::today::

Today at 12PM EST (unless he misses a connection, which we really hope doesn't happen) my youngest sibling Murphy comes home from his two year LDS mission to Argentina.
Because of all of our moving chaos, and bad scheduling of mission returns vs. graduations, etc., we don't get to be there. That's a bummer, but the good news is that he knows I love him anyway. I just hope he knows I'd be there if I could!

Murphy was my little buddy back in the day. He is almost 10 years younger than me. I feel like I took care of him a lot when we were little. I hung out with him and read with him and probably bossed him around way more than he thought he needed.

It's hard to grow up and move away physically, but it's so nice to have family that I know loves me and who knows I love them no matter where we all are!

Murphy, WELCOME HOME!! I can't wait to see you and we are all so proud of you!!!!

(he looks a bit/lot like Max, doesn't he? That might explain why I'm always calling them each other's names--"mur--max--mur--mah--whoever you are!!!")

::::

The other day Max and I took our friends Linda and Natalie over to our little playground by the (bay) beach and had a little photo shoot.
I thought I'd post a couple of the pictures here for people to enjoy because they just turned out so cute. But honestly I think it would be hard for them not to have turned out well, with such cute subjects.


Linda's husband is a 1st year resident in Kris's program, so they've still got a year to go. It's been fun getting to know them and hanging out this year.
Natalie is just a doll.

She and Max get along so well. There's a good 3 year age gap there, but it really doesn't matter because they're both so silly and so easy to get along with (generally, with Max) they spend the whole time giggling and being silly.
Like this:

No, he didn't hit her with the stick. I'm not sure what exactly the stick was doing--I think it was just a cool find. But they did tickle each other for a good while there.

And the silly boy alone:


We'll miss getting to hang out with you, Roberts! Good luck with everything!!!

::glucklicher vaterstag::

(photo circa 11/07)

Happy Father's Day to my best friend Kris!
He's fun, creative, hard working, patient, interesting and very sweet. (I could go on....and on....) Max and I couldn't do without him.

::reasons::

This morning when I was supposed to be thinking of a list of things to get done for the move I started thinking of a different list. And I liked it. It is:

Reasons To Be Excited To Move to New Mexico

1. garbage disposal
Maybe I've mentioned this on the blog before, but out here in Rhode Island (and maybe all of New England, who knows?) they just don't do garbage disposals. And since I'm a person that was brought up in "modern days" I'm very very used to them. And I love them. In fact I've found that not having one makes me want to do dish washing 100% less than before. And that's bad, because cleaning the kitchen is definitely low on my list of favorite household jobs. That crud catcher down at the bottom of the sink all full of disgusting bloated unidentifiable food particles? SO GROSS. Even just writing about it now makes me feel like puking, and the reality of it is so much worse.
SO--garbage disposal. GOOD!

2. Kris gets a real job
This is good and bad. Since we're buying the practice it's a huge commitment and a very intimidating undertaking--suddenly taking on a whole business with a big loan that needs to be paid, tons of different insurance policies, like seven employees, etc. etc. It's been crazy getting ready to take over, and I'm sure it will be stressful for the first while.
BUT he actually has a chance of making enough money to pay for our living expenses and student loans, and that would be exciting. The idea of having a real income is kind of crazy right now.

3. Kris only works four days a week
For now anyway. The current dentist is just doing four days. We may switch to five if we feel like we can get the office busier (see above about affording to pay living expenses, insurances, student loans, etc.) but for now the idea of Kris having a 4 day week, and those days NOT being 11 hour days is great!!

4. the dry air
I know there are some benefits to humidity. There have to be. But I can't think of them.
The real problem is that we basically live in the elements in this house--I'm sure I've mentioned this before. We don't have any sort of cooling system besides ceiling fans. And in the summer it gets hot, and HUMID. The humidity is really the problem with the heat. It makes the heat feel thick, it makes it hard to move. It makes you covered in sweat all the time. It makes even the shade hot. And the thing I don't like is that I can't really escape it inside the house. It's humid and hot in the house too. I just hate it. And I hate having all my papers turn all soggy. It's gross. And hate that it takes my hair hours and hours to dry. I could go on, but I won't.
So though I'm not looking forward to having to put lotion on Max every 10 minutes, since his skin is already dry out here, I do like the dry air. And it should make summers in a house with just a swamp cooler very nice.

5. a new schoolyard for Max with actual playground equipment
All Max's current school has is a big weedy field--really it's not even that big. It's got a couple of asphalt patches in it. One is a four square thing and the other has a couple of hopscotch things--one of which has been spray painted by some graffiti idiot to look like a phallus--and that's all I'll say about that. Max's new school will have at least two legitimate playgrounds. And it seems like it's going to be a nice place, with lots of community and parent involvement, so that's nice.

6. it's closer to the fam (and friends!)
Well this one's huge of course! Being within a reasonable day's drive and a quick 1.5 hour flight of both sides of the family (well, most of them anyway) is very exciting! It means that we can visit just for fun, and for weekends, and for big events like baby blessings and baptisms and birthdays if we want to. It gives us so much more freedom to be involved, and the best part is that I shouldn't have to do those insane 3 weeks trips anymore. Those are so exhausting. And the all day plane trips were too. So this is great!

7. serious improvement in house size
We're going to be paying a negligibly small amount more in monthly rent for at least 2X the house size. This means that we should have a nice room for guests (that means YOU!) and more than one bathroom! I'm excited to have a bathroom just for the grownups, and the guy that can't aim in his own. I'm really looking forward to it.

8. a garage!
We haven't had a garage for years, and when we had one we really liked it. The good news is, both cars should fit, and we should be able to get all the garagey sorts of stuff, like tools, bikes, camping stuff, crud, storage, etc. into the garage and out of the house, hooray!!!

9. better camping
This one is really for Kris, though I appreciate a good camping trip too. Not only does it rain less out west (which isn't necessarily a good thing normally, but good for camping trips) but you can actually go camping in the wilderness, not just a patch of wilderness that's basically in somebody's backyard. And there's more room, it's unlikely that the last camping site allowing dogs will fill up just as you arrive, as happened to us last year on the Cape.

10. swimming pool!
No, our house doesn't have one, but our little community we're moving into does. And Max is going to love it. What's better than being able to go to the pool in the summer?


The downsides of moving?
Well, moving of course, that's a big one.
I'm a little scared of rattlesnakes and coyotes, but I'm sure I'll have to deal with that somehow.
No beach within 45 minutes--crowded or not.
Leaving our friends behind in RI. We'll miss youguys. Come visit!

(photo by my mom)

::dinner::

We're trying to enjoy our last couple of weeks here. Enjoying moving preparations is never easy though, really.

The other day when Kris got home we decided to pick up a sandwich to eat in a local park area that's super pretty.
We're trying to soak in all the green, because I'm sure I'll miss it later. (But I'm not going to miss the humidity, I promise.)


We got a sandwich from Jersey Mike's. It's the local attempt at a sub shop. It's better than 99% of the sandwich places around. It's still a sad substitute for Planet Sub, or Sensuous sandwiches back in Provo. (Mmmm, now I'm getting hungry.)
But they do have big thin cut slices of dill pickle on the sandwich that are really tasty.


Kris was just glad to be done with another one of his (rather miserable) 11 hour work days.


Max was glad to be outside. And eating doritos.

But he was bummed because we said we were going to a park. But it wasn't exactly what he was hoping for in a park. He was looking for slides and fireman poles and that kind of thing. So in lieu of all that he decided to climb on the car and drive us nuts. And drive poor Sultan nuts who was stuck inside the car because we forgot his leash.

Can you see our new luggage carrier on top of the car? We're gearing up for the cross country haul!

Anyway, it was a nice evening outing. We're trying to have some fun and relaxation together in the midst of the chaos that is moving.

So far so good.

::interest/fascination/obsession::

A while back Max ran across a show called the Zula Patrol on Boston's PBS channel. It's a (poorly in my opinion) computer animated kids show that has a lot of silly stuff that happens, but also communicates a lot of solid info about space and more especially the solar system.

Max fell in love with the solar system. Suddenly he knew the names of all the planets, and the names of lots of moons. He knew the order of the planets and which was hottest, which was farthest from the sun. And some of the time he knew the WHY behind this stuff too. I was impressed.

We got some books from the library and read up even more.

And then some more books.

He's not interested in space ships that much. Not really interested in aliens or astronauts or black holes. Just the solar system. And I think it's both adorable and very fun.

The other day we were out to eat and here's what he created (with Kris) on the placemat.

Earth and an astonaut.

I'm pretty sure the planet and the rocket on the left are Kris's, but the right hand rocket is little Max's.

Saturn, by Max.

Once again I think PBS is great. I wouldn't even know he was interested in this stuff if it wasn't for them. Way to go PBS!

::more (different) work::

The other day Max finally came home with some challenging homework. (He liked it because it didn't include coloring!)
It was addition where the sums came to more than 10. Yikes--hard when you can't do it on your fingers!

Anyway, I had a fun time using my brain to think of how I could help him conceptualize and visualize the numbers and the addition.

I pulled out a pack of awesome colored paperclips and we made some piles of 10.


I think they helped him. It was fun to see him trying to think about it anyway, and he did figure out all of them on his own--with a little prompting when I saw a wrong number.

Go Max!

::::

Since there are never any pictures of me on here I thought I'd say hi.
I'm off to take Max to school here shortly, then I'm meeting Kris for lunch (we love to do that when we can.) Then back home to do more work on getting ready to move. There are so many little details to worry about!

Hi & bye.

::fad::

So we're in the midst of a true and actual fad.
Max came home the other day with a little rubber band shaped like a flamingo. One of the little girls at school had given it to him. He told us it was called a "silly band" and that he loved it. He also said he wanted some of his own.
I'd seen these little shaped bands around before, but never thought anything of them.
Max's broke of course and he was very very sad.
Then we went to church a few days later and a bunch of kids had different ones--they wore them on their wrists. I realized this was a pretty widespread phenomenon.
Then last week at church one of the little girls in my class gave me one of my own (so cute, right?). Of course I turned it over to Max after church and he was delighted.
One of the little girls in his class had so many of them with her they stretched from her wrist to her elbow. Nuts.

Today we thought we'd go after some of these silly bands so Max could take them to school and share. We finally found them at a Walgreens not too far away.


It took Robin Hood a while to decide which shapes to pick.

He finally picked sea animals and pets, and we got enough for him to share with everybody in his class. And those dang things are expensive! Somebody's making bank on this somewhere!

He was so excited. He called himself something like the "Silly Band Hero."


Hopefully the sharing will go well and nobody will get left out. Hopefully it doesn't drive his poor teacher crazy.
I guess I'll hear all about it when he gets home.

So is this going on elsewhere besides RI? Anybody else getting begged for silly bands?