Easter!

We dyed eggs this year...I don't remember the last time we dyed eggs for real.  

Funny story:  I hard boiled A BUNCH of eggs the day before to prepare, but for some odd reason everyone was so excited that we had hard boiled eggs and kept EATING them.  Even when we sat down to dye them, Alison asked if she could eat one first.  I have never seen my family so excited to eat eggs.  At the end of it all, they only had 3 or 4 each to dye.

 

 

The church we've been attending has service at 1:00.  So, we had the whole morning to get ready, find baskets and have a nice brunch. 

 

 

 

 

Colin has gotten really into drawing (and is very good), so he got new art supplies in his basket.

 

 

 It was cold and windy on Easter.

 

 

I'm guessing Eli is going to be taller than Alison by the time I take another picture of them together...

After church, we blew some bubbles and made some dishes to take over to the pastor's house for dinner.  They graciously invited us over and we had a wonderful time with some new friends.

Eli's birthday

 Eli is 12!!!

Eli, you are growing up very quickly!  Yet, in some ways you are still the same.  You were still up VERY early, excited for your birthday.  You played Minecraft quietly in your room until 7:00 when you were allowed to come wake everyone up.  You requested cereal for breakfast and then we opened presents before dad left for work.

Don't worry, he had plenty of time to sing to you before he left.

Colin has been so excited for Eli's birthday that he has been making him cards for weeks.

Alison knows the way to his heart and bought him a bunch of his favorite candy.

(did you notice that he's almost as tall as Alison?)

Legos are still a strong theme of Eli's life.  He spent the morning building, while the rest of us hung out nearby...actually, he requested we watch "Super Nanny" while he built.

We went to Chick-fil-A for lunch and then Dave and Busters. 

 

 Eli currently loves VR things and was excited to go on this ride with Ben (he met us down there from work).

 

Colin won a toy!

Ben picked up a cheesecake from a french bakery by his office.  It was amazing!

Ben and Eli watched a scary movie the rest of the evening, while the rest of us watched something happy.

Happy Birthday Eli!  I love you SO much!

Moving across the country from Colin's point of view

1. California

2. Arizona

3. New Mexico

4. Texas

5. Oklahoma

6. Kansas

7. Missouri

7. Illinois

8. Kentucky

9. Tennessee

10. Virginia

11. West Virginia

12. Maryland

13. Pennsylvania

14. New Jersey

15. New York

Living in an empty house

Our California house was packed up on January 24th and our nomad life began.  We originally thought we would be in Mint house on February 14th, but that turned into the 28th.  After a full month of living displaced, we were ready to be in our new home!  

Unfortunately, it didn't turn out as rosy as we needed.  Mint house needed a lot of love.  It needed love and elbow grease and a lot of repairs.  It was overwhelming.  AND our truck still hadn't left California.  We lived in an empty house for 8 days and we spent every minute of those 8 days cleaning and repairing and painting.  We found Walmart and bought some cheap chairs, bedding and dishes.  We had just enough to function, but we were basically camping.  While we were thankful to not be in and out of places, it was still kinda creepy living in an empty, old house. 

 

Ben bought a Lego set along our travels and this was the perfect time to work on it.

You don't realize how important furniture is, until you don't have it.  Every morning was a debate over who got the 2 comfy bean bags.

Master bedroom:

Colin did NOT like his bedroom while the house was empty, so he ended up camping out with us or with Eli.

There wasn't a whole lot for the kids to do during this time.  Colin resorted to playing with boxes and then Maya would claim it as her house.

We did find some perks.  7-11 is right across the street and we can walk to get slushies.  There is also really good food here and lots of good choices close to our house.

The day our truck finally showed up, was just like Christmas!  We had been without our belongings for 6 weeks!

This sums up our trucks journey:

They told us that first the truck's transmission broke and they had to wait for a new one (COVID has messed up the supply chain) and then 2 drivers quit.  I wanted to hug the driver that didn't quit and got our stuff here.  And while we were excited to see our belongings, it also was quickly apparent that the packers were terrible.  We had lots of things broken or damaged or missing.  This was our first PCS that they didn't have a checklist and by this point, we just had to roll with it and pray that most of our stuff was there.  Funny things from the day: they unloaded several things that weren't ours.  Somehow, someone else's decorative pillow was packed in my china cabinet.  Also, our basement has very low beams and the movers kept smacking their heads on them.