Yes, after many, many hours on planes and in airports, and after just barely making our Denver connection, we are installed at Mom and Dad's house. We are very, very tired, but trying to make it until tonight so we can get back on schedule.
In other great news, Tim got final word today that he is officially accepted into the BYU PhD program for Education Inquiry, Measurement and Evaluation. He is very excited. We are assuming that, since we have felt our lives be strongly guided over these last couple of years, that Heavenly Father will let us know how we are to live and support our family while Tim is at school. Thank goodness for kind parents who keep reassuring us that we have a place to live no matter what.
We're off to celebrate... Costa Vida tonight! This is seriously exciting to us... there is no such thing as good Mexican food in the Azores.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Coming Home
Sorry for the long lapse in posts. I have been making a daily trek to the base library to check email, but haven't had the chance to really write. Just to be up to date: Tim had an interview with the PhD committee on Friday (on the phone and via email), and we found out this Thursday that he has been recommended for the program! This is good news, since we didn't really have a Plan B. The morning after he had his interview, our laptop burned up (literally- smoke comes out of the top if we turn it on). Thus the daily library trips. We have survived our almost 3 weeks in the TLF, and will be leaving tomorrow at 12:50! If we then survive the endless plane ride with 6 children, we will be in Utah around 11:30 p.m. Sunday night. We're excited to be back, but a little sad to be leaving. This is a beautiful place, and I am truly thankful for the time we have had here. I think we will remember this time as one of amazing family adventures and togetherness- I hope we can sustain some of that through the next few years of grad school!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Slow Boat to California
We have a checklist of about a hundred things that the base thinks we need to have done before Tim checks out of school tomorrow. It includes things such as checking the kids out of school, changing our address with the post office, paying off our kid's lunch accounts, making sure our medical bills are paid off, and getting all of our library books turned in. Each thing has a place to be signed by the relevant person in authority. Tim and I have spent the last few days walking all over base, getting things signed off. We went into the library on Saturday, and asked the librarian to give us a list of books we still had out. I knew of 2 or 3, but the list she handed me had 13 books on it! I knew we didn't have all those books at home, so I sent the kids into the library on a mission: find the books they said we had out. It took about 3 minutes: they found 10 books on the shelves that they said we had. Apparently someone's falling down on the "checking books back into the library" part of the job.
After we got that all cleared, our account was good to go- no books checked out. To keep us entertained in the TLF, however, we let each of the kids get two books, and we got a few movies, too. Today, in anticipation of Tim's checkout tomorrow, I gathered all the books and videos and trekked down to the library again. We were missing one book. I remembered checking it out, but couldn't remember ever reading it to the kids. Hmm.... After an extensive search of our rooms, I have come to the conclusion that this book got pushed under a car seat on our way home on Saturday, and is still in our car, which we delivered to the port on Tuesday to be shipped to California.
Everything's taken care of now: the librarian just had me go to the "Shoppette", where they have a small bookstore, and buy a book of similar value to donate to the library. So the library has a new book, and I guess when we finally get our car we will have a new book, too.
In less stressful news, the kids are done with school! Going two weeks into June really made this school year seem long. We were all excited to go to the swimming pool this afternoon: this was the first day it was open. However, a big, cold, windy storm blew in yesterday. The pool suddenly lost all appeal. Hopefully it will get warm again before we leave. We did have an "end of school party" tonight: pizza, and Price's original concoction: ice cream, Nilla wafer crumbs, chocolate pudding, cool whip, crushed Oreos, and gummi bears. It is really yummy, but not very nutritious.
After we got that all cleared, our account was good to go- no books checked out. To keep us entertained in the TLF, however, we let each of the kids get two books, and we got a few movies, too. Today, in anticipation of Tim's checkout tomorrow, I gathered all the books and videos and trekked down to the library again. We were missing one book. I remembered checking it out, but couldn't remember ever reading it to the kids. Hmm.... After an extensive search of our rooms, I have come to the conclusion that this book got pushed under a car seat on our way home on Saturday, and is still in our car, which we delivered to the port on Tuesday to be shipped to California.
Everything's taken care of now: the librarian just had me go to the "Shoppette", where they have a small bookstore, and buy a book of similar value to donate to the library. So the library has a new book, and I guess when we finally get our car we will have a new book, too.
In less stressful news, the kids are done with school! Going two weeks into June really made this school year seem long. We were all excited to go to the swimming pool this afternoon: this was the first day it was open. However, a big, cold, windy storm blew in yesterday. The pool suddenly lost all appeal. Hopefully it will get warm again before we leave. We did have an "end of school party" tonight: pizza, and Price's original concoction: ice cream, Nilla wafer crumbs, chocolate pudding, cool whip, crushed Oreos, and gummi bears. It is really yummy, but not very nutritious.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Smart Kids
I love hearing good things about my kids. It makes me look past all the faults that I, as their mother, attribute to some failing on my part. (They don't do a good job on the dishes, therefore I have not taught them as I should have. That sort of thing.) Well, the last few days have been great for that: we got Terra Nova (the standardized test here) scores back for Rebekah, Price and Josh, and they are officially way smart. Then this afternoon I went to Rebekah's academic awards assembly. I went because I knew that she was receiving the award for outstanding 6th grade social studies student (is this a big surprise, considering who her father is?), but I was also pleasantly shocked to see her receive the outstanding 6th grade science student award, also. What a good kid! She has handled this transition to middle school so well this year... keeping track of multiple classes, remembering lots of stuff, and getting homework done with very little prompting. She is a great, great young woman, and I hope she knows that I think so, even when I come down hard on her. Being the oldest isn't always fun... I should know! I am grateful for her and for all of my kids.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Eating My Words
Forget everything I said about my landlords yesterday, except the part about how nice they were to let Mom and Dad stay in their cottage. Even though they did take my cleaning supplies and make it hard for me to wash my car yesterday, all is forgiven because... get this... I don't have to go scrub the house on Monday. We went over today to check on things (well, mostly to see if they had brought our stuff back) and our landlady was there painting the walls. When I told her that I had been planning to clean on Monday, she said, "Oh, no. No problem. No need. I do." I tried to tell her I'd clean, but she insisted. So how awesome is that? I just have to show up at 3:00 to have the base people check us out. Tim says I overreacted. He's right, of course. Sorry.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Insanity
This was an absolutely insane day. Just thinking about it kept me up from 5 a.m. on this morning. I should have just jumped out of bed and started on my list, but it's hard to do that without waking all the kids right now.
After the kids left for school, I made dinner to put in the fridge for later, and got myself and the girls ready. We stopped by a friend's house to pick up her steam cleaner and vacuum, and then headed over to the house. When we got there, I went in to get the Windex and paper towels I had left there the day before. I needed them to clean the car. They, along with the rest of my cleaning supplies, were gone. I looked everywhere- all over the house. Initially, I thought my cleaning lady had just put them away in a different cupboard, although I couldn't imagine why. Then, I noticed a partially smoked cigarette on my back patio, and saw that the storm shutters at the landlord's cottage were closed, when they had previously been open. I called Tim immediately: "Our landlords took all our cleaning supplies, and I can't imagine why."
Tim, being the wonderful husband that he is, volunteered to call our landlord. Can you imagine the conversation? "Uh, hi. This is your tenant. Did you let yourself into our house (for which we have paid rent through the 14th) and take all our cleaning supplies?" Yeah- I'm glad HE called. The landlord said that they had taken the supplies, because they were afraid the movers would pack them. Yeah, right. The problem with that story, besides the fact that it had NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM, is that they didn't take everything- just the good stuff. They even took my mop bucket. An even bigger problem presented itself when I realized that they had taken the fire extinguisher and CO2 detector that was supposed to be picked up a few minutes later. I was so ticked off.
Luckily, (and this is where you hear the awesome part about my landlords), they had let Mom and Dad stay in their cottage next door while they were here visiting- for free. I still had the keys, so I let myself in to their house and found part of my stuff- like the extinguisher, the detector, and all of my electrical outlet adapters. Apparently they have the rest of my stuff in the trunk of their car. Supposedly, they will bring it back tomorrow. They better, because I still have to clean the whole house, and I'm NOT buying new supplies.
The day was not over yet. We passed our furniture inspection (all the stuff we had borrowed from the base while here) easily, thanks to Karla. While we waited around for the moving guys to come and get it all, I worked on the car. I got the carpets steam cleaned, and the interior clean, and decided I'd better check on the underside of the car. U.S. Customs requires an extremely thorough job of cleaning, to avoid bringing foreign pests and seeds into the country. Well, manure is one of the worst carriers of these things, and guess what we drive through just about every day, as cows are driven from one field to another? Yep- really, really gross, nasty cow poop. Now imagine what tires do when they drive through the stuff and fling it up into the wheel wells. Now imagine 9 months worth of the stuff, hardened and crusted on. Next, if you're not sick yet, imagine me, scrub brush, bucket of soapy water and hose in hand, spending two hours trying to clean the wheel wells. It was very probably the grossest thing I have ever done. And that includes 13 years of changing dirty diapers. Absolutely disgusting.
Well, the movers finally came (late), and took an hour to do a half hour job (they took 2- 15 minute breaks. Seriously). When I finally got back to the TLF, I just had time to take a much needed shower and leave for the port, where we had an appointment to have our car inspected so we can ship it back to the States. We made it in time, but guess what: the car didn't pass. Want to know what the problem was? Yep, the wheel wells. Apparently my two hours of scrubbing was not enough. Tim gets to finish the job. I'm not touching another stinky wheel well. The good news, though, is that we get to keep our car until Tuesday, which means we don't have to borrow our friends' car. It all works out.
The next thing on the agenda today was Lajes High School graduation. Tim was the speaker! He did an amazing job- I love listening to my husband speak, and I especially like all the compliments I get to receive for Tim afterwards. He's wonderful.
I'm glad today is over. Hopefully, that will end up being the most stressful of our moving days. I don't think I could take more than that.
After the kids left for school, I made dinner to put in the fridge for later, and got myself and the girls ready. We stopped by a friend's house to pick up her steam cleaner and vacuum, and then headed over to the house. When we got there, I went in to get the Windex and paper towels I had left there the day before. I needed them to clean the car. They, along with the rest of my cleaning supplies, were gone. I looked everywhere- all over the house. Initially, I thought my cleaning lady had just put them away in a different cupboard, although I couldn't imagine why. Then, I noticed a partially smoked cigarette on my back patio, and saw that the storm shutters at the landlord's cottage were closed, when they had previously been open. I called Tim immediately: "Our landlords took all our cleaning supplies, and I can't imagine why."
Tim, being the wonderful husband that he is, volunteered to call our landlord. Can you imagine the conversation? "Uh, hi. This is your tenant. Did you let yourself into our house (for which we have paid rent through the 14th) and take all our cleaning supplies?" Yeah- I'm glad HE called. The landlord said that they had taken the supplies, because they were afraid the movers would pack them. Yeah, right. The problem with that story, besides the fact that it had NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM, is that they didn't take everything- just the good stuff. They even took my mop bucket. An even bigger problem presented itself when I realized that they had taken the fire extinguisher and CO2 detector that was supposed to be picked up a few minutes later. I was so ticked off.
Luckily, (and this is where you hear the awesome part about my landlords), they had let Mom and Dad stay in their cottage next door while they were here visiting- for free. I still had the keys, so I let myself in to their house and found part of my stuff- like the extinguisher, the detector, and all of my electrical outlet adapters. Apparently they have the rest of my stuff in the trunk of their car. Supposedly, they will bring it back tomorrow. They better, because I still have to clean the whole house, and I'm NOT buying new supplies.
The day was not over yet. We passed our furniture inspection (all the stuff we had borrowed from the base while here) easily, thanks to Karla. While we waited around for the moving guys to come and get it all, I worked on the car. I got the carpets steam cleaned, and the interior clean, and decided I'd better check on the underside of the car. U.S. Customs requires an extremely thorough job of cleaning, to avoid bringing foreign pests and seeds into the country. Well, manure is one of the worst carriers of these things, and guess what we drive through just about every day, as cows are driven from one field to another? Yep- really, really gross, nasty cow poop. Now imagine what tires do when they drive through the stuff and fling it up into the wheel wells. Now imagine 9 months worth of the stuff, hardened and crusted on. Next, if you're not sick yet, imagine me, scrub brush, bucket of soapy water and hose in hand, spending two hours trying to clean the wheel wells. It was very probably the grossest thing I have ever done. And that includes 13 years of changing dirty diapers. Absolutely disgusting.
Well, the movers finally came (late), and took an hour to do a half hour job (they took 2- 15 minute breaks. Seriously). When I finally got back to the TLF, I just had time to take a much needed shower and leave for the port, where we had an appointment to have our car inspected so we can ship it back to the States. We made it in time, but guess what: the car didn't pass. Want to know what the problem was? Yep, the wheel wells. Apparently my two hours of scrubbing was not enough. Tim gets to finish the job. I'm not touching another stinky wheel well. The good news, though, is that we get to keep our car until Tuesday, which means we don't have to borrow our friends' car. It all works out.
The next thing on the agenda today was Lajes High School graduation. Tim was the speaker! He did an amazing job- I love listening to my husband speak, and I especially like all the compliments I get to receive for Tim afterwards. He's wonderful.
I'm glad today is over. Hopefully, that will end up being the most stressful of our moving days. I don't think I could take more than that.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
We are out of our house and officially settled in the TLF (temporary living facility- doesn't that sound glamorous?) on base. Our situation here is much improved from the first time we were here. We managed to score adjoining rooms this time (which means Tim and I can sleep together, instead of in separate rooms), and they have installed WiFi! After weeks of walking to the library with our laptop to check email, it is wonderful to feel more connected while we're waiting to leave.
We're not completely done with the house... still have to go clean base appliances and furniture that we've borrowed while we were here, and then lots of house cleaning before our final inspection next Monday. All of our stuff is gone, though- and it only took the movers one day instead of the predicted two.
We got our flight plans, finally. We've known for months that we're flying from here to Baltimore on the 22nd, but didn't know until now how we were getting from there to Salt Lake. It won't be our ideal schedule... we will get into Salt Lake late at night, we have to stop in Denver first, but at least we'll be there. Now if we only knew for sure what we were doing after that.... Sometimes, I feel like my life could be described in four words: "up in the air". Really, though, the things in my life that really matter are remarkably stable: family, faith, love. I am so blessed.
We're not completely done with the house... still have to go clean base appliances and furniture that we've borrowed while we were here, and then lots of house cleaning before our final inspection next Monday. All of our stuff is gone, though- and it only took the movers one day instead of the predicted two.
We got our flight plans, finally. We've known for months that we're flying from here to Baltimore on the 22nd, but didn't know until now how we were getting from there to Salt Lake. It won't be our ideal schedule... we will get into Salt Lake late at night, we have to stop in Denver first, but at least we'll be there. Now if we only knew for sure what we were doing after that.... Sometimes, I feel like my life could be described in four words: "up in the air". Really, though, the things in my life that really matter are remarkably stable: family, faith, love. I am so blessed.
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