Rain...a different point of view

             My kids have only ever experienced rain in Arizona.  That consists of the occasional fall/winter rain storm and the summer monsoons.  As a young kid, I had my share of "regular" rain when my family lived in the Bay Area.  Right now I am listening to a beautiful thunderstorm outside.  We have cold rain falling, lightning and thunder.  I have had the occasional thought of my kids are going to wake up because of it...those monsoon storms have definitely trained them.  Monsoons come on quickly, are super loud, cause lots of noise and destruction and my kids can sleep through it.  I have no idea why I would think they would be bothered by a little thunderstorm up here, lol.

   We have officially hit our last week of summer which is equally as weird to say since we would have been in school for almost a month if we were back in Phoenix.  It is crunch time!  This week we are trying to get back on to a schedule, get all the kids new school clothes washed, any last minute supplies picked up, etc.  It is almost our last first day of kindergarten.  Our youngest will be starting school with the big kids this year.  I am half excited for her and also very anxious.  I hope she loves it.  I hope that by having everyone going to the same school it makes it a little easier for her.  It definitely makes it easier on me knowing that she will have her siblings there to make sure she gets on the bus at the end of the day.  That is another thing, we have never had to do the whole bus thing.  We have been walking to school since our oldest started school.  Again, another reason I am glad they are all going to the same school.  

         It is interesting to be starting this stage of our lives.  All of our children in school at the same time, everyone growing up and finding who they are and want to be.  When we were young and in the middle of lots of littles and mountains of diapers, you feel like this stage is so far away and yet here it is.  It will go faster now and I will blink and ask where the time has gone.  I am excited to see where these years and new experiences will take us.  

The Journey East

This post has been a long time coming. We have been in our home in Milwaukee for a month now. We have dealt with true humidity for the first time...it was weird to be so sweaty all day.  We have had some nice rain and got the kids enrolled for the school year.  I am finally getting to finding doctors and getting a drivers license but what you really want to hear is about our drive and see pictures so here it is.

Before we left Arizona, we made a trip to the Grand Canyon and had a get together with family and friends.  We love all of you.

We started our journey on a Thursday afternoon.  We drove South through Tucson had headed toward El Paso. We had to make a Pitstop in Benson, AZ. We got in late to El Paso. Through my husband's training travel he had earned enough points that we were able to stay in nice hotels.  My favorite had to be Homewood Suites.  We slept pretty well and headed out the next morning after the complimentary breakfast.  We started toward Ft. Worth, our next scheduled stop.  We tried to make it to our nephews baptism that night but as we were about an hour away, we blew a tire on the uhaul. Luckily it was one of the inner rear tires but my poor husband had to wait for the guy to come out and change it.  We even had a nice guy at the gas station we got to ask if he could help. The kids and I drove to our hotel and got checked in.  The next day, Saturday, we all showered and went over to my husband's sisters house.  The kids got to play for a good hour, run around and visit which was good because we still had another 9 hours of driving to do that day. His mom was there too, she had flown in for the event, so we all said goodbye to Grandma, Cousins and Aunt and got back on the road.  Our main stop that we had to make was in Ft. Sill, Lawton, OK.  I was born there and had never been.  It is still an active Army base, so I found the entrance, we pulled off and I had my oldest daughter jump out with the camera and take a picture real quick.  Then we were off again.  The funniest thing that happened between Ft. Worth and Ft. Sill was the kids asking where we were when we were still in Texas, lol.  It is a long drive through that state. From Ft. Sill, we went through Tulsa and off the Springfield which was our stop for the night.  Everything became greener as we moved north from Ft. Worth, TX.  As we drove through St. Louis, it was so cool to see the Arch.  We got a couple pictures while driving, it was not a planned stop, he had to keep going. We drove through Illinois, avoided Chicago with a big uhaul and went through Rockford. Then we got in about midnight to our new home.  We had sleeping bags and an air mattress, opened all the windows we could and tried to get some sleep.  The next couple of days we unloaded, found a washer and dryer on craigslist, got that into the basement with the help of some church members and started putting beds together.  We are functionally unpacked, meaning everybody has their beds, clothes, toys, etc.  We still have some storage things to sort out but that was going to take time either way. We have been to church together the last 3 weeks, which has been really nice. It is 1pm church though so we really have to have dinner either done before we leave or have it in the crockpot because trying to make it after we get home is just not happening.  I personally have loved the rainy days we have had.  We have fireflies at night and wild bunnies in the morning. There is a nice park down the street and we have already made a visit to Lake Michigan.  We even had our first visitor, my husband's brother that lives a few hours away came to stay for a couple days. We look forward to taking day trips as often as we can and exploring before the winter comes.