Home...mostly.

Greetings from Ohio!

We were able to stay in the Raleigh mission house for as long as we needed it, and I had planned to stay for several more weeks. I reasoned it would be easier to revel in established relationships and familiar activities for a little longer, rather than jumping into new ones before we had our own space to move into. But I underestimated a few things...

One: my kids are far too experienced with transition. After a rough, emotionally charged few days where I was bewildered at every one's foul moods, Isaac, at age 8, eloquently explained, "Mom, I don't ever want to leave Raleigh. But since I know we have to, I just want to go now!"

Two: there is no such thing as pacing yourself with packing and cleaning when the adult:kid ratio is 1:3. It's all or nothing. I started slowly packing, and the kids immediately reacted to things 'disappearing'. And don't even get me started about cleaning. Any parent knows it takes minutes for kids to undo what took hours to clean!

So on Monday I decided to pack up the whole house and load it in the van. On Tuesday, I cleaned the house top to bottom as I laid out 1 computer, 1 i-pad, and 1 Roku TV remote to provide 12 hours of free baby-sitting as the kids rotated from one mind-rotting electronic to another. And on Wednesday morning, we piled in an already over-filled van and drove the 7.5 hours in 8.5 up to Hilliard, Ohio.

30 minutes down the road I had to stop and fix a seat-belt in the back, and Ethan expressed irritation, saying,"Can we just go home already!?!" I told him we couldn't go back, and he rolled his eyes. "That's not home anymore. Ohio is now home. So can we just go home already!?!"

The kids did great in the car, we surprised Chad (we hadn't told him we were coming!) and we've settled into our friends' house with a good jump on the trampoline and dip in the neighbors' pool.

While Chad was here in Ohio, we got under-written pre-approval for a loan with a local lender, Chad found a house, and we went into contract again. I did drive by the house as we came into town on Wednesday, but otherwise I haven't yet seen it. I only occasionally realize how bizarre that is, but Chad and I are together on what we want in a house, and he thinks it'll be great for us. It has 4 bedrooms, a master bath-room, a finished basement, and a fenced yard, so I figure he's right! We're due to close the 3rd week of July...it's about 3 weeks later than I'd prefer, but I do know that even these 3 weeks will eventually pass.

I find myself nostalgically appreciating Raleigh and our friends from Forest Hills more than I ever expected I would when we first planned to live there for a year. I also can't believe how familiar Hilliard feels even 11 years later. Or how we have been embraced by the community here so emphatically. The love they are showing us has the power to make this 'home' for me again as quickly as our kids were ready to redefine home...or at least as quickly as we get our own address!