a post!

Here we are! After a busy (and fun!) summer moving in to our home, painting it, dealing with high temps and humidity and NO A/C, playing in Utah/WA/Oregon for a month (with out Geof.)..and now we're back and school has started and the house is much the same as it was when I left. We had an earthquake and hurricane the week before school started. How's that for big news? An earthquake in Richmond, VA? I had no idea what was happening. First, I went in the laundry room to check on the obvious imbalance of the washer..nope. And then I looked outside and didn't really notice anything out of sorts. But then I realized we were probably experiencing an earthquake. I looked over at Dayne who was loading dishes from the dishwasher into the cupboards and said, "um..you might want to back away from there. Why don't we all head to the bathroom?" And no, we didn't rush because I still wasn't quite sure if it was really an earthquake we were experiencing. We got in the bathroom and were about to get in the tub (that IS what you do during a quake, right?) and it stopped. Phew. Pretty fun, though!

And then we had hurricane warnings and a few days to prepare for it. That's nice. Filled up the 50 or so 1 gallon water bottles someone in the ward gave us. Did my laundry. Bought some food. And then waited. And yes, the power did go out. Trees fell. But mostly, it was just a drizzly, rainy day. We've had worse (in my opinion). But apparently, this was worse than I thought. The next day when we went out (church was cancelled), we saw the real damage. Lots of trees fell down..on people's homes. We were fortunate. Debris in the yard, but nothing else. Geof. was wishing a tree would fall on our van so we could replace the AC. He also wanted it to fall on our broken Air Conditioning unit so that could be replaced, as well. Yes, both our van and home do not have central air. Getting that installed soon. (!!)

So.., we weren't even sure if school was going to start on the scheduled day. The power was out in many places for a week. We only had it out for 2 1/2 days, thankfully. Our poor elderly neighbors behind us had a generator running for 7 days and I only got around to bringing them some food the day they got their power back on. Yes. I'm lame.

School did begin on time but we weren't prepared. I only sent Dayne to school so it was weird only having the one to think about and not feeling done with summer. We didn't do anything. Just today, I finally went out and bought her school supplies. Cole is home schooling and we're doing well. He seems to be happy doing it. We went to Dayne's back to school orientation and there were all sorts of kids running around and I asked Cole if he wanted to go to school and it was a quick and easy reply, "nope.". So here we are. I stressed a bit the first week because, who wouldn't? I signed June up for 3 mornings a week preschool with 4 other kids from our ward. I wasn't initially planning on that, but thought it'd be good for her to be doing something since at this point Cole has no self motivation to do school. He needs me there right next to him. I've talked to other home-school moms and they told me this is very normal at the beginning.

And I don't mind. At this point. I do make HIM re-read instructions because that tends to be where the problem lies with his schoolwork. Laziness. That was MY problem in school, at least. Anyway, on the day of the hurricane.., when the power went out, I got to work and started putting pictures on my wall. Oh dang. I forgot to take a picture of my "family" wall. I would love to have it cover the whole wall with everyone I love and care about. I'll get to that..someday. I haven't done much with the bedrooms or bathrooms. I'd like a rug in the front room to protect that beautiful hardwood floor. I'd also like a big GIANT map on the wall between the piano and the desk. I don't know what I'm doing with the fireplace. Meaning, what do we do in the winter? I don't want to use it, but I gotta cover it with something, ya know? And the book case (yellow) is just crazy. Overdone. But I do like the little spot I set up for the kids to read their library books (on the floor by that back door that we don't use?)..but not one of them has taken me up on it. The dining room needs some cute chairs or benches and a new chandelier..but that takes time and thinking and I don't have that right now. So I'll do one thing at a time. I have a big mirror that I'm painting and hanging on the big entry way wall (coral) and I need to replace the glass in the pic of Christ you see as you walk in the front door. And really, who's still reading this post..?!!