Stu and Shar went on their anniversary trip today so I took Ewan and Carson and drove them to the ferry. Erik stayed home to sleep and Jeffrey and Calista stayed home to play. After I dropped them off at the ferry I took Ewan in the backpack and Carson in the stroller and I walked around the mall with them. As I was in Barnes and Noble, Carson did a funny thing. I was looking at some books and a boy around ten years old was looking at books in the same section. Carson started saying, "Johnny, where are you going Johnny? Why aren't you talking to me Johnny?" Then she turned to me and said, pointing at the boy, "That's Johnny, Mom." She looks back at the boy "Johnny boy, oh Johnny boy. You should come home Johnny boy." Where did she get all that? Interesting.

So, we bought a house. I am going to post pictures of it when we finish cleaning it up. It is nice and across the street from a park and we got the house for a great price. It isn't the house we will stay in for years and years but it is a great house and has room for us all with a nice yard and more than one bathroom. We can't wait to get it fixed up and move in. Consequentially, we are extremely busy.

Jeff and Calista finish school tomorrow and neither of them actually want to be done. Hopefully they will remember to get some phone numbers so they have people to hang out with over the summer. A great thing about the house we bought is it is in the elementary school they have been going to so can stay knowing people. They have liked having the freedom to stay here by themselves for awhile without adults having to be around.

Erik's getting used to sleeping during the day and being up all night. This graveyard shift isn't the easiest and not the most condusive to working on the new house.

Shabbat Shalom & Who Needs SeaWorld

It's been a while and we have been busy but here goes.

This Week I Love:

Ewan's bum scootin' and sleeping most of the night 10-6

Carson's love for Grandma

Calista's helpfulness with cooking and poop scooping

Jeffrey's excitement for school and Canada

Jeff and Calista's adaptation to a new area

Erik's optimism

Cool weather in summer

Pictures

P.A. (Port Angeles) friendliness

Our house selling

Things That Have To Go:

Runny noses and sore throats

Erik's thinking I went crazy

Feeling lonely in a house full of people

Being directionally impaired

Having a broken phone (my fault, apparently you aren't supposed to let babies slobber all over it)

Not knowing where to look for a house

Costco selling brain games instead of activity books for summer

Questions I Asked Myself:

How can I take a photography class at the college with Erik's schedule changing every three months?

How can I relieve Shar's stress of having us here?

How can I keep my mouth shut to not offend people while maintaining my beliefs/principles?

Should we buy a foreclosed house just to fix it up and make some money off it for a better house but have to move again in a few years, possibly switching the kids' school again, or pay more money for a house we like more now and stay in it for good?

How do I get around this place?

This Week I Learned:

Kids are more adaptable than adults

There are very few Jews in P.A. (they don't even sell challah)

I am not as patient as I would like to be

I am not very good at driving mopeds

I like to shop

I want to buy a broken tank to put in my yard

Well, it has been busy and not all at the same time. I didn't write my blog earlier because I wanted to put pictures on but hadn't downloaded them yet. In these last two weeks we have gone to tide pools, played outside, and been sick.

Erik is trying to get used to work. He has realized you can't come back home as an adult and have the same feelings for a place. He has been trying to figure out the laws here and the directions. The person he is training with is the canine guy and Erik doesn't understand that as he won't be working with dogs. This week is the last he is doing that. Starting next week, he will be switching to graveyards 11 p.m. - 8 a.m. The job here isn't as exciting as Salt Lake and the paperwork takes much longer but he is getting along with the people with which he works. He has been quite tired, it is always hard getting used to new schedules. He is feeling a little sad that he put all the work into the house and they will tear it down.

Jeffrey is loving school. He has made two friends, Tim and Ty. He went to the marine lab for a field trip and today he is in Victoria, Canada going to the Museum there along with the Undersea Gardens and the Wax Museum. He loves being outside and he has decided he wants to learn how to drive, so he did...the riding lawnmower. He hasn't talked to his dad much since we moved here. He says he doesn't know what to talk to him about. I keep encouraging him to email Kevin if he doesn't want to call him.

Calista is also loving school. She gives us less trouble about doing her homework and she thinks the work is "too easy." She went to the Juan de Fuca festival for a field trip where she was able to see Japanese musicians/drummers. She also was able to learn how to drive the riding lawnmower and she has loved running around and playing outside. Both older kids have scratches all over their legs from exploring and not wearing pants. Calista also hasn't talked to her dad much, twice since we moved here I think. I guess once a week is more than they were talking to him when we lived in Utah but I hoped he would speak to them more often now that he doesn't see them.

Carson keeps asking if we are going to go see Grandma Carma but she has attached herself to Grandma Shar. If she wants juice she wants Shar to get it. If Shar is cooking then she must drag a chair over so she can "help" or just watch.

Ewan, as I said, is bum scootin'. He can move a few feet that was and has become quite adept at stopping himself from falling flat on his face after leaning to far while sitting. He doesn't care to be on his stomach much so he has learned to roll from his stomach to his back but not the other way around. It's amazing how much he moves around now just from realizing he can do it, all of this in two weeks. He also sucks on his lip now to make a kissing sound.

I'm doing well. House hunting should begin in full force now that our house sold and should be finalized today. There isn't a ton for me to do right now. In the mornings I watch the kids while Erik sleeps to about 11. Shar gets up earlier than me and she makes everyone French toast or pancakes. She says she has been doing this for 29 years now and is used to it. I'm a cereal for breakfast type of person. She is such a meticulous cleaner that when I go to clean things up it is already done. I often worry that she is stressing out doing things for us but I don't know what to do. I have told her she doesn't need to do it and that we don't mind working. Instead I have been rearranging things and trying to help in other ways. The first week was extremely frustrating as I couldn't go anywhere without someone else because I don't know my way around and my phone is broken so I can't just go out and try and get lost. I miss my friend Kat and having Shabbats on Friday. Shar and Stu are going to be gone tonight so I think I will try for tonight. There isn't much of a Jewish community here so I am at a loss as to how to find anyone to spend time with. Yesterday I did some scrapbooking with Jared's girlfriend, Ashley, but due to the fact I don't care for scrapbooking, it wasn't my ideal hang-out time. Also, we both have babies so what do you do? Erik bought be a pair of brown Chacos and some blue Keen sneakers so at least everywhere I go is comfortable in my new shoes. I love the weather here. It has been around the 50's with sprinkling rain almost every day, making the world around extremely green. The trees here are pretty tall and I love to drive into town and see the oceans with all the boats. Although bugs may be eating me alive (though it could be allergies because it looks the same as the bumps I was getting in Utah all over me), I feel lucky that I have always (Nebraska excluded though I did get to see a tornado which was cool) lived in beautiful places. I read two more books, Peter and the Shadow Thieves and Peter and the Secret of Rundoon. They are the 2nd and 3rd to Peter and the Starcatchers which I loved, written by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. They were good. The 2nd started kind of slow but the end was good and the 3rd was great.

We went to a place called Salt Creek when the tide was low. It was like Sea World with destruction. Carson has a beach book Brittney gave her and when we went to the beach she was pointing things out and naming them. There were all these tide pools but to get to them you had to walk across all these muscles or rocks. These little crabs would scuttle under rocks. I felt very conflicted while I was there. I had my older Chacos on and I often scrunched up my eyes trying not to think of all the living, pinching, squiggling, slimy things touching my toes. I was also amazed at being in a place where I could see all that without needing to go to Sea World. We wanted to go out to the deeper tide pools with starfish in them so we had to cross a lot of rocks. I walked as slow as I could because I hated stepping on a rock and hearing the crunching noises of tiny crabs being crushed asunder by my giant feet. Also, one of the more disgusting sounds is when you step on kelp and it makes a popping/squishing sound. As a result, I tread so lightly by the time Ewan and I made it out to the pools the tide was coming back in and the other kids had already touched and seen the starfish with Erik and needed to come back in because the tide was making the water too deep.

Lastly, the animals love being here. Boo runs in and outside all day. He loves the freedom and Tonks has officially gotten stuck in every place we can think of though she finds new places all the time. The first place she got stuck was behind the wood stove into the chimney. Last night she managed to get stuck inside the couch where Stu had to let out the back of it to let her out.

Podunk Plus #5: Freedom with less worry

Podunk Minus #1: Less house choices