!).  Anyway, we thought it wouldn't be so crowded, given the weather, but we were wrong.  Masses of humanity, all waiting in line for fried food and/or rickety carnival rides and/or to gawk at the fair's biggest pig.  We joined right in:

Wyatt, reaching out and petting a most impressive hog, wearing his pink pig's ears with pride.

"Gather round, kids!  Of course you want your picture taken with Smokey the Bear!"

While at the fair we, as a family, shared: corn dogs (kinda mushy); a giant cup of french fries; a Famous Dave's pulled pork sandwich; Alligator sausage on a stick (Ethan's selection, which he's holding above--it tasted overly spicy and kinda dry, since I can't imagine alligators are all that fatty, but Ethan's nothing if not adventurous); roasted corn on the cob; mini donuts (I'd forgotten how much I love mini donuts); a giant tub of Sweet Martha's chocolate chips cookies; a caramel apple; three glasses of milk (chocolate and plain) and three cups of Coke.

I kinda had a stomach ache when I got home.  Go figure.

I also had a stomach ache watching my beloved children ride this:

Yes, that's three of my four children, suspended upside down, high in the air, on a suspicious-looking carnival ride.  Jonas barely made the height requirement, and he's so skinny I kept having visions of him somehow slipping through his harness.  Luckily they made it out alive and begging to go again.  Here are some more action shots:

I like how Wyatt's got his tongue out.  Ready to go.  And I felt for the poor carnival workers in their hip waders and gloves, pushing preschoolers around in a chilly pool of murky water all day.  Talk about challenging work conditions.

Nothing like getting to ride up front!  And with your big sister, too.

I'm just barely getting old enough that this ride (which those of you who are familiar w/ Lagoon would call the "Music Express") makes me a little bit sick to my stomach.  But only when we're going backwards.

We had a lot of fun, even if it was chilly.  We've also done a few other fun things this last week: the Minnesota Zoo, the Mall of America (don't know if I'd exactly call that one FUN, necessarily--man, that place is big and loud and crowded--but it was good to go back and see it again.  Elise said it had a "familiar smell.")  Elise and I had our yearly "mom and daughter day" yesterday and went school shopping and out to lunch at Applebees, and that was a lot more fun than the Mall of America.  Ethan and Forrest went and bought Ethan a bow, since the legal bow hunting age here is 12 and Forrest thought it would be fun to teach him a little archery.

We also have some pictures of the inside of the house (almost forgot--and I realize these pics are probably a little boring, since there's not much but walls and cabinetry):

Kitchen/dining

More kitchen

Family room

Entryway (living room to the left, office--can't see it--to the right)

Upstairs loft, which will save my sanity as all Disney channel sit coms must be watched UPSTAIRS.

Master bedroom

Back yard.  In Minnesota, people don't have fences (usually) and in our neighborhood, fences are expressly forbidden in the association's covenants.  I've gotten to where I like the look of unbroken green, but I am glad that we have this nice stand of trees that lines the backyards, so we have at least a little privacy.

And last but not least!  A few pictures I'd forgotten to upload from my phone, back from the lifetime ago when we were living in Utah.  (Yes, I've felt peaceful over the last week and a half, but it's been an incredibly looooooong week and a half.)

Ethan and Elise jumping off the platforms at Ethan's birthday party at the Kearns rec center.

Ethan and his friends at the aforementioned birthday party.

Elise and her Beehive class at her goodbye pizza party.

A beautiful Utah sunset, made all the more wistful by the "under contract" sign in our lawn.  Apparently the sale went through on August 31 and people who are NOT US will soon be occupying our house!  They're moving from North Carolina, so I'm not sure if they're actually there yet.  It's always so strange to sell a house . . .

The kids up at Ledgemere, having one last picnic up the canyon with Grandma and Grandpa Sweat before heading em up and moving em out.

And now I think I have all the important stuff covered.  Or at least most of it. Tomorrow we're getting together with the family of one of our former bishops in the White Bear Lake ward for lunch, then spending the rest of the day gearing up for school to start.  And then--blamo!  Real life.  Hopefully we're ready.

Photo Updates, In Reverse Chronological Order

So I figured out how to upload photos on my computer even though I don't have the cord.  Turns out Wyatt's Leapster has the same type of cord as my Nikon.  Hooray!  Voila!  Now I have pictures to share.

Since I have a bunch of pics from before the move that hadn't been uploaded, I'm going to start w/ the most recent pic and then go back in time, hopefully with a minimum of commentary on my part.  Or else this is going to take me forever to write (and, by extension, forever for you to read.)

The first picture.  The new house!

I really like the color of the cement board (it isn't vinyl siding--our first house with cement board).  I also like the white accent.  We didn't get to choose our color palette since the house was a spec and the colors were already chosen by the builder, but I did get to choose if I wanted red or a lighter beige in the roof peaks.  I thought red would be fun--a number of the houses have colorful accents--and I didn't know if I wanted a brown-and-beige house.  But now I'm a little unsure about the "red" since it has a decidedly purplish cast.  I thought it would be a more brownish-red.  It's so hard to tell from paint chips!  But apparently this is the red that is used on other houses in the neighborhood. So.  I either have to decide that I like it or see about having the roof peaks repainted in the lighter beige color.  What do you think?  Forrest says we should let it grow on us and that it will all look nice once the landscaping's in and the front door is on.  I suppose time will tell, as it always does.

This is also the first time I've had a house with the garage on the left hand side, and that's throwing me off a little too.  Perhaps because we read left to right, I generally "read" a house left to right, and I don't like starting with the garage.  But I'll get used to this too, I'm sure.  But now I sound like a big whiner, and I don't want to, because I really really love the inside of the house.  It's going to be a great space and fit our family really well.  I wanted to take pics of the inside, but when we went over with the camera they'd taped off everything in order to paint.  So those pictures are forthcoming.

A few other quick moving updates: 1. We went to church today and it was really good.  It seems like a very nice ward--big!--and the kids were very friendly to Ethan, Elise and Jonas when they went to class. (I'm sure the nursery kids were friendly to Wyatt, too, but it's harder to get reliable intel from a 3 year old.)  2. My hair likes Minnesota, I think.  It's shinier and easier to tame.  The humidity maybe?  3. After two days of listening to Phineas and Ferb blasting on the Disney channel in the main kitchen/family room area, we broke down and bought a smallish TV from Sam's Club so the kids can have a TV in their room.  It's for my sanity, people.  And the kids' sanity, too.  It's hard to come up with stuff to do all day when you're in a 3 bedroom apartment and have no friends.  Hence, Phineas and Ferb.  This too shall pass, yes?

Okay, now another picture.  I'm not doing so hot on the short commentary thing, I realize.

This is Ethan, smiling in front of his birthday cake on Friday.  Doesn't he look old all of a sudden?  It's because he's 14 and heading to HIGH SCHOOL!  And yes, that's the apartment kitchen in the background.  Haven't taken any other pics yet because I want to get the joint put together first.  Almost there.

Ethan spent his birthday at the "Raptor Roundup"--a daylong event for incoming freshman at his high school.  He strode in there surrounded by a bunch of other 9th graders without knowing a soul and did just fine.  He said lunch was a little long--they gave them a whole hour, which is a long time if you don't know anybody--but overall he had a good day.  He's a self-possessed kid and I know he'll be able to take all of this in stride, even if there are a few bumps in the road along the way.  We spent that evening eating at Buffalo Wild Wings, since Ethan loves a good chicken wing, and had a fun meal together.  Happy Birthday Ethan!  We love you.

Here are a couple pictures of the kids last Sunday night, spending one last evening with their cousins at Grandma's house.  Even the big girls dressed up (beautifully).

Wyatt now thinks he wants to be a police man when he grows up.  Mainly so he'll have increased access to guns.  Perhaps this is why he's decided against the ninja route; ninja weaponry is so old-fashioned.

Last Saturday, Forrest and Tony and Peter participated in the Jordanelle Triathlon.  Isn't this a hunky picture of three good lookin' guys?

They even looked good after they finished, which is an even more impressive feat:

All three of them did an excellent job and it was fun to go and cheer them on.  Here's Forrest looking downright pleasant after emerging from the swim, making it look easier than it actually is:

Those people behind him are all the people he beat. :-)

And here's Jonas and Reagan, hiding in the tippy top of a tree while they wait for their dads at the finish line:

Speaking of trees, the weekend before the Jordanelle Tri, we took the kids on one last trip up into the mountains.  We found a nice spot just off of Strawberry Reservoir and pitched our tent.

Grandma and Grandpa came up and joined us for s'more cooking.

And here's some s'more dancing:

Some adolescent tree sitting (right back atcha!):

And some pre-K fantasy gunplay.  Because wherever you find Wyatt, you'll find fantasy gunplay.  Even in the woods, he's able to find a left over tent spike and turn it into a firearm.  (At least I've gotten him to pretend to be killing "robots" instead of "bad guys.")

And finally, a few pictures Elise took of her time at girls' camp.  I can't believe she's already doing the whole girls' camp thing!  And doing it much better than I did.  I wasn't much of a girls' camp fan.  Preferred Youth Conference, where both boys and electricity were available in abundance.  But Elise had a great time, even though it rained buckets and buckets.  Here's all the cute girls in the ward:

And here's cute Elise:

And now (whew!) we are finally caught up.  I'll take more pictures of the beautiful greenishness of Minnesota, the apartment, and the inside of the house here soon.  Love you all!  Miss you!

We're Heeee-eeere

I'm sitting at Forrest's computer.  It's right under a vent in the ceiling and cold air is shooting down onto my head most unpleasantly, but I'm not sure if I want to close the vent (make the room stuffy?) or leave it open and suffer a bit whilst on the computer.

And yes--we're in our apartment!  In Minnesota!  We made it.  The plan ride was pretty smooth--smoother, I'm sure, than Forrest and Darrin's jaunt across the country pulling a boat filled with toiletries and medication and flammable cleaning liquids and plastic tubs full of clothes and a road bike and one ridiculously yowly cat whom, I'm told, yowled pretty much constantly from Monday to Wednesday. 

Do you say "whom" when referring to a cat?

Anyway, good plane ride.  Had a connection in Denver that made me a little nervous because time was tight, but (amazingly!) the gate we had to get to was directly adjacent to the gate where we arrived.  (From which we arrived?  Where we arrived from?  Whom?)  Wyatt even decided to take a little nap from Denver to Minneapolis and I got to read my book.  Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos, given to me by she of impeccable literary taste, Ms. Darlene Young.  (Loving it Darlene.  Thank you.)

Then Forrest picked us up from the airport and whisked us off to drive past the kids' schools and past our new house.  It's going to be a great house, and it was really fun to see how much progress has been made: exterior all done (colors a little different from what I was expecting, but I think I'll like it); cabinets in (love them!); primer on the walls (a little darker than I was expecting--just like the exterior of the house--but it's primer, not paint).  As soon as I figure out where I stashed my camera I'll take some pictures.  Then I'll have to figure out how to upload them because I think the movers took the box I'd painstakingly packed full of all the cords that connect things to the computer. Sigh.  Things I also don't have on hand: hangers, extra towels (they said there would be towels here, but there are, like, four), Wyatt's box of Trio blocks (where ARE they?), and a laundry hamper for the kids' bathroom.

And speaking of the kids' bathroom, the temp housing is quite nice.  Pretty spacious, for an apartment.  But the hot water doesn't get very hot and the phone just rang and the person on the other end asked for "Tuwahn" (I'm spelling this phonetically) and the bed is small.  So it's not exactly home.  But it's definitely doable for six weeks; in fact, it's kinda like an adventure.  Right?  An adventure!

Today we're heading out for Elise's middle school open house.  As soon as I have pictures, I'll upload them.  And thank you to all of you for all your help and love as we got ready to move.  Mom and Dad, especially--thanks so much for letting us hang out at your place!  There's nothing like Grandma and Grandpa's house.

We love you all.  Miss you already.

Crazy Town

So we're moving.  Have you heard?  The movers are coming tomorrow.  Eek!  I'm trying to separate the stuff we'll need for the next week while we stay at Mom and Dad's from the stuff we'll need for the next six weeks while we're in temp furnished housing before the house is built from the stuff that the movers are going to pack away and lock up in storage until it's time to move into the house.  My brain hurts.  And we have so many clothes.  So, so many clothes.

I keep wanting to blog about:

-How we went camping up at Strawberry last weekend

and

-The Irreantum fiction / creative nonfiction contest committee meeting/party (cause it really is too much fun to be called a "meeting") that we had at my house last night and how much it made me miss the loss of my Utah-based literary community

and

-Elise going to girls' camp and braving thunderstorms aplenty

and

-How we're selling/donating/junking so much stuff and how good it makes me feel to declutter and downsize

but

I don't have time.

I might once the movers are all done on Friday and we're safely ensconced at my Mom and Dad's house, but I don't know yet.

So until then . . .

More Summer Fun

Here are some more shots of last week with the fam.  First, big thanks to Andrea for emailing me some of her great shots!

The almost-fourth graders, digging their way to China.  They're so cute together.  Might they be mad that I say they're cute together?  But they are.

A sunset ride on the boat.  The water was gorgeous.  I love riding on the boat just before nightfall.

So I took this one (and some of the others) but hadn't uploaded yet because it was on my phone.  I'm sure you can tell it was a phone picture--dang graininess--but this shot of the boys asleep a few minutes after they'd settled in to watch cartoons was too cute to miss.

The cousins also had fun at Grandma's house while the guys went golfing.  Andi had always wanted to take a pyramid shot.  And now she got one!

On Saturday, Grandma treated all the girls to tea-time at the Grand America hotel.  It was SO MUCH FUN.  Finger sandwiches, gorgeous desserts, little teapots full of hot chocolate and plum tea (I was the only one who ordered tea--herbal!--as the waitress noted no less than three times.  And I kinda regretted not getting the hot chocolate.  Mormons!)  There was a harpist in her functional black dress, and the bathrooms were so beautiful we had to take a trip to go check them out.  I'm sure the girls won't forget this any time soon.

We also hoofed it over to temple square to see the new miniature temple cutout, which was really cool.  The weather, however, was NOT cool, and we were all pretty sweaty when we got to the car.  Elise grew out of her shoes along the way, too.  I tell the truth!  She could no longer put her shoes on after she took them off in the car.  We drove to Target on the way home to get her friend a birthday present, and Elise walked in barefooted, headed straight for the shoe aisle, and picked a pair of flip flops.  Women's, size 8 1/2.  Yes, it's true: we now wear the same shoe size.  How tall is this girl going to be???

Then on Saturday night we headed over to Karla's to celebrate Grandma Ranquist's birthday.  It was so much fun to see everybody, especially before we go, and check out Karla's gorgeous new kitchen.  (Seriously, those blue built-ins?  To die for!)  The back yard at Aunt Karla and Uncle Richard's is a grandkids' paradise, and they all had a great time scampering around till late into the night.

(Thanks to Andi again for the picture.  And for the next one.)

Grandma Ranquist with all the (present) grandkids.  Just missing: Amy, Abby, Adam, Jessica, Drake and Jonathan. And geez, Andrew, you really are freakishly tall.  Just in case you forgot.

It was such a great week.  It melted away a lot of my stress and it was so nice just to hang with family and have FUN.  It made me sad, though, too--to be leaving all these people I love.  (We also went up to Darrin and Katie's for a Wilkey FHE on Sunday night--no pictures, though--and got to hug and talk to dozens of Wilkeys, which was also fun and sad.)

My only consolation is that I know when you're gone, then the times that you do spend together are even more intensely fun, e.g., we wouldn't have done a lot of this stuff if Andrew and Andi hadn't come to town. Now we just have to figure out how to coordinate all our family vacations so all the Sweat kids are in town at the same time.  And leg wrestle over who gets to stay in Grandma and Grandpa's basement.

Summer Fun

In the midst of house showings and paperwork, we have been able to have a little fun around here.

First, a little anniversary celebration.  Forrest and I went up to Deer Valley to hear our very favorite four-times-married singer/songwriter.  (Note: As much as I love Ben, and as much as I love "The Luckiest," a bit of the shine wore off when I heard he left his third wife, for whom he wrote "The Luckiest," for his yoga instructor.  Sigh.)

ANYWAY, Ben Folds might be a musical genius, but Forrest and I are way better at staying married, as our 18 years of marital togetherness attests.  Here we are, smiling in the cheap seats on the grass, waiting for Ben and the symphony orchestra to get started:

Here's a shot of the amphitheater:

It was a gorgeous night.  Gorgeous! And other than the drunk guy behind us who kept shouting in a voice of unearthly volume, "Play 'Mess,' Ben!  Play 'Mess!'"--and seriously, this guy wasn't deterred by ANYTHING, not the people around him yelling for him to shut up, not the notion that the Utah Symphony Orchestra probably wasn't prepared to play requests--it was a wonderful concert.  We've never been to a concert at Deer Valley before, but I highly recommend it.  Bring a picnic.  Take in the amazing scenery.  Ignore the drunk people.  It's a good time.

We also just returned home from our fun-filled trip to Pineview with the extended family.  Andrew and Andrea are in town (hooray! so glad we got to see them again before we leave!), so everybody but Amy and Dave spent three days in condos by the lake.  The one and only bad thing about the trip was missing Amy and Dave and their kids, but I can understand that a two-week old baby makes family vacations of this sort pretty difficult.  Do they make life jackets for 2 week old babies?  Hopefully we'll be able to do something like this again soon, with everybody included.

The weather was great, despite dire prognostications the weekend before we left.  We had a few sprinkles, and some storms that came through at night after we were all snuggled tight in our beds, but during the day the sky was blue and the water was warm and the lake was surprisingly calm. 

I wish I'd taken more close-up pictures, but I kept forgetting my camera.  Or remembering my camera but not wanting to get up and actually unzip it from its case.  But I did get a few.  Here's a taste:

Forrest.  Sweet jump.  Green mountains in the background.  Face lit by the sun.  One of my better pictures of the trip, if I do say so.

Wyatt, bobbing with his cousins out in the lake.  Wyatt would have bobbed out there all day long if we let him.  He loved every minute of it.  Oh, and not to interrupt the narrative flow, but if you click to enlarge the picture you'll notice that Wyatt's haircut is looking a little funky.  About an hour before we left, we found him under the kitchen table with a pair of safety scissors doing this:

Never had a child take a pair of scissors to his own head before, but I suppose it's a parenting moment that all of us should have a turn enjoying.  I'm just glad he's not a girl.  And that I'm old enough now (tired enough?) that having a kid with a weird haircut doesn't phase me.  Much.  But back to the trip!

Each of the kids had a lot of fun out on the boat. 

 Ethan showed a lot of skill and is becoming quite adept.  He jumped the wake and did a switch move.  He even had a wicked wipe out, which is what all real wake boarders must endure.

 Jonas took some time away from creating an amazing hideout in the sand with his cousin Brandon and did a little knee boarding. 

 Elise got up on skis AND on the wake board.  She's really improving, too, and has the best attitude about trying and trying again if she doesn't get up right away.  By the end of the trip, though, she was popping right up on the wake board, and even crossed the wake.

And as evidence that I actually engage in water sports myself, a shot of me in all my skirted-swimsuit glory, skiing away.  And yes, I'm the only remaining child (or in-law!!) of Barbara and Dennis to have NOT gotten up on a wake board, since Drew managed to pull his 6 ft. 6 inch self out of the water and have a sweet run.  But I am not ashamed.  I like my skis.  And I'm almost 40.  Wake boarding is no longer de rigeur.  And I also say things like "de rigeur," and how many people do you know who say things like that and even SKI?  Exactly.

I wish I had more pictures of the rest of the family.  I'll have to steal some from Cindy and/or Andi and/or my mom, who did a better job than I did documenting things.  But we had a ball.  Such a fun break in the middle of a stressful summer.  Thanks mom and dad!

And Now, the Move

First, the good news.  Here's the house that we're buying.

Lo, the very one.  Obviously not move-in ready, but will be (we hope) by the end of Sept.  Here's a pic of a model home across town that's the same style.  Ours will have different colors in the exterior--darker tans and browns with a reddish-brown accent color in the triangles of cedar shakes on the roof peaks.

The two best things about the house are, first, the layout.

Don't mind my scribbles.  (The notations about room size have to do w/ the sizes of the rooms we have in our house right now so I could compare.)  The layout of this house is almost exactly like the house we left behind in MN, just a bit bigger.  I love the upstairs: there's a loft (hooray!), and this house has the "jack and jill" bathroom layout, so the boys will be able to share a full bath, and Elise will get a 3/4 bath with her room.  Needless to say, she's very excited about this.  (And so am I.  Maybe now the kids will stop using our shower!)  And I'm glad we have the loft, because for now our basement won't be finished.  The kids need somewhere they can watch iCarly that's far enough out of Mom's earshot that it doesn't drive her to drink.  I also like that the kitchen's a little bigger than the house we have now.  We don't have a dining room anymore . . . but that's probably okay.  We hardly use the one we have in this house anyway, and we needed to ditch the completely thrashed dining room table we've been eating on for the last 8 years.  Now we'll start using the nice dining room table and can thrash it.

The other thing I like about this house is the neighborhood.  It's an HOA like the one we're in now, so there are a couple of swimming pools and tennis courts.  But it's also in Minnesota, which means the surroundings are exceptionally green and lovely.  Here's a picture of the homes that are across the street from ours (the spendy ones with walkout basements--ours is a not nearly as spendy a house, with one measly window in the basement).  There are a few ponds like these and beautiful stands of trees and gardens, all connected by walking/biking paths:

When Forrest and I were looking at the neighborhood, as we walked along the path a couple of snowy egrets landed in the pond, a little bunny hopped across the trail, a hawk circled overhead, etc. etc.  It made me feel like saying "Alright, already!  We get it!  Minnesota is a natural wonderland!"  It really is, though.  Wouldn't have been surprised if a deer had poked her head out from behind a stand of pine trees.

The kids will all be attending excellent schools.  Ethan's high school is brand new and gorgeous.  A few pics I took with my phone, to help get him excited:

The football stadium, ringed in Minnesota green and farmland.

The lunch room, with its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the aforementioned Minnesota green and farmland.

The ward is surprisingly big (extended out into the overflow, two nurseries, a good number of youth).  In fact, we found out that an LDS family with a boy in 9th grade, a girl in 7th grade, and a boy in 3rd grade--almost the same as ours!--live in our very neighborhood, just one street over.  We had to drive for almost 10 minutes to reach the nearest LDS family in our old ward, so that's pretty cool.

So . . . even though we swore we wouldn't be buying another new house, this seems to be the best house for us.  Great schools, good ward, lovely neighborhood, and a nice new house to enjoy.  With the basement unfinished, it's not quite as big or functional as the house we have now, and I really really hoped we could find a house with the same size and functionality as the house we're already in that was 1. in our price range and 2. looked nice inside, but such a house was nowhere to be found.  At least during the five days we were looking.  But this house is a great option.  I just have the tiniest stomach ache over the thought of putting in a yard and finishing the basement (AGAIN!!!!!) when I'd hoped our extra money could go to other things.  The truth is, though, even if we'd bought a previously owned home, we would have been putting money into it anyway to upgrade or remodel.

So there you have it.  Moving is expensive, even when you have a great relo package.  And I am excited about our house for lots of reasons.  I'll just miss the one we're leaving.

Which is a great segue into part two of this post.  The bad news part.  Which is that moving kind of sucks.   And I'm not even talking about all the sad goodbyes and anxiety-producing unknowns.  The paperwork alone is killing me!   I feel like I have a flock of ducks I'm trying to keep in a row.  And not cute little yellow baby ducks.  Obnoxious midsized honking teenaged ducks, complete with a mouthful of those menacing-looking tiny duck teeth.  These ducks are:

-The people who apparently want to give us loans for our new house, but also want us to locate, fill out, then fax 916 pages worth of information.  IMMEDIATELY, please.

-The people who apparently want to buy our house, and even give us offers for our house, but then realize that (doh!) the military wants them to live on base, so they actually can't buy our house, so never mind that offer thingie.  But they would like to buy our house. Just can't.  (So maybe in this scenario it's actually the military who gets to be one of the angry teenage ducks.)

-The other people who apparently want to maybe buy our house and call 30 minutes before they want to see our house, necessitating much scrambling and scrubbing and short-tempered Mom remarks ("Seriously, you call this a MADE bed?") and then spend 60 seconds in the house and never return our agent's phone calls.  I do realize that this is the reality of life when one is selling one's house, yet it remains annoying nevertheless.

-The people who apparently want to build our house, but who also need us to fill out and then FedEx an additional 916 pages worth of information.  Oh, and they would like $10,000, too.  And our firstborn child. If it's not too much trouble.

-The people who run the high schools and junior highs and elementary schools and preschools who also require paperwork and immunization records and birth certificates.  And the choosing of classes.  And the taking of placement tests.  All this is understandable.  I mean, you can't just pull up the first day of school and kick your kids through the front door.  But still--lists and appointments and copies of copies.  Hoops for jumping.  Etc.  Plus, who in her right mind has a kid in high school, a kid in junior high, a kid in elementary school, and a kid in preschool?  Exactly.

-Finding temporary housing for the month of Sept.  (I'm ruining the parallelism by not beginning this paragraph with "The people who," but that's because Forrest and I are "the people who" in this scenario.  "The people who" can't seem to buy existing homes.)  Anyway, temporary housing during the month of Sept., then hope hope hoping our house will be done on time.  Driving the kids to each of their schools every day then picking them up.  I remember it being a pain when we moved here, and all the kids went to the SAME SCHOOL!

And did I mention I'm supposed to be keeping the house spotlessly clean?

And did I mention that my exercise regimen has gone completely out the window?  (Be that as it may.) 

So, while I'm grateful that things are going as smoothly as I can expect them to go (and they really are), and while I know that we're exceedingly lucky to be able to get help with this move and have a lovely new house (leaving aside the fact that we already HAVE a lovely new house--and yes, I'm leaving that aside! I am!), I'm kinda in free floating anxiety land right now.  If you didn't notice.

But it will all work out.  It will be for our good.  Of this I'm (strangely) certain.  It's this calm certainty that reassures me and gets me through the days where I'm madly faxing pages of bank statements and trying to figure out how to transfer Elise's orthodontia and cleaning up cat vomit on the carpet just minutes before a showing.

I know He never said "I never said it would be easy," Mormon needlecraft asserting otherwise notwithstanding.  I get the sentiment, though.  It isn't easy.  But I do have faith that it'll be worth it.

Real Life Stuff

Forrest and I just got back from our house hunting trip and we found a house we think will work for us.  But before I get to that, there are a few more things to catch up on.  Too many things!  So I'll be brief.  Or at least try.

First we have Jonas's Pinewood Derby.  Jonas and Dad worked on the car and made a really cool patriotic model, weighted with a silver dollar and a quarter.  Here's our cool track (well, not our track, but the track of the guy who goes around and does these things all over the SL Valley for a living):

And here's Jonas with his friends, celebrating at the end of the race.

And here they are posing the way their moms wanted them to pose:

Jonas's car was a solidly average performer, but he was a great sport and had a lot of fun.  That's what Pinewood Derbies are about, right?  (That and watching 38-year-old engineers get this glazed competitive look in their eyes, wandering around with a tubes of graphite clutched in their sweaty palms.)

The middle kids (you know, Jonas and Elise?) had their last few days of school to celebrate.  Here are some pictures of the revelry at field day:

More shots of Jonas and his buddies.  He's going to miss these guys!

Jonas leaping small styrofoam obstacles in a single bound!

Elise and her friend Ashlyn.

Cooling off!

Which brings us to the actual last day of school.  I make all the kids gather on the front porch for a "just off the bus" shot, much to Ethan's 8th grade mortification.  Hey, it's a tradition!!

Makes me a little sad that this will be our last last-day-of-school shot on this particular porch.  Sniff.  Both Elise and Jonas came home with good report cards and smiles on their faces.  And Elise looks particularly fetching because we crimped her hair in preparation for the 6th grade dance.  No boys and girls actually danced with each other of course, but isn't that the point of 6th grade dances?  To bop around in a sweaty clump of girlfriends and wonder what it will be like when you actually DO dance with a real boy?

We kicked off our real summer by having Tony and Cindy's kids with us for a few days over the 4th of July weekend.  Here they all are in the family room, kickin back:

We went swimming, went to a neighborhood 4th of July bash, lit fireworks (sorry, forgot to take pictures!), went to church, and hung out at Grandma and Grandpa Sweat's empty house, eating pizza and making incredible messes with Grandma's stash of glitter and stickers and glue sticks and poster paint.  (Grandma and Grandpa were at Amy's house in celebrating the advent of Carly June--more on that later).  The cousins had a great time together.  It was particularly fun since they don't have much more time to hang out in a casual cousinly way (sniff, again!).  

And then, Carly June was born!  Here she is, in all her cuteness.  I haven't met her yet (of course) and probably won't meet her for a while (I'll refrain from sniffing again, but you get the point), but here she is.  Nieces are the best.

Good job, Amy!  You keep making gorgeous kids.

And I just got a call from my real estate agent & we have a showing from 9-10 tomorrow, so I'd better get tidying.  I have lots more news on the move and the house we think we're buying, etc etc  . . .  but you're gonna have to wait.  I know; you're on pins and needles.  You hang on every word I write, yes?  And by "you," I mean my mom. :-)

Over and out, at least for today.