Meghan's Travel Companions

Meghan likes to sit in the back row by herself in our trips. There's an AC plug back there and she can play on her phone without the charge running out.

This trip she has to share her seat with my fig tree and a pothos houseplant.

The fig tree is a little droopy. It's under some stress. We were planning to just grab it and toss it into the car, but its roots had punched through the pot and gone into the ground (which explains why it was getting so big). We had to repot it just as we were leaving. It's not doing too well, and we'll probably lose a lot of the top. It's a tough little tree and it may lose some branches but will come back in the end.

Off we go!

This afternoon the moving van drove off with all of our stuff and headed off for Wisconsin. We have too much stuff.

And now we're on the road!

We had a fun day playing in the one cleaned out room with the twins, who will be dearly missed, along with their parents. It was definitely a teary good-bye. I sure do love those little guys. Sniff.

This has been a whirlwind week filled with friends visiting, swimming, having us over, sharing hugs and tears, bringing meals and showering us with love. Some days we had people in and out all day long!

There are so many things we will miss in California, especially the fresh produce! I don't know what I'm going to eat all winter.

We'll figure it out.

Here we go!

Some Days All You Can Do Is Shake Your Head

I let my children dress themselves. It takes a really big fashion disaster for me to step in. I just don't care that much.

So, this morning when Ruby came out with a skort, white tights, hiking-style sneakers and a white tee shirt with pink long johns underneath it all (to keep warm, she said), I said nothing.

Imagine my surprise, when I picked her up from the after school program, to find her running around in just the long johns. Just the long johns.

My daughter was essentially running around in her underwear. At school.

She said she got hot. I pointed her state of semi-dress to the teachers and they all thought she was wearing leggings and a matching shirt.

Sigh. What can you do? We all had a giggle.

Maybe I'll be a little more involved in the future. But probably not.

New Toys

We've been planning to upgrade our phones for a while and had been researching and deciding what to do, what phones to get, which company to go with, when John came home from a business trip with two iPhone 4S phones. What's more fun than a husband who brings presents home from a business trip? Probably a husband that doesn't travel. But I'll take the 4S as a consolation prize.

We've had lots of fun playing with Siri, the voice recognition software that does all sorts of stuff for you. And downloading apps. I'm writing this post using the Google Blogger app. Great fun.

Anyway. New phones. Lots of fun. Maybe even more blog posts in my future? We'll see.

Pretty, Pretty (pretty big) Princess

Please meet Clara Elinor, who has made September 11th a day of joy in our family. She's my new niece and joins us courtesy of my sister Heather and her husband Nathan.

Clara weighed in at 11 lb. 2 oz., and is 24 inches long. And bravo to Heather for waiting it out and letting Clara take her sweet, sweet time getting here. She was probably between 2-3 weeks over her due date.

As you can see, she's just as pretty as can be. We look forward to meeting her the next time we make it back east.

Welcome sweet little Clara!

Walking to Work

So, my personal big news is that I've finally been hired on as a sub in the county where I live, which means I can sub in the schools in my town, since our school district uses the county sub database. And I've already worked two days at the school just around the corner from my house. I walked to work. And home for lunch. It was awesome.

It was also lots of fun to have kids in my classes that I know. And it was fun to see some names on the rolls of families I know from the old MOMS club days. Some of those kids I haven't seen since they were babies. And then when it was time for everyone to be picked up, it was great to see lots of parents that I know. I know the secretary, I know some of the teachers, and I know a lot of the other subs, since they also sub at my kids' school.

Overall, a great experience. I just felt like I fit in better.

John's New Toy

As some of you may know, John's favorite drink is lime-flavored soda water. It's funny to hear him order "a Perrier with a twist of lime" in restaurants. So, for father's day, we got him a SodaStream. It's a home soda maker! We had a coupon and got a good deal on one and we've been trying it out. It came with a sample pack of soda syrups. Some are better than others. We tried the diet root beer and it was gross, but the orange soda was decent. Once they run out, we probably won't buy more syrups. It also came with some little bottles of just flavor, no sugar and whatnot, and he liked those better. We'll probably just end up getting a lime tree.