Hooray Daddy!

There was a half marathon near Richmond the first weekend that Mom and Chelsea would be in town.  We had briefly discussed maybe running it with her, but since she would have just finished her first full marathon the weekend before, we obviously decided against it.

But the Wednesday before the run, one of Chris' colleagues offered her bib to Chris because she had already registered but no longer would be able to run.  He took it.

 

So on Saturday morning, we got up, made a few signs, the kids ran around the house shouting encouragement to Chris who was already running, and we headed out to meet him at the finish line.

We arrived at a perfect time, about 10 minutes before he was set to finish.  We saw him coming, got our signs ready, and I had to get onto the course and flag him down before he saw us.When he got nearby, Jayce ran out onto the course with him and they crossed the finish line together.  The race photographers got pictures from the front of them both smiling as they cross the line, Jayce with his sign still in hand.  We're definitely buying one.  I loved it.Happy race day Chris!

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The Shower and Mean Parents

Hannah has this new thing that she loves, it's called our shower.

Actually, she hates to take a shower.  Both kids do.  They prefer baths, with their bubbles/boats/tea party capabilities, and that's fine with me.  

But Hannah likes to climb into our shower, shut the door, sit down and hang out in there.  She lines up the shampoo and soap bottles and then she rearranges them.She opens the door to peer out at us and then slams it shut, looking startled and delighted at the same time.  Chris bikes home from work almost every day, so he often showers when he gets in.  This means that the shower floor is almost always wet when Hannah climbs in, so she usually emerges with her lower half soaked.  This day she started off in just her diaper, so it wasn't so bad.

Jayce noticed that Hannah was getting some attention in this "play the shower game," so he jumped in as well.  Then Chris had a mean parent idea.  And I went with it.

It didn't really work.  But still, here is the video.

I think it's kind of funny that the whole time Hannah is just really excited to see Chris.  I'm both glad and sad that it didn't work. :)

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Playing With Dad

The pictures are from one evening last week.  Shortly after Chris got home the kids were all over him, so everyone moved upstairs for the beloved "Airplane/Jump All Over Dad/Pretend The Bed Is A Trampoline."  It's a crowd pleaser.And that's it.  No story, just pictures and a lot of laughing that night.

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A Noteworthy Room

Chris walked through the flat with a letting agent before the kids and I flew over, so he was the first to see everything in person.  As he was telling me about it that night, he mentioned the washing machine.  I said something about it being in the kitchen, which is where they often are located, and he stopped me.

"Oh no, it's not in the kitchen.  It's under the stairs!  Yeah, it's like a little Harry Potter room under there.  There's a door that's like, up to my knee, and the washing machine is back in there.  Maybe we'll get Jayce to shimmy on in there to do the laundry or something."  

So this is what I have in my mind.  And then we arrive,

and we make fun of Chris a LOT about the whole door up to his knee thing.  Because it's a lot bigger than up to his knee.

Like, I can stand in it.  And try to take pictures to show that it is basically just a half an inch taller than me.  If I'm standing straight, I fit perfectly.  If I have my hair in a ponytail on the top of my head, it hits the ceiling.

And I'll make the pictures black and white to try to minimize the non-shower non-makeup-ness of the day.  Which works like a charm.

So yeah, this is our little laundry room/closet area.  

It has a slanted ceiling, so I can only stand in the part that is right in front of the dryer, 

I keep my sorted dirty clothes in these little wire racks, a variety of random things on the shelves in there, because it's also serves as a hall closet for us, so shoes, umbrellas, my camera bag, toiletries, etc. all live there.

It's not much, but it works.  I have to do a load every day to stay right on top of it, because it all has to line dry, which takes part or most of the day.  So I can't let it get backed up, or there will be so many "washed but not all the way dry" clothes draped all across random furniture in the living room.

Hannah always comes in with me while I'm doing the laundry, and attempts to put on everyone's shoes, or starts emptying the laundry basket contents onto the floor.  Or on days when I'm taking an extra long time because I'm standing in the laundry room taking pictures, she does both.

This is random, but I forgot how small laundry bottles are here.  It's concentrated, but of course you use even less when you have a small capacity washer in the first place.  My detergent and fabric softener bottles are smaller than most bottles of ketchup.  Kind of funny. Very random.

And if you're wondering how difficult it is to take a picture of your hand in between a few bottles to show the size of something, while stepping back far enough to show the whole picture, but not have your whole arm in the picture, and keep your wrist from being at a strange angle, let me just say, this is pretty difficult.  Consider yourself warned.

Happy laundry day!  That is, happy Wednesday.  And every other day.

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Father's Day Questions

This post is pretty belated at this point.  I know I've been saying that a lot lately, but still.  

For Father's Day this year, among the gifts I had Jayce answer a few questions about Chris, and typed his answers exactly as he said them.

(Jayce's voice is in red.)

** I think I've explained this before, but "bellies out" is what Jayce calls he and Chris' playtime.  It started when he was around 2 years old, Chris would come home from work, get attacked by Jayce, and say, "Hang on a minute buddy, let me change and then we'll wrestle."  So, in Jayce's mind, the evening has 3 events: 1.) Chris arrives home from work, 2.) he takes off his shirt, 3.) they play.** 

Anyway, after I had asked my questions, Jayce decided that he had some questions to ask me as well.  Luckily I still had my computer out so I could record them word for word.

Mom, what will we travel in?

Car.

No. Airplane to London.

What if somebody is stuck on a roof, what will a fireman use to get the people off the roof?

Ladder.

No. You were close, but they will use a firetruck to get a person down from a roof.

If a door is locked what do they use to put out a fire?

An axe.

Right.

What if something is broken and it's going fast and making a messy mess, what do firemen use to fix something that's making a messy mess?

I don’t know.

Tools.

What makes the planet? What makes the houses?

Wood.

No. Workers

This boy.  His whole world is about wrestling with his dad, and miscellaneous fireman information. So funny and so fun.  I love it.

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On Change, Part 2: Getting A Job

(I wrote this post on the evening of Chris' job interview, May 23.  Part 1 is here.)

As I said previously, we signed the paperwork for the sale of the house on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we received news that Chris had been shortlisted for a job at a school in London.  

The interviews would be the following Wednesday, so they arranged for him to interview via Skype.

When I found out when the interview was, I was furious.  (I exchanged several non-ladylike text messages with Chris after he told me.)  We were headed out to Florida in the next few days, a drive which would take us over 15 hours and require 2 nights in hotels while we were en route.  Due to the upcoming Memorial Day holiday weekend, we only had 4 full days in Florida, and the interview was going to be smack dab in the middle.  I was furious, not with Chris, but that our 4 days of what was supposed to be stress free, job free, non-work and family-only time was now going to be interrupted.  I was sure that the cloud of upcoming interview/post interview was going to negate the stress-free beach days we had been eagerly looking forward to for months.  

Chris promised me that this wouldn't be the case, that he didn't feel overly attached to this job or burdened to prepare largely for it, and that this wouldn't distract him from the family time that we had been planning.  I was glad to hear this, but still not happily on board.

As we drove, Chris would periodically try to start conversation about this job in London and what our lives would look like there, and I didn't really participate.  In my mind, there was no way this job was going to happen.  In terms of jobs and opportunities like this, I tend to take a "We'll just wait and see" approach.  Though it is impossible not to start thinking about what your life would look like when looking at new jobs and opportunities, I try to stop myself from going very far down that train of thought.  Chris has had a few opportunities in the past that he/we were extremely excited about, and when they didn't work out it was a very hard crash. So I know that my gut reaction of "let's not count our chickens before they hatch" is mostly motivated out of a sense of self preservation for he and I both.

Also, there have been opportunities abroad in the past, including in our beloved Edinburgh, and we had mutually agreed that our days of living overseas were behind us.  So I didn't see how this job opportunity really changed anything.

We arrived in Florida, had a few days of beach and water fun, celebrated Jayce's birthday, talked about the job opportunity occasionally but not predominantly as I had anticipated.  Each afternoon Chris would stay in the condo and nap while the kids napped, and I would go over to the pool to have some time to myself to process it all.  I remember the first day, grumpily flipping past any song in my itunes that was British or reminded me of our time in Edinburgh.  But the second day I listened to them, and relaxed into the idea of possibly having a British existence once again.

I thought about a conversation that Chris and I had several years ago, where we each acknowledged that our home towns, though we loved them, didn't really feel like "home" to us anymore.  We had lived away for so long, we had changed, the cities had changed, and they just didn't have that warm "homey" feeling anymore.  Lincoln didn't really feel like home, Cincinnati never did for Chris, but Edinburgh did, to a degree.  This was the first time that we recognized that the feeling of "home" that we used to associate with a place, we now found in one another, corny though that may sound. I decided that if this job were to work out, IF, then we would be just fine, and probably as happy as ever.

On Wednesday morning Chris had his job interview.  He had arranged to use a conference room at the condo where we were staying, and the kids and I played at the condo while he interviewed.

When he came home he told me a bit about it.  He was excited.  He told me it went really well.  He told me about some of the questions and some of his answers.  He told me about the overall tone of the conversation and about the interview panel.  He told me he had a really good chance of getting it.

While we were still talking the Head of the School called him and offered him the job.  In less than an hour after the interview.  

He stepped outside to the patio to take the call and when he came back in he was beaming.  

He started telling me about the position that they had offered.  It was, is, unbelievable.  He had applied for a teaching position at a lower level, but they offered him one at a higher level.  It involves most all of his strengths and passions.  Research, writing, supervising, teaching, leading, directing.

On top of that, they wanted him.  The first words out of the guy's mouth were, "Chris, we love you."  It was not a situation where, they needed someone to teach the Bible, Chris could teach the Bible, so that was that, but a situation where they wanted him.  While they were talking in his interview, discussing his areas of expertise and interest, and he shared his research passions and future projects, they got excited about what he was doing and going to do, and wanted him to partner with him and have him be a leader at their institution.

Chris told me about the position that they had discussed with his eyes wide, still reeling from it all.  And I said, "Well...that's it.  We have to take it."

Even I was surprised by my seemingly sudden change of heart.  Chris was very surprised.  But, in my mind, particularly on the heels of Chris having worked at a school where they were not always enthusiastic about his strengths or successes, the opportunity to work for a place that was so excited to have him do exactly what he is passionate about, gifted in, and called to do, well that is a no brainer for me.

Every few days over the last few weeks I've thought to myself, "Ahhh, that was fast!"  But I didn't realize quite how much until I started typing it out on here.  So excuse me for the dates, but.

April 22, call realtor to put house "quietly" on the market.

April 24, a few showings are lined up.

April 25-May 6, we are out of town, the house shows multiple times, including to a double showing to one couple.

May 8, the interested couple puts their house on the market.

May 10, they make us an offer.

May 14, we accept their offer.

May 16, Chris finds out about a job interview the next week.

May 23, Chris interviews and receives a job offer.

Apparently this is what's next for us.  And I can't stop singing Kanye.

Who's the hottest in the world right now, just touched down in London town...

Linking to the Wiegands.

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I Think You Know

Dear Chris,

 I was going to tell you today just how much happiness our life together has brought me, but I think you know.  

Our 12 years together and 9 years of marriage have brought countless joys.  But there are two that really stand out.

I was going to tell you how much I love being a mom to our two amazing kids, but I think you know.  

There isn't a week that goes by where I'm not documenting the stories of their rambunctiousness, so that we can hold on tightly to these perfect memories.

I was going to tell you how you're such a good dad, but I think you know.  

Both of your kids are calling your name as soon as you get home, and coming running (or crawling) often before you're even through the door.  You are the apple of our eyes, all of us.

I was going to tell you how glad I am that you are supportive of my wants and desires, but I think you know.  

Staying home with the babes makes me so happy.  And photography has turned out to be so much more rewarding than I had originally anticipated, and I really love it.  

I was going to tell you thanks for buying me this beautiful house, but I think you know.

I have loved turning this house into a home with you, and raising these babies into little people.  I'll cherish the memories that we've had playing in the water outside, swinging the babies on the tree swing, you and Jayce chasing each other through the house with one game or another, and then fixing cookies and settling into the couch to watch Wipeout.

I was going to tell you thank you for the adventure that our life together has been, but I think you know.

We have more adventures ahead of us, and I'm more than willing to take them on so long as you are by my side.

Happy 9 years my love.  

Xoxo

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March Catch Up

I am so far behind on our last month that I debated not trying to catch up.  Just leaving out the March happenings, Easter pictures, and random narration.  

But I just can't make myself do it.  I have those pictures already, and leaving them out would leave out a month of our story. :)  So there will just be much less narration than usual, and more pictures, because who has time to pick favorites when there is no time in the first place?  

Anyway, in March...

1.) Erin's basketball team had a tournament in Springfield, and Andy and Patsy come to visit.  While they were here, there was a horrible storm with tornados all around Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio, so we spent all day watching the weather channel and getting updates from friends and family who were in those areas.  Luckily everyone was safe and Hannah got in some good snuggling.

2.) Jayce did jumping jacks somewhere and decided late one afternoon that he was going to put on a "jump clap show" for me, and insisted that I take pictures.  There were lots of bed acrobatics.

We did this until Chris came home that evening.

3.) Hannah meets Sofie.

While we were out shopping one day I passed by the very popular toy, (and surprisingly expensive, for what it is), Sofie the Giraffe.  I picked it up and said to Hannah, "I don't know what is so great about this thing.  Do you even like this Hannah?"  I handed it to her, it squeaked, she smiled, it kept her attention the whole time we were in the store, and I bought it.  The checkout lady was like, "Oh, Sofie!  Yes, the babies all love that one!"  

It is a totally cute little giraffe, and it's squeak sounds just like a dog toy.  Which is great for keeping the baby's attention, but also great for driving the mom insane, particularly in the hands of the brother.  Sofie is currently on top of the fridge.

Hannah went all WWF on Sofie, with Sofie's head pinned between her feet, and chewing on her legs.  My crazy girl.

4.) Hannah pretended like she was going to crawl, but didn't.  Instead she just mastered the plank.  Not "planking" like the internet/middle school-er phenomenon, but "the plank," like in an abs class.

5.) Jayce and Chris bonded over clippers.  Chris let him cut his hair for a good few minutes before he had to seize control of the situation, and his hair.  But Jayce was very serious about his role.

6.) I was upstairs one night when I heard Chris burst into that "I'm trying to suppress this, but really it's hysterical" type of laughter.  I came down to this.

They were playing detective, and in the absence of pants, (really, who wears pants when they're playing detective anyway?), Jayce decided to use his underwear as a holster.  

As one does, I guess.  

We tried not to laugh at him, because he wasn't trying to be funny.  Just trying to have easy access to his detective tools.

And that's March. :)

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