Summer 2018

This has been a summer for the books!  I was talking with the kids yesterday at lunch about what has happened this summer.  Since Tiago ended preschool in Colorado:  Hyrum came home from Afghanistan, our house was packed up, we drove to Dallas, stayed in a million hotels, flew to Colombia for 10 days, moved into a new house, unpacked, had a visit from Grandma, and explored Dallas.  Sometimes I long for a life where we create our own excitement, but with frequent moves and deployments we're often kept busy with what life hands us.  Any 12-month period with no deployments, moves, or babies is like a vacation because I like "normal" so much.  But regardless, we've had a lot of fun.

I already wrote about Hyrum coming home.  It's funny to hear the kids talk about that.  Siena says it's "the time we went to Papa's office in our pajamas."  And she remembers the fuzzy boots I put on their feet to keep them warm.  Tiago is quick to remind them it was the airport, but I think when they saw him in his uniform they assumed he was working there.

I can't believe it's been less than 3 months since he got home!  With all the vacation days Hyrum has taken over the summer the kids became very attached to him, particularly Tiago.  If he left now, Tiago would be distraught.  Luckily, Hyrum shouldn't have any long trainings while we're stationed here.  Right after we moved into our house in Texas, Tiago became very emotional every time one of us left the house alone.  He'd whimper and hug us inside the house, or protest and try to keep us from leaving.  Then he'd wave goodbye from the garage, and run over to give one last kiss and hug to the person driving away.  It was cute, but a little troubling.  Luckily it didn't last more than a few weeks and he seems more adjusted now.

Back to the move.  We had movers pack on a Friday, then we did some last minute things over the weekend, and they came to load the truck on Monday.  Luckily we were able to get the kids in child care on Monday so they weren't in the way of the movers.  And during this move I'm reminded that when you think the movers are almost done for the day, they really have a few hours left. Luckily, they showed up both days at 7 am so they could get an early start.

I opted to have the housing company's professional cleaners do the move-out cleaning, so I just had a few things to take care of.  (Cleaning garbage cans, spraying the outside of the house, pulling weeds, etc.)  It's expensive, but SO WORTH THE MONEY.  Moving is stressful enough without having to clean windows, baseboards, and blinds.

The drive to Texas was boring.  Eating out was fun because who doesn't love delicious food that you don't have to cook or clean up for.  I remember when we got to our hotel in Amarillo the kids were exhausted so I drove down the street to get food from Fazollis.  We were starving, so I went crazy ordering a little of everything.  When I brought it back to the hotel room Tiago asked for the soda.  He handed it to Siena, who set it down.  Then it got kicked over onto the carpet.  Tiago went nuts because 'his' soda was gone. Hyrum and I went nuts because there was now soda everywhere.  And to round things off I'm sure the girls were losing it too.  Plus, we were starving!  So we 'cleaned' as best we could and had a picnic of lasagna and spaghetti on the dry (but surely still dirty) corner of the hotel carpet.   Nothing a bunch of carbs can't fix.

The kids did okay with all the hotel rooms. This is huge progress from even a year ago when it would take hours to get them to sleep in the same room.  When possible we tried to get suites, with two doubles and a sofa bed, but sometimes nothing was available.

Our welcome into Dallas wasn't very inviting.  Right as rush hour was starting to pick up we drove across Fort Worth/Dallas.  Hyrum was following me in his car, and there are literally highways everywhere.  From my GPS it was hard to tell when I was supposed to be on the actual highway vs the "expressway" roads that run parallel to them.  And on top of that, there was construction.  By the time we pulled into the hotel (an hour or two later) I was completely drained and didn't want to get in a car ever again.  It took about a week to recover, but I still haven't driven back into downtown Dallas because it's overwhelming to me.

We had a horrible experience at that hotel, and spent the evening searching for a new hotel for the next two nights.  It wasn't ideal to go to yet another hotel, but worth it.  We spent two full days looking for housing in the "North Dallas" area.  That was a process.  It started with me hoping we could live "close" to Dallas, so Hyrum's commute wouldn't be bad and we could have a city experience.  However, after looking at a few houses and seeing what we could afford it was less appealing.  Most of the houses were super old and hadn't been updated.  To make things worse, the traffic was horrible!!

At the first house we went to see, the realtor said he'd be 10 minutes late, so we decided to go explore the neighborhood.  Bad idea!  Just at the end of the street, we ended up on a major road where we had to turn right and there was so much traffic we could only get in the closest lane, forcing another right turn.  We were crossing underneath a major freeway that was completely backed up, and it took 15 minutes and a couple of u-turns to get back to the house.  Before even seeing the house, I told Hyrum, "I can't do this!"  I was having nightmares about driving around all the time with my blood pressure skyrocketing.

So we saw a few more houses that day, and when we got to the hotel that evening we asked them what's the deal with traffic here??  The lady laughed, and told us that morning a huge tanker overturned on a major highway, at the intersection of another major highway, and both had been closed since 4 am trying to clean up hazardous waste.  (That awesome intersection was right where our hotel was, and right where the houses were we were trying to look at.)

But at that point the damage was done.  There was no way I was living in that area, so we started looking a bit more North in some of the suburbs.  Day 1 was discouraging.  We looked at dozens of houses online, without any clear favorites, and were at the mercy of real estate agents calling us back to schedule viewings.  After spending all day in the car with the kids we didn't have anything we were interested in.  Which was stressful because we only had one more day to look before flying to Colombia.

[Our wishlist was: garage or covered parking, 3-4 bedrooms, at least the size of our last house, outdoor playing space for the kids.]

Fortunately, we had better luck on Saturday and saw a few houses that we could actually see ourselves living in.  That was a huge relief.  We really wanted to find a place before our trip so we wouldn't have to re-live the house-hunting experience when we got back.  (With a whole different set of houses on the market.)  At the same time we didn't want to pick a house out of desperation.  We saw three houses we liked, and the one we picked was the middle one.  That evening we narrowed it down to two, then Hyrum let me convince him of the one I liked best.  We picked a house in Richardson because it borders Dallas, has good access to public transportation for Hyrum's commute, and has a neighborhood feel.  There's a Chik-fil-et and Target within a half-mile, and lots of grocery stores, playgrounds, pool, etc.  I could picture my life fitting in there (and so far it's met my expectations.)  The other option was a bit farther away in The Colony, and while a newer/nicer house, it wasn't very charming and only had 3 bedrooms.  What a relief to have a house chosen and be able to clear mental space for other things!

There was still a lot of back-and-forth with the realtor about the contract and application but we were read to move in within a few days of returning from our trip.

We stayed in the airport hotel the night before our flight, because we had to wake up 3:20 am!!  The kids were thrilled that the hotel offered free cookies.  And we lucked out to be able to park both of our cars at a friends house while we were gone.

Based off my experience waking the kids up in the middle of the night to pick up Hyrum in May, I suspected they'd do okay that morning, and I was right.  We had talked about the trip so much and built their expectations, so when we woke them up they smiled and said, "We're going to Colombia!"  They carried their own little backpacks onto the shuttle, and through security.  Of course kids are kids, but that was maybe the best behaved they were for the whole trip.  (Things gradually went downhill... haha.)

Tiago thought he was going to be afraid of the airplane.  (None of our kids remember flying, although Tiago has been on at least 11 flights in his life.)  But everything was so new and exciting for them.

The trip was great.  I'll have to write about it separately, but what I've told people is that it went almost exactly as planned.  (In my head-- and on google documents-- I had the whole trip planned out and over the 10 days I watched everything unfold as expected.  On the one hand, that's awesome. But on the other hand it makes it a little less exciting because each successfully completed "step" feels like a relief and I can check the box and move on to the next thing.)

We flew home from Colombia on July 5, super late at night, so we stayed at the airport hotel again.  The next day real life began.  We picked up our cars, drove across town to another hotel, and made preparations for our new house.  That meant setting up utilities, arrangements with the movers, forwarding mail and changing credit card billing addresses.

We spend Saturday morning just exploring Dallas.  We took the train downtown and saw Hyrum's office building.  We walked over to a big park for the kids with a splash pad and food trucks.  That was a needed break for everyone to just be able to relax and enjoy the moment.

Moving in was smooth.  (Mostly.  They spent most of the day unable to locate screws for our TV and Tiago's bed.  And several things were broken, including the base of our dining table.  Luckily the screws showed up in a random box and they were still able to assemble the table.) The house we're in is quite different than our last one.  It's all on one floor, has a large living area and then smaller bedrooms/bathrooms.  Not many hall closets or linen closets. So it took some effort to figure out where to put things.  Our best move was buying two large shelving units for the garage, so we could organize a bunch of stuff out there and be done with it.  Usually that's the type of stuff we spend months shuffling around to different nooks and crannies trying to get it 'out of the way' but still accessible. 

I remember on moving day (and the next two days) my feet were in so much pain by the end of the day!  There's nothing like sleeping in your own bed, especially when your whole body hurts.  It took a bit more effort than I wanted to spend getting our washer/dryer set up.  The prongs on this old house required us to go buy a new plug and watch videos on youtube.  Eventually I got all our suitcases of laundry washed, along with bedding and towels.

It took a while, though, because of the dang heat.  There were heat advisories our first week, and emails from our electric company asking people to conserve energy in the afternoons.  Who wants to run a dryer (or oven) when it's 80 degrees in your house?!

(Here's my rant on AC... whenever we lived in places hot enough to require air conditioning, my parents always kept the house pretty cold.  I had this mentality that you can live anywhere, including hot cities, as long as you stay indoors.  But... coming to Dallas, I felt like I was in this alternate reality where people don't use AC to cool off, merely to survive.  The property manager told us up front that the house wouldn't cool down to 70 degrees.  What he didn't tell us is that it wouldn't even cool down to 75 degrees.  I asked other people in the area if their houses got below 78 degrees and they said they hadn't even tried.  ?!  On the day we were moving in, it was 80-81 degrees all day INSIDE.  I'm adjusting, and sometimes first thing in the morning our house is only 76 degrees, but I also have portable fans and ceiling fans on me all day long.  And my electric bill is still going to be through the roof and I'm barely cooled off.  When does fall arrive here??  It also has me re-thinking my life experiences and imagining a whole segment of the population that just live in hot houses all the time without second guessing it.  Are my expectations too high?  Is this normal?  Can I just fly to my parents house for the summer where I'll probably need to wear a jacket inside?)

Hyrum had a lot of vacation to use up, so in addition to the 10 days the Army gives us for the move/transition, he took several weeks of his own vacation days.  It was nice to have him around, and spend a lot of time working on the house together and going on adventures with the kids.  But by the time he started work at the end of July I think we were both ready to not be together 24/7.  (In reality, we were ready about a week earlier, but survived until he started. haha)  He's been busy trying to figure out how a MEPS station runs, doing dozens of enlistment ceremonies, and adjusting to working with so many civilians.

Here at home we've been exploring... and buying.  My mom came for almost a week and helped me get things settled.  Most of our boxes were unpacked within two weeks, but I wasn't happy with our family room area.  (ie: the biggest room of the house, where weren't spending all that much time.)  Part of the problem was that I couldn't find the Roku device for our TV.  I remember taking it from the movers in Colorado, but couldn't remember where I put it after.  I searched everywhere.  Then when I'd given up hope of finding it but couldn't pull the trigger on another one for $45 because I hoped it would go on sale... I found it.  It was in a bag of random things Hyrum threw in there while he was 'organizing.'  So I still have no idea where I put it, but i'm glad it showed up.

The other problems with the room were the fireplace area and furniture.  We knew we wanted a new rug and sofa.  We wanted a colorful rug because we couldn't hang our yellow curtains, and we needed a bigger sofa.  (Not to mention our old one was so dirty and we've been wanting to replace it for the last few years.)  So my mom helped me shop and we hung up several things and got a rug.  We also spent a lot of money at who-knows-what at Ikea, but I'm sure we needed it!  The best part of Ikea lately is my girls are tall enough to go in their child care, so I can shop kid-free.  And also, Tiago's favorite food is meatballs, so I can actually get them to eat afterwards at the cafe.  The day after my mom left I went to Costco and found the perfect sofa for us.  So now everything is feeling quite settled and lovely.

We got Tiago registered for Pre-K, found a group of moms who are doing a Joy School for kids the girls' age, have played on playgrounds, swam at pools, and are slowly catching up with regular life.  (Hence a blog post, finally.)  The next thing lingering on my to-do list if registering both vehicles which feels daunting so I'm just not thinking about it.  I just remind myself one step at a time!  (As long as its done before the end of the month!)  After that there are closets and shelves to be organized, hallway runners to buy, papers to file, a sofa to sell and a piano to tune. Plus I need to find a gym, set up doctor/dentist appointments, and actually clean my house. Isn't moving fun.

One week left in Summer! (Even though the summer heat will stick around for months, I'm sure.)  Maybe I'll get it all done.

Germany wrap-up: Playmobile, Nuremberg, Vilseck & Hotel,

There is so much to write about from the last few months (and wow, it's already November!) that I decided to throw everything "Germany-related" into one last post and call it good.

[When I was going through old pictures, I realized that Hyrum took a long trip through Brussels, Bucharest, and Budapest, that never got documented.  Technically none of the events happened in Germany, so I might sneak them in some other time.]

I wasn't sure how far back to go, but I found some old pictures of the girls, who look so tiny compared to their current size.  (By the way, that's Mila screaming on the left.  Also, now that I look back, I realize how much they looked/look alike.  Today, I think they're identical.)

Hyrum went to Cologne (I think it was a 5 hour drive) with two guys from work to watch a soccer game.  USA was playing Germany.  I don't remember any other details of the trip, besides the fact that I thought he was crazy (they arrived home around 4 in the morning, just enough time to catch an hour or two of sleep on the office floor and then report for 6:30 PT) and that he outfited all three of them in USA soccer apparel.  

We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary! [June 26]  We talked about doing something huge... and I squashed that idea in about 2 seconds.  With three tiny kids, that just wasn't in the stars.  So instead we did something really crazy:  we hired a babysitter!  It was the first time we hired a young woman to watch the kids, so it was a pretty big deal.  It's not because I'm an attached mother that doesn't want to leave her kids.  There are two main reasons.  First, I know how much work all three are at once, and didn't want to be the reason that someone stopped wanting kids.  (Three kids crying and wanting to be fed/changed simultaneously can be overwhelming if you don't have an emotional "off" switch.)  Second, the closest young women in our ward that babysit lived a full 30 minutes away.  That's just too far to drive to pick-up and drop-off.  (Teens in Germany can't get licenses....)

We ended up dropping off the kids at the girl's house to babysit them there, while we walked around the town they live in: Weiden.  It's a decent-sized town with a lot of restaurants and pedestrian streets.  We had delicious italian food (bruscetta and pizza and pasta... yum) and window shopped.

I can't say for sure what was going on with this picture, but I can say that after five years of marriage I know that Hyrum is quite unpredictable, and sometimes unexplainable.  It's strange to celebrate a big anniversary in a normal way and still feel like you did it justice.  Hawaii would've been great, but maybe another year.

Here are some more pictures of the girls.  The second one is particularly memorable, because Germany had a few really hot months and without air conditioning the kids spent the majority of their time in just diapers.  So much for cute summery baby clothes!  (Kidding, I did dress them when we went out in public... which probably wasn't often.)  Even though SC was hotter than Germany, it wouldn't cross my mind here to leave them naked because I can just flip on the AC.

In the middle of July our packers came and shipped away all of our stuff on a boat.  That was the beginning of a whirlwind of 'moving' events.  In my mind it's a big blur, and it's crazy to think that it's been almost four months!  I'm so happy to finally be settled and into a normal routine.

A few weeks before moving out of our apartment (in August) we went to Nuremberg to the Playmobile Park.  It's kind of like lego-land, I guess, but without rides.  It was perfect for Tiago because there was plenty to see and do, without feeling like he was too little.  Stuff like this really makes me happy to be a parent and live such fun experiences through their little eyes.

How often do you find stuff that's just the right size for a 2-year old??

And just a couple of DAYS before moving out of our apartment we made the crazy decision to put off last-minute packing and cleaning to explore more of Nuremberg.  Really, I just wanted to get out of the house.  I feel like we'd seen a lot of stuff in Nuremberg (Zoo, Palace of Justice, Nazi Party Grounds, Christmas Market) but hadn't spent much time walking the streets.  We walked around looking for Weissbergergasse, and eventually found it after some really steep cobblestone.  I'm so happy in situations like that to have Hyrum around--he just calls it his exercise and starts running up the incline.

As far as food was concerned, we did Nuremberg right.  I don't remember if we ate any real food, but in our wanderings we found: pistachio macarons, a lot of gelato, and a nutella-filled Dunkin Donut.  YUM.  Who needs real lunch?

Then we moved out of our apartment into the hotel on-post in Grafenwohr.  Was it sad?  No.

There was soooo much build up that once we were out it felt like it was about time. I was so happy to be done with movers, cleaning, selling stuff (all of our 220 volt appliances!), etc.  We had a lot of good experiences there.  We loved our view of our little town, including the church whose bells rang regularly to tell us the time.  We loved our landlords, who spoke very little English but really loved seeing our kids.  We started out with just the two of us, and left as 5.  To say we outgrew it would be a big understatement, but I'm glad for the time we had there.  (Also, I'm glad the landlords didn't inspect the apartment too carefully.  They basically walked in, handed us the 900 euro deposit, and chitchatted.  With final inspections you really never know what you'll get.)

This collage will hold no value to anyone but me, I'm sure, but I want to remember the apartment's patterns and textures.  Top: kids bedrooms, our bedroom, bathroom laminate flooring.  Middle: family room flooring, bathroom tub/sink, bathroom wall tile.  Bottom: lace curtains (everywhere), kitchen laminate flooring, and kitchen wall tile.  It was certainly interesting decor choices, but that's the life for renters.

This picture below makes me miss Vilseck!

After we were in the hotel (an awesome 12 day stay!)  Hyrum was finishing up work.  He packed up his stuff and was busy with loose ends and training his replacement.  This is probably the nicest office he'll ever have.  (It's only about 1/4 of the room that's visible in the picture.)

The hotel stay was interesting.  They had no suites available, so we had two rooms that were next to each other.  No, not adjoining, just side by side.  In the back of my head was the constant fear of locking the babies inside a room and forgetting my key, but I don't think it happened (fortunately.)  We worked out a system of having Tiago sleep in one room, and the girls in the other.  When they were all sleeping, we would hang out in the girls' room because they sleep more deeply.  But basically, it was lights out every night by 7:30, and a lot of running back and forth between the two rooms.  Every night Hyrum and I traded off who slept in which room.  Generally, sleeping in Tiago's room was preferable because he didn't wake up in the middle of the night to eat, but he was waking up around 5:30 am. 

I was happy to find out Tiago would still sleep in a pack and play.  He'd been sleeping on a mattress for a few months before the move, but didn't seem to mind the confined space.

Admittedly, there was a lot of TV watching.  Tiago discovered a ton of new American shows (the hotel has normal American TV) like Doc McStuffins and Clifford.  

I feel like I've written about a lot of this stuff before, but can't remember exactly what, so here we go again.  We needed to get rid of Hyrum's car before we moved, because we could only ship one car back to the States.  It didn't pass inspection, because it needed the rear breaks replaced.  We didn't have a lot of time to order parts from the states, so we were trying to sell it to someone who wanted to fix it themselves.  It would've been a great deal for anyone (we lowered the price a ton!) but most people are looking for ready-to-drive cars.  Plus... the trunk doesn't open.  We ended up telling ourselves it probably wasn't going to sell and to accept the loss of just dropping it at a junk yard.  Honestly, I was kind of okay with it because there were so many other things to deal with that I just wanted the problem gone.  We parked it in a lot with a "for sale" sign, and ended up selling at the very last minute possible.  (Ironically, just a few days before flying, we went for a walk around the base, and ended up seeing our car parked along the road.  The person who bought it had somehow already made the fixes and got the vehicle registered--something that can be a one or two month process.  We were glad it found a new home to someone who is more mechanically inclined than we are.)  Regardless, Hyrum was sad to see his first car go.  Here he is driving the Chevy Malibu for the last time (as seen from our hotel window.) 

The hotel was really well-located.  I could easily walk to the grocery store or PX, or several grocery stores.  Speaking of food, we ate out quite a bit during those 12 days because we were in a hotel and after the previously mentioned packing, cleaning, moving, etc, I wanted a break! It was nice to eat at all of our favorite places one last time.  But like I was saying, lots of good stuff in the area.  There was a huge field across the street where Tiago loved to run around.  It was right in the shadow of the big tower.  At the base of the tower is a history of the Army base, which was fascinating to read about.  This tower was built back in 1910!  

We also found this piece of the Berlin Wall on  a path I'd never walked down before.

The Friday before we moved, there was a ward camp out.  A friend was nice enough to pick us all up in her van.  We loved having one more opportunity to socialize with all our friends.  It is a really unique ward because it's almost all military, and everyone lives far from family.  Admittedly, I felt I fit in a lot better once I had kids, but I think that's probably true of anywhere.  After good food, some s'mores, and socializing, we went back to the hotel for a good night's sleep. (Kind of.  The girls were still waking up to eat at that point.)

On Sunday I got released from my Relief Society calling.  Just in time!  Again, I think because we knew for so long that we'd be moving (like the entire past 3 years) it wasn't too emotional for me.  But I do have a lot of good memories and learning experiences I'll take with me. 

Monday was last minute stuff and packing, and hurrying to get a few hours of sleep before our midnight departure... and thus began the worst 30-hour adventure of my life.  

The End!