Home Sweet Home

We're here and getting settled. The girls are doing great! They have been here for about 24 hours and so far they have:

• Picked raspberries. Dylan made raspberry pancakes. We have two rows of raspberry shrubs. What a treat!
  
• Caught grasshoppers. They had never seen grasshoppers before. Someone mowed the field so they were all over.
  
• Taylor named the horses Lulu and Cosu. She has made all kinds of plans for them She will feed and pet them. Grandma and Papa will clean up the poop with a shovel. Just one small glitch, they are not our horses. They belong to the neighbor. I love having animals in our backyard that we can just enjoy. No work involved. We have cows too.
  
• Seen many different kinds of birds. There is the sweetest quail family here. The parents waddle along the fence with babies in tow. They make the trek a couple times a day.
  

We love the house and even better the land. It's so peaceful and private. We woke up to the sound of birds this morning and nothing else.

I will post pictures soon. We get Internet tomorrow so I can do more of an update.

Getting excited

Our house is a wreck, boxes are everywhere, stuff is all over the counters. But I'm getting excited to move. I can't wait to get setteled into this new house. I keep thinking about how I'm going to decorate but there's one problem, I've only been inside once. It's hard to fully visualize a house you have only seen once. But I do love the house, I know that.

Kendall is doing better with the idea of moving. The poor girl breaks my heart. She's been so sad about leaving this incredible neighborhood. These kids play like a swarm of bees, moving from one house to another. There are 10 kids ages 2 1/2-9 that all play together. Kendall is especially going to miss Mathilda. I call Mathilda her soul sister, Taylor calls her Miss Tilda. She's 3 years older than Kendall but they love the same things. Kendall has sobbed herself to sleep many nights since we told her about the move because she doesn't want to leave Mathilda. She tries striking a deal with me "Please Mom, just one more year" "Please just give me the summer with her". After she falls asleep I cry for her. I've been extra weepy anyway because of all of the good-byes. But I know it's going to be a good move for our family. Plus, it can't be good for her to be obsessed with someone who is 3 years older than her when she's already 6 going on 13, right?

Luckily Mathilda and her family headed out yesterday for a 2-week roadtrip. We will be moved and gone by the time they get back. I think that has helped Kendall relax a bit. She doesn't seem all-consumed with what Mathilda is doing or worried about having one last time to do whatever with her. We are coming back for Dylan's Mom's birthday in 6 weeks. I told Kendall and Mathilda that they could be together then. They seem happy about that.

Taylor is much more go-with-the-flow. The other day she said "Can we please just go to our new house by Grandma's? I want to clean my new room with a scrubber". Okay, sure.

Saturday is our moving day. I will post pictures as soon as we get everything set up at the new place.

I feel old

Leave it to a 6 year old to make me feel ancient.

Kendall: How many years until Taylor is a hundred?
Me: 97
Kendall: How many years until I'm a hundred?
Me: 94
Kendall: How many years until you're a hundred?
Me: 64.
Kendall: Huh? You don't have that many years left.

Thanks Kendall.

Dear Pencil Thin Eyebrow Lady,

When I said "I like my eyebrows fuller, just follow the line that's there" how did you interpret that as "I want to look just like you lovely pencil-thin eyebrow lady"? I didn't even realize it was possible to give eyebrows a crew cut. Put away the scissors and while you're at it the wax too. Just keep practicing on yourself.

16 & Pregnant

I watched 16 & Pregnant on MTV last night. All I could think of was, 'please don't let that be my daughters in 10-12 years'. Yes, my mom did it when she was 15. And no, it's not the end of the world. But it just complicates things and kids that young are not ready to be parents. Period. Do they still sell chastity belts?

Gray Hair

Taylor is going to be the one to give me gray hair. She had stitches in her head at 2 1/2 and today she got another head wound. We have to go back on Wednesday to see if her nose is broken. Poor girl.

She was walking on a wood tree stump at school. She jumped but did not catch herself with her hands. Instead she caught herself on the concrete path with her head and nose. :( She has a huge lump on her forehead and a puffy nose. They need the swelling to go down to see if it's broken. If so, they'll refer her to an ear, nose and throat doctor to see if it needs to be re-set so that it can heal properly.

The girl is a trooper. She sat there and did everything the doctor asked. When she got her stitches last year she didn't even cry while the doctor stitched her up. She sat there as still as can be. She's amazing! Luckily it wasn't Kendall that got hurt. That would be a whole other story altogether.

I'll post a photo tomorrow.

Green Acres is the Place to Be....

We're doing it. After 12 years in the big city we're moving back to Yakima. These city slicker girls are in for a big change of life. Kendall (6) and Taylor (3) have only known a place where you can hear your neighbor's shower running. Soon they will hear frogs and crickets and live next door to a horse.

I have to admit I'm a little nervous. I've grown accustomed to things in the big city too. In addition to our great friends and family that we are leaving behind, here are some of the other things that I will miss:

1. Recycling made easy. I'm spoiled. I throw everything in a large blue bin and a big truck picks it up from my curb every Friday. I don't have to separate anything. I better get myself a big truck so I can haul the recycling somewhere each week. I looked at recycling information on-line today and there was a long list of where to take things. Looks like we will be making trips to numerous places each week to get rid of the stuff we don't want going to the landfill. I'm really going to miss those big trucks.

2. Amazing parks! Really, I can't say enough about the parks in Kirkland, Bellevue and Redmond. We took the girls to a few parks in Yakima this weekend to show them that there are fun things to do there. Sigh..... I'll miss these parks. A patch of grass, swampy water with a few ducks, and a climber with curse words written in black marker just won't be the same. If I win the lottery, I will build a place in Yakima just like Grasslawn Park.

3. Restaurants. I love good food from great restaurants and there are hundreds here to choose from.

4. Water. Lakes, Puget Sound, rivers, clear blue skies, snow capped mountains all in one spot. There really isn't anything more beautiful than that. I have a love/hate relationship with Seattle. I love it 3 months out of the year but I hate the 9 months of drab, gray.

5. Anonymity. I like going into public and not knowing anyone. I don't have to worry about what I look like or how I'm dressed. I feel more self concious in Yakima. I don't really know why. I guess because there is so much history there. There is a saying about being truly yourself when you are around people who don't know you. There is a lot of truth in that.

6. Green. Lush, green plantings. Kendall has had a hard time accepting that we are moving. It's scary for her because she has never lived anywhere else. The other day she said "It's just so creepy there. Here, it rains and then the sun comes out and the grass is dark green. There it's brown". I understand what she's saying. It is so green and refreshing here when the sun is out. I just keep reminding myself about how I feel about this area in February and March. I have amnesia when it comes to the weather here.

There are many more things that I will miss. But I look forward to coming back as a visitor and doing the things that I never took the time to do while I lived here. Interesting how that works.

Here are the things that I won't miss:

1. Coffee. I don't drink it. Not going to miss it.
2. Vitamin D deficiency.
3. Endless gray and rainy days.
4. Ridiculous housing prices and high overall cost of living.
5. Traffic.
6. Traffic.
7. Traffic