Wow, pictures, finally!!!!!

Hm. Just when I was beginning to wonder if it was a glitch in my computer that was causing Blogger to not want to upload my pictures, it actually worked this time. >>huh<<>

This is a picture looking into our moving truck. Left to right: Jesse (Tucson campus minister), Joe (up top, green shirt -- he and his wife, Joanna, participate wtih the campus ministry), Travis (Ina Rd. youth minister), Justus, and Antonio, our precious neighbor.

As it turns out, this picture shows basically only Joanna (Joe's wife), though you can see the guys working in there, too.

I meant to take more pictures of our movers, but, alas, didn't get it done; there was just a LITTLE BIT of work to do!! I didn't get Desiree, Ben, Dick, Roderick, Raphael, oh ... who else? It's been almost a month! I know I'm forgetting someone.... (sigh)

This picture shows Justus with Antonio and his swwwweet, Spanish-speaking wife, Theresa. Her English had gotten so much better that with my tiny amount of Spanish, she and I were able to communicate really very well; it was Theresa (and Antonio) whom we paid to clean our house after we drove away that Saturday afternoon.

There will be many more moving pictures I will post ... as Blogger allows it. -gr

On Thursday after Elaine got home from her second day of work, Jeremy and I left N & J here with her so we could go visit a family in the hospital who just had a new (their 3rd) baby!! Only Jeremy had met the husband on one occasion a long time ago, so it was kind-of strange to go visiting someone we didn't know AT ALL. lol They are close to our age, though, and have quite a lot in common, so it was a really nice time. The weather got so bad just as we were leaving the house that a tornado watch was posted. It was super-DARK and super-WINDY, and we almost decided not to go. However, it was determined, "If we begin now letting the weather in Iowa determine our plans, there's no end to that!" We just listened to the radio on the way there, and by the time we got to the hospital (15 min.) it was sunny; weird. Jeremy was hungry for supper when we got home, so we had a breakfast supper way earlier than usual, and then spent the evening playing Guitar Hero and Boggle. I got lots of laundry done this day, AND (drum roll please) we got Bible Time up and going again, FINALLY. (argh -- SO DISJOINTED we have been on so many things since this move.... It's been a challenge to bring everything back together the way we want it!)

Friday, Jeremy's day off, Elaine also had the day off, so we took her to the zoo with us. We were already a few days late in turning in to the government our packet of papers to make our homeschooling legal, and since that office is directly across the street from the zoo, we decided it would be good to spend a couple hours zooing on that day. The zoo was mostly deserted (awesome!) so we just moseyed through, and got lots of attention from zoo staff. The children rode the camel, and the camel walker-guy encouraged the two-week-old camel calf up into a standing position for us so we could see her and watch her 'kiss' his face. blech! lol The girl who was feeding the Magellan penguins WHOLE FISH explained to us that penguins have neither teeth nor a gizzard, just super-strong digestive juices. The fish are the same size as the penguins' mouths/throats, and just go straight down. (!!!) We also got to watch the elephant show, with "P.J.", Blank Park Zoo's baby elephant. SSSSSSSSO CUTE!!!!! The only thing I enjoyed as much as that show was the looks on our children's faces (especially Justus's) as they watched the show -- just SPARKLY eyes and wide smiles, laughing in excitement and amazement at everything elephants can do, even baby elephants! We have seen elephant shows before (though, maybe not Justus, come to think...), but never this close-up.

I chopped some rhubarb which Lyndsay had given me on Wednesday evening. I planned to make it into two pies on Saturday, one for us, one for Sunday's potluck lunch, so doing the cleaning and chopping the day ahead seemed a wise way to decrease the amount of work I had to do on Saturday. In the evening I requested Jeremy's help to figure out a different arrangement for our living room; we were spending very little time in the room at all, because the layout had turned out to be really dysfunctional. I was determined not to unpack the boxes of stuff to put in the bookshelves until we knew for sure where the bookshelves would land, so ... it was becoming imperative to me that we get the living room figured out. I unpacked, then, late into the night, and the house has 'felt' MUCH better since then.

Saturday was a day of much yard work. It has rained so much in the last 10 days that it was hard to find a time when we could do it! I mowed the front while Jeremy trimmed the hedge/bushes out front. Then while I COOLED DOWN and then cooked supper (a 'white' supper, the way it turned out: cod, cauliflower, and parmesan Pasta Roni), Jeremy mowed the back and cleaned out the 'gutter' thing at the bottom of our driveway which is a downhill slant to the house. I also did get the pies made, and did laundry.

Sunday was great, though quite 'normal'. There was much good fellowship (and food) during lunch, and in the afternoon the children napped while Jeremy re-built one of his big Star Wars Lego things for his office (It hadn't survivied the move very well.); then he rested while I spent some phone-time with Stephanie (yay!), catching up some.

This week, I think, is going to be the most 'normal' week in a month. The vast majority of the unpacking and settling in is done, so I'm expecting our routine to fall back into place. For example, I actually get to go grocery shopping today (Monday). What, with the car's two breakdowns and the plumbing going out, we had been 'limping along', financially, through the second half of last month. The Lord blessed us with a number of unexpected blessings that rrrreally helped us out in this regard, however!! We are so thankful. However, it is also good to be 'back to normal'. I'm hoping maybe some of the changes of the past few days will help pull me out of the blah-ness I have been feeling the past number of weeks. ANNNNNNNNND, this is the time that I get to hunt down a health food store here in Des Moines; what will I find, I wonder!! :)