Well, it’s been a few weeks since we moved here, so I guess
I oughtn’t neglect the blog any longer.
So, just a real quick update, and then I’ll sit down and take more time
sometime soon and add some photos.
Anyway, we had a really long drive from upstate New York to southern California .
With memories of our long, long car ride three years prior when we drove
from Utah on our move out to New York with all 5 boys, I was dreading an even
longer drive from New York to San Diego.
But it actually wasn’t that bad.
(It wasn’t really great, but it wasn’t all that bad either). We stopped in Milwaukee to visit our friends,
Faith and Tyce Kearl from med school and had a great time with them and their
kids, and then again in Utah to visit my Grandma Faun and almost all of
Michael’s relatives for the 4th of July weekend (Michael’s parents
and Annette came down from Boise, his sister Mel and her family live in Utah,
and Mindy is there for college right now too, and Jennie and her family came up
from San Diego and surprised everyone too, and we got to visit with Grandma
& Grandpa McIntosh and Grandma Bradshaw and lots of Michael’s aunts,
uncles, and cousins and their families too.
And we got to see my great aunt Gwen and her daughter Dorthy too, so it
was way fun to visit with so many relatives).
Anyway, making those two stops along the way made it so we never drove
for longer than 2 ½ days at a time, which made it much more bearable. And the kids did pretty well on the drive
overall. (And everyone asked how we were
going to do it with our dog, but he did great – we were able to put our luggage
and box of food and stuff in Michael’s car that we towed behind the minivan, so
Brax had the entire back trunk area of the van to himself, so with his dog bed
and tennis balls he was quite content.
He rides in the car great, and would just get out when we would stop at
gas stations, and then we’d find a stick to play fetch when we’d stop for the
nights, so he got a little exercise. And
it was plenty cool enough at night so we weren’t worried about him getting too
warm sleeping in the car while we were at the different motels at night. So, actually, the dog was easier to travel
with than the kids – he never complained that his brother was touching him or
asked if it was lunch time yet).
We arrived a few weeks ago, and since then Michael devoted
all his time to studying. He staked a
claim at one of the desks in the local library, and lived there for the last
few weeks. He said he felt as ready as
he’d ever be, and early Monday morning he flew to Florida for his board exam. His test wasn’t until Wednesday, but he
wanted to go early to make sure there wouldn’t be any possibility of a delayed
flight causing him to miss the test. He
got in some more studying while he waited there in Florida, and also got to
spend some time with Janet and Catherine, the other two residents from his
program in Rochester, so that was nice.
He took the test Wednesday, said it was really hard, (but everyone else
he talked to also thought it was really hard, so that’s probably a good
sign). He’s glad to be done, finally,
and hopes he did well. I’m sure he did
great. He will hear back with the test
results in 6 to 10 weeks. Now he’s
relieved that he doesn’t have to feel guilty anymore about any time spent not
studying. I’m just glad that it’s
finally over!
Since we’ve been here, the boys and I have tried to be
active and get into all the summer activities here. We found a piano teacher for Kolby and Lijah
(Camden and Isaac will start up with lessons in October, after Michael starts
getting paychecks again), and this teacher has a lot of experience and is
really stressing not only learning songs, but learning the technique too, so I
think they should learn a lot with her. Their
teacher also teaches a free children’s music class at the church once a week
that we’ve been attending, and all 5 boys love that – so it’ll be nice, because
I think it’ll work for me to keep taking Courtland to that even after his big
brothers all start school next month (it’s really crazy to think I’ll only have
one more kid at home all day soon (except Isaac’s transitional kindergarten is
only going to be half day, so I guess I’ll technically have 1 ½ kids at home
soon, but still that’s a big change from having all 5 around all the time in
the summer).
We also found a group on meetup.com called ‘Family Adventures
in Nature,’ which is a local hiking group for families with kids. So far we’ve gone to two different activities –
a short walk to a pond in Poway where the kids
all had a ball jumping in the water, and a little hike in a canyon in
Encinitas. It’s been fun so far, and I
figure it’s a good way to explore the outdoors in the area and meet some new
friends.
The boys and I have also enjoyed going to some Spanish
classes and bilingual story time at the 4S Ranch Library near here, and the bilingual
story time continues year-round, so that’s great.
Plus the ward here at church is really active – in the
summer time they have a weekly pool day at different peoples’ houses, a weekly
park day, and beach day. We’re looking
forward to going to beach day for the first time this week (I was hesitant to
take all 5 boys to the beach by myself, so I waited for Michael to finish his
test first so we could all go together). And we’re also going to go to the “family home
evening” at the beach on Monday with the old ward that I grew up in, which I’m
looking forward to – I have fond memories of these special ward family days
growing up, with hours of boogie boarding and sand castle building, followed by
bonfires on the beach.
We’ve also had a blast in the water – we’ve spent a ton of
time in the pool here (enough to convince us that we’d like to find a house
with a pool -- It is so fun to see the kids learning to swim so quickly now,
and I think having a pool is a great idea too for later on when the kids are
teenagers and they can invite their friends over to swim all the time). Plus, we have been having a great time with
Brax in the water too – he will jump into the pool to fetch his tennis ball for
as long as anyone is willing to throw it in for him. We’ve also taught him to jump off the
waterfall into the pool after the ball (we need to take some videos sometime
soon). We also made a hole in one of his
balls and filled it with small rocks so it will sink, and he was doing pretty
well at learning to dunk his head underwater to find the ball on the different
steps in the pool (with the idea that hopefully he’d eventually learn to dive
down in the deep end of the pool to retrieve it), until he chewed up the ball
with the rocks the other day, so that put an end to his diving training. But he’s still having a great time jumping in
for his ball – sometimes the boys even toss the ball in, then hold onto Brax so
he pulls them through the water while he goes after his ball. It’s a lot of fun.
And we’ve gotten to spend some time with Dalin and Jennie
too, which is way fun since they recently moved from Japan
to Camp Pendleton
in Oceanside . We went up to their house for Taelin’s
birthday party last week, and this afternoon we met Dalin and Taelin at the dog
beach on Fiesta Island in San Diego, with Brax, and their new German Shepherd
puppy, Achilles. That was a lot of fun. It’s nice to have them nearby. We’ve also enjoyed taking Brax to several dog
parks in the area, which we’ve enjoyed doing here, since there weren’t really
any dog parks nearby in NY. Today at the
dog beach someone else was there with their two black labs, and Brax had a
great time playing with those other labs – I can’t wait to get another dog or
two after we move into our own house.
Speaking of houses, we closed on our Fairport house last
week, so that’s a relief. Now we just
have to save our money as best we can, and hold out for another month until
Michael starts work in the beginning of September and starts getting paid. We can then get the credit cards paid off
(darn moving and test taking expenses). Then we’ll be all set to start saving for a
down payment on a house here. We’re
hoping it won’t take too many months, just because we can see the house prices
here just barely starting to creep upwards over the last few months – they’re
still super low compared to how things used to be in San Diego, we just want to
get in somewhere as soon as possible before the house prices rise any higher,
and while the rates are still so low. It’s
really the perfect time for us to be getting into the California market for the first time, so we’re
really blessed for that. And it really
is wonderful that Michael’s job doesn’t start right away, so we’ll have a whole
month to spend together as a family – which is really great after months of
preparing to sell our house, followed by a long move, and then Michael spending
so long studying and taking his big test. Who knows – this may be the only time we ever
get a month long vacation. So we’re
going to make the most of it. (And we’ll
see, maybe one of these days we’ll get around to unpacking our boxes that we
brought here to the house with us?) :)
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