For A Season…..

Yesterday marked the final count down for us to be out of the box! We close on our house next week, the movers drop off our stuff from storage 3 days later. We are SO excited to be getting into our house!!

This week, we drove into the nearest big city to do some sight seeing. We found an Airsoft/Military Surplus store for the Sarge. We sipped frozen cokes overlooking a park that had a waterfall. We drove around and checked out all the big buildings. (We don’t go into big cities very often, so the kids were excited to see all the bridges and architecture.)

The weather here has been sunny for the last few days, though very cold. The sun helps morale immensely and everything seems better when we can get out of the box without mud and torrents of rain. This weekend, the kids will be tackling the off-road bike trails with hubby. I will be taking Xerxes to the dog park so he can run himself silly.

The in-laws blessed us by coming to stay with the children and critters while we went back to Florida to meet the movers. I was not looking forward to the drive back (so soon) but I was close to tears at the thought of having to drag the kids and critters on that long haul so soon.

We tried to explain to the grandparents what they were in for. The kids and pets are good, but it was definitely NOT a vacation. It has had lots of fun moments of bonding, but just as many moments of restlessness and caginess because Texas’ drought apparently ended when we arrived…..it has been raining for almost 2 weeks. The RV is surrounded by a small moat of floating grass clippings. If you make it past that, you get to tackle the squishy mud that gets between the dog’s toes and all over the carpet in the RV. There is a slick spot next to the dog walk fence that claims victims daily. It looks like a dry spot but when you step there, you lose footing and land on your backside. (Both Sarge and I have bit the dust here.) There is nothing more fun than being soaked with cold squish water and mud from head to toe at 4 in the morning. Sigh. Grandma and Grandpa seemed eager to see the kids and said they would be fine. We worried that it would be trying at best, for them to live in the RV under these conditions. We have a goal and purpose…..they volunteered to do this for their Christmas vacation!

Hubby and I were able to meet the movers and get our Florida house closed down. The drive was uneventful and went much better with 2 drivers. Hubby got food poisoning on the way down and felt really yucky for the 1st day there. We only had a limited amount of time before the movers arrived so we worked to get his project car ready to tow despite his queasiness. While we were working, the moving truck pulled up. Apparently, the movers were ahead of schedule and wanted to know if they could start the following day. Hubby agreed and we worked well into the night trying to get everything ready. What followed were two days of barely controlled chaos.

It all worked out and everything got loaded. They ran out of room in the truck, at the end, so we elected to leave our old grill behind. The movers left and we crashed at a hotel. We were up before the sun to do one last walk through, finish securing the project car and load all the tidbits that we hoped to fit into the RV. We made it home with a couple days to spare before Christmas. The kids and grandparents had fared well and they actually had some sunshine while we were gone!

It was great to have our house sold and emptied. One less stress. I wish it felt more like Christmas this year. It helped to have family here. Grandma brought a little Charlie Brown tree to put on the dashboard of the RV. The kids had helped decorate it and we put our Christmas cards under it. That really meant a lot to me. I know Christmas isn’t about the decorations or trappings, but I was struggling with not feeling like we had set apart this time to truly appreciate the Christmas message. Somewhere between the boxes, house hunting, and moving I feared that we would not have the energy to set aside Christ’s birthday in a way that would be worthy of His gift to us. Not sure if that makes sense, but somehow the tree looked more beautiful this year than on most. I also reflected upon the crazy coziness of the RV with all the animals and people. I was touched on a small level, on how Mary must have felt in a crowded stuffy barn in a city full of people, feeling far from home and wondering what would happen next. I thanked God that we were together with family, safe and warm, and even for all the critters that were crowding. It ended up being a good Christmas, despite being so very different than most years.

Hubby had to go ahead of us to start his new job. This is the longest we’ve ever been apart in our marriage. He has had to fend for himself in the kitchen and housekeeping departments. We have had to figure out car, computer, and “man” things while he was gone. It was not fun, but it was good to see the boys step up and try to do some things that their dad normally handles. I think hubby and I have both become more independent which is both good and bad. We learned to appreciate each other more. You don’t realize how much you depend on someone until they are not there to act as a sounding board, helper, comforter, and leader for an extended period of time.

I guess we expected to get the family all together again and that everything would be just like it was before he had to leave. Unfortunately, he has been sick and we have descended with all the stuff, noise, and critters. Wills are clashing and everything is being taken wrong. We are happy to be together again, but relearning how to live together and under the conditions of house and job stress, new surroundings, and very cozy living space. I did not expect the adjustment period. It’s good to be together, where we belong.

Yesterday, the kids and I piled into the truck with 2 cats and a dog and anything else that would fit and made the trip out to Texas to meet hubby. The 15 hour trip took 18 hours because of a rollover semi accident. We saw the contents of someone’s house scattered all over the freeway. It was a bit unsettling knowing that our entire house is going to be loaded up into a trailer soon. It rained for most of the trip.

The dog was drugged so he wouldn’t get motion sick every 45minutes. He was alert and able to go potty, etc and the meds worked great, but he is exhausted from the ordeal. Fat Cat only caterwauled for 3 hours straight. Then he resigned himself to the trip, only complaining occasionally. Bean, the smallest kitty, did great the whole way. She only tried to escape the cage after the 1st transfer (they were offered a litter box and food and rotated the cat cages every 3 hours). Bean climbed to the top of the cage and hung off the side for about 3 minutes before she got bored and settled into her blanket again.

The kids did great. We listened to all kinds of music and rocked out to Christmas and 80′s tunes. It wasn’t horrible, but it was a very LONG day for only one driver. We were all very glad to get out of the car. I think I will sleep for the next few days!

The boys are trying to get in as much time as possible with all their friends, before we have to move. What better way to say, “Dude, I’m gonna miss ya!” than by shooting them while dressed like a soldier and yelling like a banshee?

The boys planned Operation: Black Friday as a way to rescue all their buddies from the horrors of shopping malls and hostile Walmart shoppers. Instead, the moms dropped off their boys for 5 hours of war-games, testosterone filled activities, and much swagger talk and merriment.

The Sarge had multiple scenarios with rules to change it up for each round. They played things like Pilot Down, Kill Confirmed, Hostage, Capture the Flag, and Team Death Match. I love that they are outside and playing, you just don’t see that with all the video games these days. What impresses me most, is the age span that gets along….we have boys from 8yrs to 15 years but they watch out for the little guys (and sister) and include them too. We are really going to miss these friends.

We just hosted a fun tween birthday party!

The theme was Murder Mystery- we took the board game Clue and turned it into a 2 hour party.

Decorations: Find or make all the weapons used in the game of Clue. Trophy (from Pinewood Derby), Pistol (airsoft), Knife (rubber prop), Poison (salad oil bottle filled with food coloring and water labeled with a poison symbol), Rope (Youtube teaches how to tie a hangman’s knot on a short rope), Bat (Nerf), Candlestick, Dumbbell, Axe (boyscout tomahawk), lay these around and later hide them as part of the game. Use masking tape to make a “Chalk Outline” in a central room, where the body was found. Candles make it look cool, but we didn’t use them since it was a daytime party and our cats like to prowl.

Warm Up Games
In the Details- One person is sent out of the room and others select one person to be the leader. The leader then starts performing a silly action like wiggling their eyebrows or dancing which everyone else follows suit. When the person returns to the group, they have to try to figure out who is leading the actions. It’s best to have guests sitting in a circle or scattered, so that the leader can wait for the guesser to turn their back before changing actions. (Warning: If siblings are playing, they can usually guess who’s leading by familiar gestures or dance moves!)

Murder Wink- each player is handed a card, only one has an X on it. Whoever gets the X is the murderer. Everyone returns their cards and “bumps” around the room. (Touch palms and make eye contact, then move to the next person doing the same thing.) If someone winks at you, you count to 5 slowly (in your head) and then do a dramatic death scene while collapsing on the floor. If someone thinks they know who did it, they make a guess. The goal is to find the murderer before he kills again. Dead people cannot make guesses.

Party Favors: Erasures to “hide the crime”, Nerd Rope to hang someone with, Nail polish- for touching up after a struggle, and copious amounts of chocolate because moms like me like to ensure that we have chocolate in the house.

Main games:
Clue- we labeled all the rooms to match the board game. We hid all the weapons and people and place cards throughout the rooms. The guests were provided with color coded costumes and had to make an entrance to our Masquerade Party by introducing their character with the story they had made up. We then sent them all to different rooms to look for clues to log on their notebook (list provided in board game). After 1min 30 seconds in the room a timer went off and they rotated rooms. At the end, all joined up in the room with the chalk drawing to make accusations. Some clues were missed so it took a few guesses to find the murderer.
Treasure Hunt- the Sarge is awesome with poetry. I made a list of the places that I wanted the treasure hunt to include and he made me rhyming riddles with a medieval flare. The 1st stop had an empty favor bag, each stop after, had a party favor for the girls to find. We did this at the end so that they had their goodie bags filled to take home.

The Imp had a great time and I was surprised, but the boys had fun too. We will definitely use this one again! It could be done in a youth group setting if we divided the kids into groups of 2 or 3. Next time, we will try to tie in a food theme just to make it more fun. Maybe hide something in a frozen ice cube in someone’s glass or something.