Fun with Dry Ice

This weekend Dwight and Duease brought us one of our favorite things - Graeter's Ice Cream. This is possibly the best ice cream EVER (as my Cincy friends can attest). They brought it packed in dry ice. Almost as excited as he was about the ice cream, Andy was excited to show the kids what dry ice is and how it sublimes. (He just corrected me that he was MUCH more excited about the Graeter's!) Becca was intrigued by the process. She is one who likes to know how and why the world works. 

Also check out the growing gap as Becca continues to lose more teeth!

Mother's Day Surprise

We got home LATE last night (you know MIDNIGHT, which for us is quite late). This morning Andy and I were up before the kids - who slept until 8:30! Andy wanted to run to Kroger's because we were out of the jugs of water we use to make coffee (otherwise our coffee maker has issues). I told him that I was headed to the store later because all of Andy's family would be here in the afternoon. He was insistent. Maybe I was just tired but I didn't catch that something was up. I mean it didn't quite make sense, but I thought he really needed coffee. He came back almost 40 minutes later, and look at my surprise....

I love tulips! Becca and Josh made things for me in school. They are such dear ones!

More goodbyes and other news

Yesterday, my parents gave us a great going-away party. Thank you so much, Dad and Mom! It was a great time to see family and people who have been a part of my life for so long. Thanks to all of you who traveled so far to say good-bye to us! Definitely a relaxing time to hang out and catch up.      I am excited because Andy is home from his time of training in Northern Indiana. He is most likely off until we are in China. Now granted, "off" is a relative term - we are both going to be busy until we get on the plane in TWO WEEKS! Nonetheless, I am beyond excited to have him around to help. Maybe now I can get more than a couple boxes packed at a time? And the continuous string of showings have come to a close. We had showings every day last week from Sunday to Saturday (except on Monday). But people were kind and gave me Mother's Day off! :-)

The Siege Continues

So, maybe it is a conspiracy by all the local realtors to keep me from packing, but we have had MORE showings this week than any other so far!  There have been weeks in the past that we have had maybe one (usually on the weekend), but this week we have had 4 and another scheduled for tomorrow! So, no packing happened today. Maybe I'll tackle some tonight, but maybe not because our showing tomorrow is in the morning. [sigh] At least the house is already clean and the kids are headed to bed so it will still be clean in the morning!

TOO MANY SHOWINGS!?

Okay, this is probably not something to complain about (especially in this housing market), but these showings are wearing me out! In the 6 or so weeks that our house has been on the market, we have had 15+ showings.  Up until now, I have just been humored with it and not really stressed. I think the difference is that I have now moved into a packing mindset. Our ocean shipment leaves next week, so I have been packing like mad. Yesterday, Josh was feeling under the weather, so we were staying close to home. As Josh and Tori played, I packed. I had boxes and things everywhere and then got a call to schedule a showing that night. No big deal - I just moved all the boxes back into the garage and cleaned up the house. This morning I got all the packing things back out and packed a few more boxes and (you guessed it) I got another call to show the house this evening. In the words of Charlie Brown, "GOOD GRIEF!" Though I am still not stressed, I think more than anything I am annoyed.  I don't want to be cleaning right now.  I want to pack. Just as an aside.... did I mention that Andy is out of town all week? Oh well, such is life. :-) I am now off to finish one last box (maybe two) before I move all the packing supplies BACK into the garage!

Birthday suitcases

Becca got a rolling backpack/carry-on suitcase for her birthday from Grandma and Grandpa.  It is way cool and she is SO excited to have her own suitcase.  When she got it, Josh looked at it longingly and we knew that a suitcase was in his future as well!  While we were out shopping for luggage this weekend, Josh found this little carry-on in Colts blue.  Amazingly enough, it was also on clearance!  We knew that Josh had found his birthday suitcase.  He has taken it everywhere with him and is telling everyone about it.  One of the things he was most excited about was that his suitcase had "seatbelts" for his animals so they could be safe. On the way home from Cincinnati, he even fell asleep holding on to it!

Check out the "seatbelts"!

He wouldn't let it go, even in sleep!

Saying Goodbye

I feel like we are at the beginning of the end.  Andy's last day at his former job was Friday.  We took our last trip to Cincinnati before we leave.  We also had the first of our going away parties (in Cincinnati).  The Dumfords and Kershners gave us a great send off and we were able to connect with people - some of which we have not seen in years!  We then hung out with these dear friends on Saturday night and stayed up way too late, because we weren't ready to say goodbye. [Granted maybe we are just getting old that 12:30 is late!] Aren't goodbyes so hard?  I didn't think this was going to be as hard as it was.  I mean, we don't even live in Cincinnati anymore and don't see these friends on a daily, weekly (or even monthly) basis. But Becca and I both were in tears as we drove out of Cincinnati. I guess this will always be a bit of a home for us as we have so many people we care about here. As we were driving and Becca and I were talking about the things and people we are going to miss, my dear girl turned to me and to ask what I was going to miss most.  I shared with her that I was going to miss our friends, family and even our house. Becca then turned to me and said, "But Mommy, we can talk with these people on Skype and that will be almost like seeing them!"  How is it that my little girl (who had been crying at the start of our talk) was trying to cheer me up? I am amazed at her perspective on things so many times!