Summer Wrap-Up

Summer is quickly drawing to a close and I am not sure where the time went, but the calendar says we start preschool in a week and the big kids go back this Tuesday.  Since our summer fun days were numbered, this week we packed in a lot of fun.

We went to the park

We went to the library

We went on a trolley ride (This was supposed to be a train ride, but on the way to the train we happened upon the trolley ride.  We gave Merrick his choice and he opted for the trolley.)

We went to a pool party

We played with friends and cousins (sorry no pictures here)

It was a fun week.  I can wholeheartedly say that I am not ready for summer to be over, but as my dear sister would say, "It is what it is".

Moving...Again

You may have noticed the lack of blog entry for last week.  The reasons for that were two fold; first, we moved on Saturday and come Sunday the last thing I had time for was to sit down and blog and second, despite the fact that I called a week in advance, they could not come to connect our internet until mid last week.  It was kind of interesting actually living in an early 90's world with no internet, cable tv, or Netflix.  We did have our smart phones, but they only get 3G in our house so they were not very useful.

Anyway, we moved back into my parents' house.  As you may or may not know, since moving to India my parents had a brief stint with a bad renter and mostly the house has been vacant while on the market to sell.  Since selling has not been working out as planned, we are moving back in to give us some flexibility while we look for a job and to help offset some of their costs.  At this point the length of our stay is unknown.

In any case, we are here for now and trying to get settled.  Maybe the technology blackout was a good thing because we got to unpack pretty quickly.  Perhaps even too quickly because we have now found ourselves shuffling things around and undoing much of our initial set up.

I am truly grateful for the generosity of those who have allowed us to live in their homes over the last several years while we did the law school thing and now while we look for a job.  That being said, I do look forward to the day we move somewhere we plan to stay a while.

9 Years

This week marked Jeremy and my 9th wedding anniversary.  We decided a while back that since our actual anniversary was on a Tuesday, that we would wait until the weekend to celebrate.  Unfortunately, the river cruise we were going to go on got canceled so that led to the exciting time of deciding on Monday evening to go on Tuesday after all and finding a new babysitter when our current one couldn't do Tuesday (all while dealing with the gas company and a gas leak at my parent's house).

I wish I could say that was the end of the craziness and we were able to relax and enjoy our anniversary together, but we have decided that we are cursed when it comes to celebrating Valentines' Day or our anniversary.  In case you didn't know, we are currently in the process of job hunting, replacing a car that died and in the mean time limping by with one car, and moving.  Of course Tuesday also had to be the day we found a washer and dryer on craigslist for our new house and had to try to find a truck and helpers to help us get it moved and convince the sellers not to sell it to someone else while we called in every favor imaginable and fought rush hour traffic trying to get home from our cruise.  Not the best anniversary date in history.

Here is what I learned from the day:

*Life is crazy and often sucks, even on special days like your anniversary.
*It is in the middle of all that suckiness that people show who they really are.
*Even when life is hard, and I can't remember the last time it wasn't for us, Jeremy is always there.
*He is my best friend, my rock, and my hero
*I am so grateful I get to spend forever with him

The Post Bar World

This week the bar came and finally went.  I really did not ever think we would get to the place where the bar was behind us, but sure enough that day came.

The kids and I started the week by doing everything we could to stay busy, first so Jeremy could have his final study day and then so I did not have time to obsessively worry about how the test was going.  Becca and her kiddos were kind enough to help provide us with distractions.  Monday we spent several hours at the park and riding bikes and then just hung out and let the kids play.  Tuesday we went to the pool and to lunch and again more hanging out.  Wednesday we went to OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry).  Wednesday was by far my favorite day.  I am not sure how we have lived here over three years (and visited for many years before that) without ever making a trip to OMSI, but I know we won't wait nearly so long before going back again.  For the purposes of today's blog I won't talk too much about it and save the detail for our next visit, but I will say the vacuum room, where you use tube and connectors to create vacuums that suck and blow hundreds of balls around the room at targets, was my favorite (and I think Merrick's too).

Meanwhile, while the kids and I were off having a blast, Jeremy was in the trenches.  One of the biggest blessings we have received during this time was peace.  I know that we both felt it and it helped to keep things in perspective.  When others spent thirty minutes of the test time dry heaving in the bathroom, Jeremy was able to calmly continue working.  Despite some glitches with the testing software that made national news, he is overall pleased with how the testing went.  I have asked him if he has any regrets and at first he said no, but later came up with something minor that he would have changed if he could.  We feel optimistic that he passed and now jut have to wait until September 19th at 2pm to know for sure.

As I mentioned last week, we planned a top secret surprise after the test was behind us.  Wednesday night we told Merrick we were going on a trip and he needed to pack, but did not tell him the plan.  Thursday morning we loaded up the car and headed out.  It was not until we were about 2 minutes out that we handed Merrick his wand and told him we were going to Great Wolf Lodge.

The next two days were filled with water park fun, magic wands bringing things to life, and Merrick getting to sleep in his very own wolf den, complete with bunk beds and his own TV.  It was the perfect get away and just exactly what we needed as a family.

T-minus One Day

About four years ago when I had just started the blog, I did a post entitle "Finish Line".  It was all about Jeremy finally taking the LSAT and what felt like a finish line at the time.  I have been thinking about that a lot over the last few days.  I find it truly comical looking back at it now, how it we really the farthest thing from the finish line, but merely the very beginning of this journey.  It reminds me of that song by Semisonic (which interestingly enough was my mom's favorite song at the time) that says, "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end".

And so it is with this, the Bar is just one day away and while it feels very much like a end, I am certain that one day I will look back at this time and see that it is just the beginning.  In any case, when we meet again next week the Bar will be over.  While I am very much looking forward to having my husband back, a part of me (very small) is sad to close this chapter in our lives.  It is strange, but having the Bar be so all consuming has really brought our family closer together.  We have been united in a group effort to make this happen and everyone, including the kids, have made sacrifices.  It also has made me love Jeremy even more because I have watched how hard he has worked and know that he is doing this for us, for our family.

So now it is time to do this, put the period on the end of the sentence that is law school.  If you are reading this before Tuesday or Wednesday please say a little prayer for Jeremy and if it is after, know we are off celebrating.  We have planned a VERY top-secret surprise for Thursday and Friday so stay tuned for more on that later.

I will leave you today with some very unrelated, yet very cute pictures of the kids from this week.  And so that a few of them make sense, you should know Carrigan has become very interested in trying to put on clothes and shoes, whether hers one or someone else's.  Below you will find her wearing Jeremy's sock and Three,yes three, pairs of Merrick's underwear (clean).

Random Summer-ness

I apologize in advance for the randomness of this blog.  This week was not super eventful, but lots of bar study and a few highlights here and there.  Here is the rundown of the highlights.

Merrick finished swim on Thursday, I wish I could say this was a better experience than it was, but I was not super impressed with the place we went for swim.  I am not sure he learned much, but he had fun and I guess that is the important thing...right???

Fun time this week was also a little more low key.  Merrick even decided that the play area at the mall was good enough one day.  I took pictures because this was Carrigan's first time to get down and play and also because our life is so exciting these days that a trip to the mall play area is apparently blog worthy.

Also this weekend was my nephew, Colvin's, birthday party.  As is tradition he had a giant slip-n-slide party in his backyard.  I neglected to get any pictures of the slipping and/or sliding this year, but I did capture this sweet moment between Carrigan and her bestie cousin Lincoln.

Oh yeah, one last random highlight from the week, Carrigan discovered Ketchup...and she loves it!