The Farm and the Lake: Memorable & Highlights

We left Florida and headed to Matt and Melanie's for the night, and then onto the farm for the next few days.

Highlights:

-Seeing all of the Keiths, who were temporarily all rounded up in the same place for some family pictures.  

-Jayce and Hannah getting to play with Hadley and Madeline.  There is nothing like playing with your cousins.  The friendships are instant and sweet.

-A perfect day on the lake.  The weather was hot enough that the water felt great, but not so hot that we were baking the whole time.  Sunny skies, a light breeze, not crowded, cold drinks in the cooler, everyone felt like getting in the water and playing around a bit.  It was exactly what we had wanted.

-Jayce asking to tube by himself, which spoke volumes about his confidence in the water.  It didn't last long, he immediately went under, but he didn't cry and we were impressed that he wanted to try in the first place.

-Dinner at Betty's OK Country Kitchen.  It's always been a favorite, is the perfect way to end a day at the lake, and it did not disappoint.

Memorable:

-This was Hannah's first time ever on the boat.  She wasn't nervous at all, wanted to help dad drive, and demanded to hold grandpa's hand whenever she was out on the dock.

-Chris stood up on the tube before crashing hard.  He was extremely proud of himself.

-When we were picking out where to sleep, Jayce wanted to sleep on a very narrow cot in one of the rooms.  While he was sleeping he fell out of it, and the noise absolutely scared me out of my skin. (The sound of your child's limbs hitting linoleum floor from their bed is significant.)  Chris helped him back into bed and tucked him in, and after my prompting placed a doubled-over quilt next to the bed in case it happened again.  He fell out of bed 2 additional times that night.  When I asked him about it in the morning, he sheepishly replied that he fell because he was being a wiggle worm. :)  The next night we slept in different beds, and no one fell.

-Jayce and Hannah golfing little plastic balls around the house, sidewalk chalk, swinging in the swings, drinking hot coffee on cool mornings on the back gazebo, and bare feet in wet morning grass.  Overall, just watching our kids run around and enjoy a place that we have enjoyed together for over a decade, and a place that has always been a part of Chris' life.

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Airports and International Flights: Take 3

For our first international flight with the kids, it went like this.  The second international flight was just Hannah and I, and it went like this.  This was the third.

When people would ask me if I was excited about our trip, I would say something along the lines of, "When we are in our bed in Florida, about to fall asleep, I'm going to get so excited about our trip."  This is totally true.  

Now, I'm not a pessimist.  I'm actually an optimist.  (Which, in hindsight, is maybe why I focused on the point when things will be going right instead of the possibility of the things that could go wrong.)  Anyway...

Overall, everything went just fine.  There were lots of delays, including before we even could leave London, but we all managed just fine.

I had found a Rescue Hero at a store in London despite the fact that they don't typically carry those here, and had set it away for the trip.  That morning before we even went to the airport I gave it to Jayce, and Captain Cuffs made the day's layovers much easier on my buddy.  

 

We flew from London to Texas, and then a short flight over to Florida, so international flight was around 10 hours.  It was pretty darn long, particularly since we typically fly to somewhere in the North like Chicago or Newark that only takes about 7 hours.  But I had an arsenal of activities to keep the kids busy, including some less typical ones like play dough, 

 

and mini 3-in-1 Lego sets.

 

 

Hannah slept once for about 45 minutes.  Jayce didn't sleep at all.  He was awake for 20 hours straight.

 

 

But we made it, all in one piece, and that night when I was falling asleep, I started to get really excited about our vacation.:)

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Destin, On the Balcony

Exactly 2 weeks ago today, the day after Jayce's last day of school, we boarded a plane and flew to Florida, eventually arriving in our beloved Destin.  We typically stay in the same condo, which is on the first and second floor of a lake-front villa.  But this time we were in a high rise condo with a view of the lake and the ocean, and I think the view, and the balcony in particular, must have made an impression on me.

We were in Destin for 10 days, and in that time, I took 45 pictures with my "big camera."  

When I downloaded them and looked at the number I burst out laughing.  (To give you some idea of what is normal for me, in the outfit pictures of Hannah that I've posted of her in the clothes I make her, I usually take between 50-200 in one session.  Or, when Mom and Chelsea came to see us in London, I took over 1,200.)  So 45, on vacation in Destin, for 10 days…well that's basically nothing.

That said, when I looked through all the pictures there appeared to be a theme.  With very few exceptions, the pictures I did take are on or have to do with the balcony.  It was pretty great.  

Perfect for bubbles, ice cream soup...

kids' yoga, 

and my unsuccessful attempts to catch the beach and sunset at various shades of dusk.

But I know that there are 2 main reasons that there aren't more pictures. 

1.) Jetlag/ vacation mindset/ dang I was tired/ "I'm on vacation I don't want to get up and get my camera I just want to sit here."  There was that.

2.) Hannah.  She wants me to chase after her or be snuggling her at all times right now.  This is fine with me, but tricky to do while also using a camera that requires two hands, and when we are at the pool or the beach it's just not a possibility.  

But when I did have the camera, the balcony was in the picture in one way or another.  We spent 10 days thoroughly enjoying it. 

As to the rest of the time, that's what a camera phone is for.

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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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A Florida Morning

One morning we decided to head to the Whale's Tail for breakfast.  I couldn't resist bringing my camera because it was so beautiful out that morning and I wanted to get a few beach pictures with a reduced "sand risk."

Jayce wanted to take a few pictures too, so he took the ones below, with me holding the camera underneath his hands and the strap still around my neck, of course.  He didn't do so bad though.  Very documentary-ish, I thought. :)

And home again.  A lovely little Florida morning.

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