Summer 2008

So over the course the past three months Dave and I have moved our family 1200 miles, from NC to LA, spent a week camping in the Smoky mountains and ten days visiting family and friends in Utah. We moved into our new home, endured a not so scary but threatening to be scary hurricane..all while chasing around the infamously crazy Spencer who tends to cause havoc in any room he is in. (At the current moment he is in the pantry opening various box's of cereal. And yes I am allowing this as I have wanted to get this blog up and running for over a month now and it never seems to happen.) It has been a crazy fun summer!

Camping together in deep creek was the highlight of my summer. Five of us in a five man tent (including the play pen) makes for unforgettable memories. As does the eagle that we saw flying over the bridge in downtown Bryson city while waiting for fireworks on the 4th of July...did I mention live bluegrass music in the background, and lots of dogs to keep Amanda and Maren occupied. It honestly could not have been any better. Amanda, Dave and I all took turns tubing down deep creek (which despite its name was not all that deep, thus lots of rocks and water slides to keep it exciting). Spencer and Maren refused to get back in a tube after their first trip down...the water was a little cold.
After a week of camping we spent a few days leisurely driving across Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, we stopped in Vicksburg, MS to see the place where some of Dave's ancestors originate from. It was neat just to see the town itself which has tons of civil war history that has been well preserved. Dave was able to locate the Vick family Bible which has his mothers name listed in it, as well as other Vick family memorabilia and documents. Amanda has convinced herself that she is famous because she is named after Amanda Vick=)
At this point we headed to our new hometown of Leesville LA and Fort Polk to check into temporary housing. 10 days later we were offered a permanent place and the following morning, after signing our lease, we drove to Houston to fly to Utah for another 10 day vacation. We spent the 24th of July with the Marchant clan and even the Gordons drove down from Washington and joined in the fun. We spent tons of time in the mountains, hiking, mountain biking, and once again running tubes down a river (Provo this time). I love the mountains, and truly miss living close to them! The only downside of this trip was the flights. Now I have flown a lot with my kids, once or twice a year since Amanda was born and this was by far the WORST flight I have had. And the sad part was I wasn't even traveling by myself with the kids, Dave was with me. Spencer does not like to sit still at all. We were prepared with lots of different things to help entertain him, but nothing worked, he just screamed and screamed and wanted to move around the plane. This was the case on the flight to Utah, in which he cried for about an hour and a half and slept through the second hour and a half. That was bad enough, but on the way back it only got worse. Dave had handed him to me so he could get some more toys out for him, we had been sitting on the tarmac for a while and yes he was screaming. the stewardess stopped by to remind us he needed to be on Dave's side (extra oxygen masks only on one side of plane). Dave took a few more minutes to get some things to help entertain him and in that time the stewardess threatened to stop the plane (we had just started moving) if we didn't get our son under control and where he should be. Needless to say he was back in Dave's lap quickly, still screaming and by the end of the flight we had several not to happy neighbors. One that had the guts to tell us that our children were poorly behaved before he moved seats. Ahhh! Glad that is over with. We will drive to FL this fall instead of flying and the next time we do fly with him, it will be worth every penny to buy a seat for him.
We moved into our new home on post after arriving back and Amanda started school a week later. Although we did not have a normal relaxing summer, I loved all the memories we made. And I was happy to have so much family time, Dave included. After three years of a very busy program it was nice to know we are done with that phase of our lives. It was so hard to leave North Carolina, especially Granny and our ward, but we are so grateful for the time we had there. I know my kids will have great memories of the time we spent there. And I will in turn never forget the great friends I have there and my first exposure to military life that taught more about empathy and faith than all my other life's experiences put together.
It is nice to be settled again and to have the kids in school. Amanda's class is more challenging than I expected, but she is up for the challenge. Maren is doing another year of preschool and is loving it. I am loving having only one kid to run errands with again and seeing Dave on a very regular basis.