Allred Hotel

I went back to the house this morning and took some pictures--for the last time! I still can hardly believe it. I actually ran into the new owners who were doing their walk through and it was just so crazy to try and picture any family other than ours living there. The wife was super cute and had the thought that she might pour cement near where our hand prints are on the sidewalk and add their own. I almost started bawling right there.

Anyway, here are the pictures. I became a little obsessed with the apple.

Jonah, practicing his hand at photography.

Here I was worried the scorpions were going to come out and get me when really I should have been worrying about the ants that were crawling into Hazel's car seat, biting her chubby little legs!

Blog Fog

Somehow I'm just not feelin' the whole blog thing. It seems everything I really want to say is either too personal or too lame to put out there. And yet, I've loved having the blog to keep track of our lives, however lame. So I'm torn. And undecided--which means you get to put up with me for a while longer...if you're still there that is :)

Tonight Josh and I went to the temple. I didn't want to go. We had a million errands to run before our California trip this weekend and I'm stressing out (which Josh has informed me I am not allowed to do). But because I try to be obedient every now and then we went and I'm so glad we did. I just kept having the overwhelming feeling that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I got to leave a little more grateful for my religion and a little less worried about whether or not we'll have toilet paper at the beach house. Granted, the gratitude only lasted me about 6 seconds before I started worrying again. Hey, that just means I need the temple even more and that's not a bad thing.

For the Greer archives:

Char is officially potty-trained! I'm going to ignore that she peed on the floor yesterday and today. Those isolated incidences were strictly random and are in no way indicators that I have failed in my third attempt to successfully potty train our children. Seriously, would that be depressing or what?! Right. Moving on.

My childhood home is sold. It was sold once before...and then purchased again. But I'm afraid the permanence is real this time. I didn't expect to be very emotional about it. It's hit or miss with me. I cry without fail when the plane's going down in 'The Incredibles' yet I didn't see the sale of the home I lived 18 years in as much of a tear jerker. Then I took a couple friends to the house for some end of the season apple picking before closing date. I gave them the grand tour, showed them the "secret" room and the memories came flooding back. I'll admit, good and bad. That house holds them all. Moving the infernal, scorpion-infested wood pile along just about the entire perimeter of the yard. The gardens, corn patches and bountiful fruit tress. Best friends' homes on either side of mine. Playing 'scarder than heck' with the lights off, pitch-blackness, going around the house trying to scare the heck out of each other. Our hand prints in the sidewalk that curves around the house. Skating parties out on the driveway where you could hear us making up dances to 'Bar, bar, bara anne.' The music. Always the music with my mom and her fifty violin students, my sister's twenty, my ten. And my Dad. I'll miss my Dad in that house. He's everywhere in it. It was his dream. How grateful I am that he took a chance in building that home. I have all my childhood memories to thank him for. While we were picking apples, one of my friends asked, "Did you know you had a cool house?" I'm not sure I thought about it when I was a kid. Lots of my friends had cool houses. Looking back I realize just how "cool" it was. And again, I'm nothing but grateful. Farewell, old 158th street home. Serve your new family well.