September 2016

Well we have been Indiana residents for almost a month now and I can hardly believe it. In some ways it feels like we have been here longer and in others it still feels brand new. At least I can find my way to Wal-Mart and back home now without using my GPS! That is a major accomplishment let me tell ya! The trip across the country went well and was actually a lot of fun and it was nice to only drive about five hours a day and take it slow, because with four kids and a dog that was about all we could handle. The dog did fine, it was the kids, mostly Owen who got tired of it all. He learned that he really liked to have his foot held while driving so poor Weldon drove and held his foot across most of the country. My arms weren’t really long enough and it didn’t really matter anyway because even when I twisted myself into position to hold his foot he totally snubbed me and threw a fit and held his leg out of my reach. Apparently only Weldon is good enough to hold the foot of Owen! Lol. We drove through New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Indiana. This country is amazingly beautiful and incredibly huge! In Oklahoma we stayed in a nice place called Elk City and they had a cool outdoor museum of the old west and route 66 and the kids had fun checking it out. When we got to Missouri we went to a little fun park and played goofy golf and then played bumper boats and got to shoot water at each other. I did that with Colton, Kaci, and Preston, and Weldon stayed out with Owen. It was so fun! We laughed and laughed and Preston and I totally soaked them, I was the driver and he was the gunner, we got pretty wet too and had a great time. It was a nice break from the car.( We just locked Shadow in the hotel bathroom with some chew toys and he did fine too.)

We got to our house in Indiana and it was pouring rain and none of our stuff was here yet except for the air mattresses that we had in the truck and that mom and dad drove up for us. (thanks again, so so much) We had called all of the utility companies and stuff while we were driving on the way up so that they would all be on when we arrived and we did have electricity but there was no running water and it was a Sunday so there wasn’t any one we could even call to get it turned on. Of course as soon as we got here all of the kids had to use the bathroom and we didn’t know that the toilets wouldn’t flush yet so after we figured that out I had to shuttle them to the gas station up the road. Weldon was a genius though and pulled the drawers out of the fridge and put them under the gutters to fill them with water so we could use it to flush the toilets. I was very grateful that he thought of that! That night we all camped on air mattresses in the living room and the next day got water and I was very happy about that! I had to do laundry at the laundry matte and it reminded me how nice it is to have a washer and dryer in the house and not have to go do that every week. We had to get a few things like mac and cheese and some pots and pans from the DI to make it until the truck with all of our stuff came, but it wasn’t too bad. The truck came a week early and unloaded all of our stuff and it sure made things easier to have our stuff back and start feeling more normal.

I got the kids signed up for school and so far they seem to like it. Colton’s teacher gave him a catapillar that he got to keep on his desk and observe, then this week it turned into a butterfly and he was really excited about that. He named it ‘Piddles’ because it sounds like skittles, and he likes skittles. Kaci loves school and I think having homework is her favorite part, me… not so much! She even asks if she can do her homework over the weekend! Lol, what is wrong with that girl?! She is so smart though and I think she likes it because she already knows it all and it makes her feel good to be able to do it and be good at it. I have to two little boys home with me all day and I am enjoying spending time with them. Preston loves walks so we try to go on a walk every morning, it is good for us and the weather is so nice.

Speaking of weather, did I mention how nice it is? Like seriously it is gorgeous!! It doesn’t get hot during the day and it doesn’t get cold at night, it just stays nice all the time. There are flowers and trees and grass everywhere and it is so pretty. The only hard thing is that there isn’t much public land so if we want to get out of the house we have to go to a state park or something. That means we no longer get to just pull off on a dirt road and go on walks and shoot sling shots and stuff. Poor Shadow never gets to go outside without a leash anymore and I feel kind of bad for him. We are trying to find things to do to keep us entertained though and that has been fun. We went to a state park a few weeks ago and caught frogs and hiked around and had a good time, then the next week we went up to lake Michigan and it was so amazing! It was huge, like the ocean, complete with sandy beaches and its own waves. It was so pretty. We had thought that it would be cold so we didn’t think to bring swim suits and most of us were in pants. It was not cold though and we told the kids they could wade in it but to try not to get too wet. Haha yeah right, well after they ‘slipped and fell’ a few times, completely on accident mind you, we gave up and just let them play. Kaci and Colton liked to get in and lay down when a wave was coming and let it push them back up to shore and they laughed and laughed and had a great time. Preston liked to get in about to his knees but would run out onto the sand when a wave would come, and Owen just wanted to chase the waves back into the lake, what he didn’t understand is that they would come back and if he was too far forward they would knock him over. He did get knocked down a few times but I tried to keep him from getting that far in. he did not appreciate my life saving efforts by the way and thought they were pretty unfair. If I had just let him go he would have probably been the happiest person ever to drown. He also kept kneeling down and trying to drink the water so I had to be mean and not let him do that either. We had a lot of fun and there was hardly anyone else there. We had to hike through the forest and over some sand dunes to get there but it was totally worth it. The only bad part was that we couldn’t enjoy the walk through the forest because there were so many dang mosquitoes that were starving. Once we got out of the trees they weren’t bad at all but we practically ran a mile through the forest because they were so bad. I was carrying Owen on the way back, who was naked at this point because his diaper weight about 20 lbs from the water and was so busy trying to keep them off of him that I couldn’t keep them off of me and the next day when we counted just the bites across my shoulder blades there were 51! I looked like I had some sort of plague or at least a severe allergic reaction. And Owen ended up getting bit right below his eye and that swelled up and turned black and looked like he got beat. Needless to say we invested in some insect repellant as soon as we got home. Other than that though it was great, best thing was that it was like the ocean but there were no sharks, jelly fish, sting rays, or other nasties, and because it was fresh water it didn’t make our skin all itchy. Kaci said it was so fun it was even better than Dairy Queen, and that when she has a child she wants to take them there on their birthday!! That’s pretty high praise right there, lol.

This weekend we drove to a lake about 45 mins away and there was a little pond away from everything else that had little baby bass that if you stood on the dock they would swim up to look at you. We found an earth worm on the sidewalk and tossed it in and started a feeding frenzy so then we started digging in the mud and got a whole bunch of worms to feed to them and had a ridiculous amount of fun digging for worms in the dirt. We also had several groups of Canadian geese fly over us and some even land on the little pond where we were. And I am also pretty sure I saw a Bald Eagle, so that was cool too.

The people here are very nice and friendly and we are doing our best to find and do fun things. So far it has been good and if I start getting home sick I just sing songs and stay busy.