Moving Along and Mostly Moved In

Well, here we are in sunny central Oklahoma, where the temperatures range from the comfortably warm to the insanely hot (and that's all between midnight and sunrise, folks). I suppose I should bore you with the details of our new abode, but I just don't have it in me. Emilie chose it from among literally hundreds and despite her initial fears that Brian wouldn't like certain details, it's been a hit with all five of us.

Oh, all right: 3 bed, 2.75 bath, roughly 1600sqft, 2 car garage, two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard.... The previous tenants were apparently unkempt cave-dwellers: according to two of my new neighbors the landlord brought in an industrial sized dumpster and filled it with the detritus of unclean living. The upside to that is that we don't see any of their cockroaches, and we have a brand-spanking new kitchen.

In all, a very very fine house.

The drive out here was thankfully uneventful, and Matt and I have not had any interesting nor entertaining conversations in the bathroom. I thought we might have one at a Conoco in Salina, KS, but alas, nothing more than chit-chat about how smelly it was materialized. Much thanks goes to my fabulous (and single) sister (who is stunningly gorgeous, witty and intelligent) for all of her help with her niece and nephew on the drive out here. Much thanks also to my dad who helped me pack all of our worldly possessions into a remarkably small space:

And to think this is AFTER I'd already unloaded some of it. The guy who dropped off our trailer (ABF did a great job in getting our stuff here, and much cheaper than it would have been to do it ourselves...) was flabbergasted that we had packed it so tightly.

From our no longer recent trip to the beach in Oregon. The weather was about as ideal as you could expect it to be in the Pacific Northwest: Sunny, warm, moderately breezy. And so was the water: barely above freezing...

Z getting his daily allowance of vitamins, minerals and dirt.










Matt running away from waves. Very effective strategy, I might add.


Porter after having buried himself in the sand with some help from Em. He said it was fun while he was in the sand, but didn't like the after effects of having sand EVERYWHERE. Emilie had assured us that there were public showers at/ near this section of the beach. There weren't. I felt a little bad for the kids (all of whom who had buried themselves in the sand) during the hour-ish drive back to the in-laws house.










On our second day here, Mags apparently didn't want to sleep in her bed, but couldn't make up her mind where she did want to sleep. So, she slept in the doorway. I picked her up and moved her. Come on, give me some credit. I'm only mean to my kids while they're awake...


While we haven't seen much in the way of mosquitoes here in Oklahoma (yet), there are abundant flies. Everywhere. I think there are several dozen in the house, all queued up to be swatted dead. I briefly considered bringing in this spider of unknown species (anyone able to identify this one? I'm curious) to help me, but Emilie and Mags weren't too keen on the idea, so he calmly sits outside the door in our garage waiting for me to invite him in. The pedipalps on this thing are quite large, it's a pity they aren't captured in the picture. The tape measure was carefully applied for reference. And in case you get any wild ideas about visiting us, I've slain several critters larger than this one in the garage. Just FYI.


Matthew has been getting rather shaggy looking lately, and historically isn't very great at just sitting still for getting his hair cut. Brian has also been looking a little fuzzier than usual, and so offered to let Matt cut his hair, and in return Brian would cut Matts hair.Mags and Z provided moral support, and got in the way.
When it came time for Brian to cut Matts hair, there wasn't any problem whatsoever. Until I was done. I trimmed it nicely and it looked great. And then Matt remarked that he wanted a haircut just like dads. I asked Em for permission before this happened:
Yes, he's crying. Not because he's no longer the shaggy boy he was, but because he's super-duper itchy. I'm such a mean dad to my children while they're awake.