One Last Look

Thursday, May 26, the moving van is full and our little house on McDermott Road is empty. We didn't get a chance to be here as long as we first hoped, but we enjoyed our time and made some good memories during the last eight months and so I'm a little sad as I take one last look around. Farewell little house. I lock the door and get in my truck and head south.

South is where our new home awaits. Complete with a new garden shed, which dad built for me last week. Mom and dad flew out while I was in Tucson to help Andrea take care of the kids and to help alleviate the storage shortage at the new digs. Mom juggled the three boys while dad and Andrea came down to the new house to paint and to put up the shed. I can't thank them enough, it was a huge help.


I got a few pictures after the old house was all packed. This one in the kitchen pretty much says it all: we've got too much stuff.



Twenty thousand pounds of stuff, to be exact, and it all fit on that big truck there at the end of the driveway. Barely. I'm sure glad I didn't have to lug it all into the house.


Wait, you want me to do what, honey? Okay, I can move the dresser from the boy's room into ours, but are you sure you want these boxes of books downstairs? Groan...

Spring Soccer

Both Kenrick and Anthony played soccer this spring. I got some pictures a few weeks ago.

I think Anthony enjoyed playing more than he thought he would. He hasn't been as enthusiastic about it as his big brother, but he did well for his first time out.

 

Kenrick goes a hundred mile an hour. For the whole game. He was among the youngest in the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade league, but he held his own against the bigger kids and even managed to score a few times.

I'm proud of my two little athletes. We're sorry to leave Hinkley/Big Rock in part because the school's soccer program is so strong, but it was fun to get involved for one season at least. We'll have to see what Monticello has to offer.

Translation Please?

This evening in the car everyone was talking at once as usual. Paxton, as he's been prone to do lately, had launched into a long, rambling story about his "school" and his "friends in his class" and how they would miss him when he moved and how his teacher was going to give him gum, but finally the competing noise from his big brothers got to be too much. "Anthony!" he hollered, "quite ripping up me!"

He meant interrupting.

Tucson

As if things weren't crazy enough for the month of May, I spent the first two weeks of the month in Tucson, Arizona for work. We have a proving grounds there, and my current project is going to require some travel, especially this summer.

The middle of May isn't generally the best time to hike in Arizona, but that's what we did anyway. Saturday was a burner, but my colleague, SeeChew, and I found a likely trail up the mountain north of Tucson (on recommendation from some locals) and gave it a shot.

We lost the trail, but still managed to get a good hike in. We're about as far as we can go up the canyon, looking back at the city below. Lots of cactus.

On Sunday afternoon, we met up with a couple more people from work and went up to Madera Canyon, south of Tucson. It was much cooler, and a much different environment. Very pretty. Very dry this time of year, but there were a couple little springs with some water and we saw a couple of deer.

We got to the top of the loop trail we were on way later than we intended, so our decent was mostly in the dark. Fortunately, I had a small head lamp and SeeChew had a little flashlight so we made it, but I wouldn't recommend that approach in the future. Here we are, heading back down.

Progress

Sorry for the drop in posts here, but the Pandemonium Fam has been creating chaos at a crazy rate and I just haven't had a chance to sit down to try and record it.

Life continues, of course. Anya is growing like a weed and starting to talk in grunts and truncated words. Of course mommy understands her perfectly. She loves to be right in the middle of everything. Paxton is wrapping his three-year old head around the prospect of moving again. It seems like he's taking it a little better than six months ago - mostly just understanding what it means I think. Kenrick and Anthony are doing excellent in school. They are in the middle of soccer and are enjoying that. They should be able to finish out the season before we have to move.

 Last night we stayed in our new house in Monticello for the first time. We pushed to get the closing done as soon as possible and got everything wrapped up on Friday. We won't actually move until the last week of May, but Andrea will be able to do some painting and Dad is coming to put together a garden shed for me so that I have somewhere to store the lawn mower and tractor.  And I have to be in Tucson, AZ for the next two weeks. Lovely timing, huh?

Anyway, we do seem to be making some progress. Things should level out a little bit once we get moved and settled in here. It will be nice to not have to travel between Aurora and Decatur once a week, although I will be back and forth to Arizona a couple of times this summer. We'll probably try to bring the family along for at least one of those trips, so that will help. And Andrea will have a new house to decorate and a new garden to plan and plant. I'll try to keep you posted...