We Begin Again :)

Bad Tam has been slacking in the blog dept. I know! My best excuses are;
1. That we spent three days at the pool this week. One day Reagan had a really nice little friend, Emily over and then Reagan went to Vacation Bible School with her and had a blast. Thank you Sharisa for the inspiration on Mormons and Vacation Bible School. We need it too. Then another day my friend Marianne came over with her seven kids and we just played all day.

2. My friend, Julianna, and her daughter, Manuela, came on an adventure with us to Sevierville, TN. It is about 1 hr 20 min from us. I found out about Forbidden Caverns and just had to explore. The caves used to be home to the Cherokee Indians during bad weather and then in the 1920's the bootleggers took them over to hideout and make moonshine. At one point we were 630 feet below the surface. It was awesome. Surprisingly, I must report that Dane did not set off any alarms, jump from any cliffs, run along an off-limit path or do anything too .... Danelike. (I forgot my camera so Julianna is going to email pictures and then I will post them.)

After the Caverns we went to a great Rain Forest Adventure Park. Like a little mini-zoo. Lemurs, lots and lots of snakes, kangaroos, emus, turtles, lizards, birds, funky frogs and a really ugly lungfish. We missed the big show so we will have to go back again to see it when we visit the Chinese Circus across the street. Nothing too cheesy for us:)

3. On Saturday we went to do a little ritual I have only seen in the South. Here, when you buy/sell a house both parties meet at closing and sign together. Then you sit at the table and the seller tells you about the neighborhood and takes you on a final walk thru of the house to show you how the use the intercom, sprinkler system etc. and where to find all the manuals to the appliances and answer any questions you have about the house. Is that not the most civilized thing you have ever heard of? Our seller is going to be out of town on our closing date and we couldn't move it up because we are going to be out of town for a few weeks so she wanted to do the walk thru before we left. There is not a part of me that wanted to meet the people that bought our house in Portland. Except that part that wanted to smack them. Grrrr.

Now, would you believe we are off on another adventure? T & KRuD (Tam, Kale, Reagan & Dane) are headed to California. We drove to Atlanta tonight and will catch a flight to San Fran tomorrow. Now, I must admit some skittishness about this one. I haven't flown with Dane since he was 5 months old. Driving is at least in my control to some extent. I can stop and change a diaper, hand out snacks, threaten some fighting kids and just plain stop if we need a break to run around. Tomorrow, we will embark on a 5 hr non-stop flight in an enclosed space with the Danester. Are you as nervous about this as I am. Let us pray!

Dearest Erron flies out on the 4th and flies back a day before us. Does anyone see what I see? There better be bonus points in heaven for this one. It will be so worth it though. My best friend, or bff for all of you under age 25, Michelle is living in Monterrey for the next 18 months so we had to get there ASAP to see her. I am even giddy about it.

For all of my friends that love reading I just can't get my act together to do anything on my Goodreads page so let me tell you here that I just finished The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Some of you know that I love Stephanie Meyer and think she is a great story teller. What she lacks is a finesse with the words. Setterfield is like an artist with words. A real writer. I liked the book. It wasn't what I expected and sometimes that is even better.

Right now I am in the middle of reading Eat, Love Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert. I almost didn't read it because someone told me it was one of those Oprah books and I didn't want to be one of those women who would read a book Oprah pimped. Not sure if that was true but I already had the book and it was downstairs when I need a book to run out the door with. So I started it. At first I was really excited because one of my dreams is to be able to travel and discover the 'real me'. Not far into it I got a little bummed because Gilbert seems to begin this journey after throwing away a perfectly good marriage. It is not my place to judge but that made this a little less special for me.

It is true that I can't take off for a year around the world by myself. Some days there is only a very thin veil stopping me but if I have figured anything out in the last little while it is that I never would have discovered some things about myself had I not been willing to stick it out and include my kids on the adventure. I could relocate across the country by myself any day. I have even done that a few times. But did I know that I could drive through 10 states for 2,800 miles with three kids before this year? Nope. The kids and I had done lots of trips to CA, OR, WA, ID, UT and WY but that was known territory. Since March we have travelled over 6,000 miles together. Reagan has been to 20 states and the boys 19.

My friend, Marianne, lent me another book called Chickens In The Headlights. It is like comic relief. It is told from the perspective of a boy who grew up in a family of 7 boys and he pulls no punches when he tells story after story about the mischief they were up to from early AM to late PM. Every time I need a chuckle, aka about day 4 of Erron being out of town, I read a chapter. It is too funny. I don't want to tell any of the stories because Reagan reads my blog and I don't want her to get together with the boys to carry out one of their schemes. We already find our way into enough fun.

Have a good night everyone.