knock, knock....hello?....anyone still out there?.....

hi, do you remember me? it's been....well, way over a month since my last post! i wouldn't blame you for losing faith in me and giving up on ever hearing from me again! i mean, gosh, i would have given up on me!!

 

i know that some of you are still hanging on to the hope that i would post again (thank you so much for the email's and phone call's! they make me feel loved!), and well, it paid off because here i am! and i thank you for being a faithful "non-reader" this past month!

 

i am here to tell you that, yes, we are still alive! and yes, we made the trip to albuquerque with out any noteworthy problems. and yes, we are adjusting well. and yes, we have been busy getting settled. and yes, i am happy to say, that i think we may be getting close to the point where i feel almost at home in someone else's house.

 

it's been interesting, to say the least, and sometimes frustrating, to move into my in-laws house (this is the house mitch grew up in! pretty cool, huh! his parent's bought the house the day they got married!) and try to merge our stuff with their stuff. they are not living here while we are, but we are using most of their "stuff" so we can leave our stuff packed away until we move to the other side of town (closer to intel) after we build our house, whenever that actually happens! so i have been busy packing up some of their things to make room for our things, and cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning!

 

of course, i have also been dealing with getting the girls into school and figuring out how to be everywhere i am needed to be when i am needed to be there. i've been trying to find the best grocery stores to shop at that won't drain our savings account (i cannot believe how expensive the groceries are here!!) sadly there is no winco, oh how i miss the bulk section and the mount hood mix (anyone care to send some my way, like a HUGE bagful??? what are we going to eat at our game nights???) the other day kale'a was eating a bagel for breakfast and she said, "mom, when can we get winco bagels? these taste funny!" i couldn't have agreed more!

 

oh, did i mention that i have been cleaning a lot, too!?  don't EVEN get me started on the whole insurance drama we have been going through (i'm sure you'll hear more on this subject!). oh yeah, and don't forget that we are still trying to sell our house in a downward spiraling market (this, in and of itself, brings such joy, *read: thick sarcasm*, to my heart!).

 

all of this while trying not to lift heavy things or do too much or be too stressed, thanks to my placenta!

 

i know it sounds like i am complaining, but really i am not! this is the first time we have ever moved and it is just all so new to me! i guess now i really KNOW, first hand, why moving is one of the things on the seven most stressful things you can do list! 

 

in fact, we do like it here and i just have to share one of my most favorite things about living in albuquerque this lovely november:

 

 

this was from our first day here. see the beautiful blue sky? do you notice something about it? i'll give you a hint...something is missing from that blue sky? do you know what it is?.... CLOUDS! and do you know what has replaced those clouds?.... bright, beautiful SUNSHINE, E-V-E-R-Y-D-A-Y! notice the girls in their shorts and short sleeves and nani is quenching her thirst because she is so warm!  can i just tell you that we DO NOT miss the gray, drizzle that is falling in oregon right now!

 

 

see, the girls are loving the sunshine, too! oh, and that is "coug" or "cougar" in the background. a very dear part of our family, we love "coug"! he stays at grandma great's house just down the road a bit! we wave to him and say "bye coug" everyday as we take kale'a to preschool!

 

anyway, blah, blah, blah.... this was supposed to be a short post just to say i am alive and well. but i guess it became a long post to say i am alive and well. such is the case when i haven't posted for awhile. you can blame mitch who has abandoned us, his lovely ladies. he drove away this morning headed back to oregon for job training! yeah, i know, that was poor planning! intel should have just trained him before we left! boy how i wish i was in that truck with him when he left! there are so many of you i would have loved to see again! (to our oregon friends, stop by and say hi to mitch this week. he should be there tuesday, wednesday, and thursday staying in our empty house! i'm sure he'd love to see you!)

 

so, i am holding down the fort for 8 or so days (cry, whimper)! which means a lot of blog time for me!  once the girls are in bed at 7 sharp every night, i plan to catch up on my blogging! yipee! there is so much i want to post....from before we left oregon, to the trip here, to once we arrived and everything in between! so, forgive me for backtracking, but if i don't (since this is my "journal") there will be a huge void in my life from october '08 thru november '08 when i look back on what  we were doing then. and this has been a pretty major event in the life of us!