Summer of Craziness - and our obsession over a workable routine

We thought last summer was challenging. The birth of our second child brought a lot of new challenges into our lives as we learned how to best use our time to meet their needs and ours. We seemed to be able to slide into a routine while Tina stayed home from work with the two boys. Then I took second quarter off and stayed home and we settled into a different routine. Some time in January we hired a nanny and Tina started her new job. We thought that we were moving into a more permanent routine. Turns out there were a couple of problems. One, Tina's 'perfect job' turned out to be less than perfect and two, we felt like we were running crazy to just keep up with stuff. In other words, what we had was not sustainable.

Then a new governor (and legislature) took office. His genius plan was to balance the budget on the backs of public workers (making a special effort to gut rights and benefits for public school teachers). This heaped a whole lot more stress onto an already thread-bare situation (I like mixed metaphors). So in late March I (Derek) started browsing the web for a different job in a new and different state...and I found one. To my surprise this new school wanted me on staff. Not only that, it is a 5-day boarding school that had a spot for us to live on campus rent free. Add to this some other nice job perks and the fact that we are now less than 2.5 hours from family vs. the previous 10 hours and it seemed to good to pass up.

So about a week ago we sold our house AND moved. We are far from settled and I wouldn't say we are stress free, but we are excited to start something new. Most definitely we ache like amputees for the people we moved away from. Henry asked me tonight, "Is it dark where Levi is or does he still have day?" I could barely answer his question without tears (but I have them now). I'm not sure how much he understands but he does know that his friends are far enough away that we can't see them very often anymore.

We don't know what all adventures await us at our new location. Hopefully we'll be able to update this blog more regularly again as we move into a routine that works better for us.

And now. Pictures!

 Boys at home prior to the move.

 The chaos we lived in as we packed up. And I might add a HUGE thanks to our parents for the help in the move. My mom and dad (Howard and Cathy - pictured) helped us with packing and loading and Tina's mom and dad (Delmar and Janet) helped us with the unloading.

 The moving trailer before loading (short note on this - we surprised ourselves by only using 14 linear feet in this trailer to pack nearly all of our belongings!)

 Outside our new residence (we will be sharing this with about 25 high school girls - yikes!)

 Henry riding around campus.

 Henry looking pensive.

Priceless photo of Tina and the boys.