Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

Well, here we are, glamping it up in our almost-empty house. Glamping = glam + camping = not roughing out in the woods but roughing it with air mattresses and camp chairs pulled around the 32" TV.  Hot water and a full kitchen replete with paper plates.  We are using a packing blanket as the luxe rug in the living room. A 32" TV people...we are truly, truly roughing it.  AND, no Wii. I write this surrounded by three children playing iPad, iPhone and Nintendo DS...I think they'll survive.  They are patiently waiting the bestowment of their new Kindles, which they will get at some point just before we leave Seattle for Japan. I have little doubt that I will get my money's worth out of those Kindles.  I've set them up with some cool educational apps, some not-so-educational but damn funny apps and a bunch of books.  Set up the parental controls and passworded purchases.  We will load a few more TV shows and movies today and then we shoul...

My bricks are all done! (around the flower beds)   Random pictures of William eating...in St. James.    In a hotel in Charleston, WV.   Dressed up like a dragon at home last week.   The fence!  Needs its gates.   The fence!

I'm holding it together pretty well.  Maybe you don't know this about me, but I'm kind of a worrier...I have a hard time believing that things are going to work out for the best.  A pessimist, let's just be honest here.  It's a bit of hard work being such a drudge, I assure you. My husband, on the other hand, while not exactly being a bright-eyed optimist, believes that things will always work out.  He never worries.  I swear to you...the house could be burning down and he'd just shrug and say "Don't worry, it will all work out". Needless to say, this difference between our levels of worry has caused a few terse arguments over the past weeks.  I refuse to relax and believe that Navy bureaucrats somewhere are doing their jobs correctly and getting all of our necessary paperwork into place.  How many times, dealing with the Navy over these years has a piece of paperwork "magically" gone missing, information not entered correctly, etc? ...

When I left Norfolk for Newport almost three weeks ago, the van had 9,000 miles on it.  Today, it has over 12,000.  Save a couple hundred driven by my sister on the way to the Black Hills, all those miles were driven by yours truly.  I think I have saddle sores. People are generally shocked at my ability to drive for hours on end with my kids, but the truth is, my kids are awesome riders.  Awesome.  For example, the boys didn't have to stop to pee even once on the trip from the Black Hills back to St. James.  And yes, I made sure they had stuff to drink.  They just have a supernatural ability to get in the car and turn off the faucet, I guess.  Those three are thrilled to basically be able to sit on the couch watching TV all day, only in a moving vehicle. How we would get by without the DVD player and the DS and the iPad and the Kindle, though, I don't know.  We are finally back home after driving from Norfolk to Newport for a weekend...