Every once in a while, in between school, house projects, and weddings, we get to check out a bit more of the city that we now inhabit. Our neighbor clued us in to their church's Winterfest, complete with a snow hill. Our Idaho kids were not deterred or particularly impressed by the sledding hill, but they had a good time, even with the mud puddle at the end. (They are both on the sled, by the way!) Their favorite activity was definitely the bouncy houses on this occasion.
Hadley and Ollie, the cat, have grown closer since the move. Ollie is apparently needing attention, and she's not too picky on what form that attention takes! Luckily, she is a very patient cat and tolerates quite a bit of carrying, snuggling, petting, and chasing.
Lastly, this little lady is showing a flare for the dramatic. One night, she was emptying out the dishwasher and coming up with elaborate and entertaining names or stories about each dish that she was handling. Meet the "Container of Never-ending Drinks"
One Friday in January was designated as Rodeo Day! Kids were supposed to dress up in Western clothes, and the school had rodeo speakers and activities planned the whole day. We obviously need to brush up on our Western wear... Although the kids were enjoying the fun day, we had to leave early to drive across the state to attend their cousin's wedding.
I should say not just "attend", but "participate in". Owen was to be a ring bearer, and Hadley was asked to be a flower girl! They were pretty excited. To give you an idea, here is Owen at his tux fitting. He declared, "I look like a man!" and he asked to wear it out of the store. I told him he looked like James Bond, but he didn't know who that was. Ha!
Anyway, we made it to Abilene just in time for the rehearsal. There were 6 flower girls and 3 ring bearers, and they were only supposed to walk down the aisle, high five the groom, and then sit with their parents, so their role was pretty easy peasy.
After a few run-throughs, it was time for the rehearsal dinner! It was a bit of a drive, and a cold front was blowing through that night, but it was a cutesy, rural wedding venue with a big, fenced-in yard, bedecked with twinkling lights, lots of trees, cozy fire pits, and gravel paths. The kids' talented aunt made all of the flower girl dresses, complete with matching hair bows and coordinating, embroidered rehearsal shirts.
The next morning Hadley and Granna and I were invited to a bridal brunch. The lovely bride, Hannah, gifted Hadley with a bride bear and an embroidered bag with some pearls to wear during the ceremony. Hadley was ecstatic! We also got to deliver a groom bear and some Star Wars socks to Owen, who was watching the Longhorn Network with Uncle Ken back at the hotel. (Did I mention Dad was on his flight back from Boston that day?!)
Finally, it was time to get ready. All 3 of us required a little extra attention to get ourselves properly attired and over to the church for pre-ceremony pictures. (I was flying solo, remember? Phew!) But aren't they just the cutest? Hadley's dress was extremely poofy and had sequins along the neckline that bothered her, and Owen's shoes were probably a size too big, but they held it together all night, thankfully!
As always, weddings have tons of pictures of all sorts of combinations of relatives and attendants. These fluffy pink tulle skirts reminded me of little pink clouds...
And there's lots of waiting while other picture groups are happening...
Owen didn't understand his BB-8 ring bearer socks, until he saw that all of the groomsmen had different superheroes on their socks. Then he took it very seriously! Lol.
I didn't get any full family pictures with my camera, so I might have to edit and repost once I see those! But I did get a picture with my brothers. I'll have to stop standing in the middle of them, unless I can have a footstool. My niece chose to get married on her father's 50th birthday! Wow! What a day!!
I call this grouping "A Tale of Two Tulles"... Depending on who was taking the picture, you get a different story. The left cloud of tulle photo was taken by my bubbly sister-in-law and rivals my favorite pictures of Hadley ever. The right snap was taken by me and reflects the seethingresentment brought out by oursequin-poof-hunger-photo sesh reality. Let's hope the wedding photographer was able to capture the former!
Anyway, the wedding went off without a hitch, and the kids did fine. Owen was baffled by his role: "All I did was walk down the aisle. I don't get it." Yep, that pretty much sums it up, kid. But you looked really nice doing it, and it was an honor to be with them on their special day. Finally, it was time for the reception and after more waiting, finally dinner! A cruel joke to have a taco bar when everyone was dressed to the nines, but we managed to avoid any rented garment catastrophes and bellies were satiated.
Hanger (that's right, hunger + anger) must have been the culprit, all right. After some food and sweets, this was what I got. I think that she really did like her dress. :)
Turns out that the kids enjoyed dancing at the wedding reception a lot! They got right out there with everyone and just mimicked the best they could. Hadley was a dancing machine, dancing with the bride, bridesmaids, flower girls, uncles, mom, and anyone else she could muster. I had to film this one, because it became apparent that Owen still does not know his left from his right, although he got better as the song went on, I think.
The reception had a traditional sign-in book, but also had a Polaroid and Post-It station. We tried to get a picture of all 3 of us, but my Selfie game is weak (especially when you can't see what you are doing in a preview window). Hadley ended up almost out of the photo, so she wanted to do her own solo.
I love it and her note! I'm so glad they got the opportunity to be a part of such a beautiful day. (I've since caught them reenacting weddings with their bears, so I know it made an impression on them too.)
After Christmas, we really focused on unpacking boxes and figuring out what would go where. It can be really stressful to realize that nothing is fitting easily or feeling like a completed job! We did not remember much about the house, so we kept finding out fun things like (off the top of my head) there was no full-length hanging space in the master closet, zero towel or TP holders in Hadley's bathroom, broken closet doors, drafty windows, evidence of rodents, numerous burned out light bulbs, overgrown landscaping, lumpy carpeting, no vent in Owen's bathroom, yard drainage issues, sketchy garage door opener, polka dot paint touch-ups, dated master bath, and no proper shelving in the garage or in any closets above the rods. And it was just dirty, having been unoccupied for at least two months. Hello, spiderwebs and numerous trips to our local home improvement stores! Oh, and in the middle of it all, we had a city water leak under our driveway. Talk about a massive hole! We have our fingers crossed that our sprinklers come on with no issues later this spring...
One of the most frustrating home discoveries were these tiny uncovered windows in every room on the front of the house. Apparently, they were hidden under skinny curtains during showings, and when the previous owner finally sold the house they took those with them, leaving two skinny, single-pane,gaping panels in every front room open to anyone passing by. Hello neighbor! At least the cats liked them.
Luckily, one of our neighbors is full of advice, so we asked her about her solar screens. She recommended a place, and within about two weeks we had custom screens on all the front windows (which face southwest), so that should feel nice in the summer and gave us a quick privacy solution.
The previous owners also apparently purchased two vats of beige paint (one light beige and one more adobe colored) and painted everything one of those two shades. It was too much tan for me, so I decided to let the kids pick a color for their rooms. This delayed fully unpacking their rooms a bit, but I felt it would help them to own their rooms a little more. They were eager to help, and we only had a few minor paint clean ups.
Here are the after pics (that is, after painting, furniture shopping, and much unpacking). Hadley wanted her room to look as much like her Idaho room as possible, while Owen opted for a primary blue color. Since their rooms are bigger (and we sold most of H's furniture), we got them desks too. Much improved over the beige, in my opinion!
We broke up the home chores by getting outside on sunny days, visiting friends around town, and making a trip to the ranch. I guess we did acclimate to the north, because it's still jarring to see blooming flowers in the middle of January.
It's also jarring to see warnings posted about alligators on a bike path not far from your house! Though the flooded bike path seemed all too familiar.
We explored a local STEM center that had a free day for the kids. We had a great time making art, building popsicle stick catapults and towers (they won kudos for building the tallest tower that day), and making oobleck (kind of like slime).
Big city = big team sports! We made it to a free Dynamo scrimmage game on a cooler night with Uncky Dan and family.
Finally, school was approaching, but we were all sick! Owen had double ear infections and was deaf as a post for the first week of school. I had to assure his teachers that he wasn't ignoring them. What a first impression! But, at least he was fever-free and got to go the first day. Hadley came down with the virus later and had to miss the first day of school with an ear infection and bronchiolitis with a cough to wake the dead! But she got to go the second day! So I didn't get a cute 'first day of school' pic of them... Dad missed a lot of the excitement by healing enough to fly to Boston to start his new job training for a couple of weeks. I escorted the kids to and from school for a couple of weeks until they felt comfortable to be on their own. It's about a 5-minute bike or scooter ride from our house, and the school dismissal is very well organized by directional groups, crossing guards, and walkers separated from wheelers. Overall for school - so far, so good. They like their teachers and are making friends, but the day is noticeably longer (by 1.5 hours!), and they have to get up earlier. But, they have much smaller classes (18 compared to 28 in Idaho), science instruction every day, and paid, dedicated specials (art, music, and PE) teachers. Seems like a trade up in my book!
