Catch up!

So much has happened and I have been terrible about posting what has been going on.

We moved to Scottsdale and it has been a big and exciting change for the whole family.

Leaving our friends and home in Wilmette was sad for all of us. There were many tears shed. The girls really miss their bffs the Baisleys and we miss our amazing community in Wilmette.

Arizona is a whole new world for our family.

I was pretty firm that I wanted to drive to our new home. I just couldn't imagine leaving the house with a couple suitcases. I knew there would be a large pile of odd and ends that didn't make it onto the truck that we could shove into the suburban. I couldn't deal with the stress of flying with the family while hysterically crying after saying goodbye. We're already a spectacle going through airports and having mom sobbing uncontrollably would just add to the circus. I'm not sure why I possibly thought that driving for three days and staying at roadside hotels would be easier than three hours on a plane but Rick, in his wisdom, deferred to what I wanted with some gentle suggestions that flying would actually be a better idea. So...we road tripped.

Our first scenic stop was at a mini version of Stonehenge in Kansas somewhere. Katie is already thinking this was a big mistake.

Next was Cabella's outdoor world.

When we arrived in Albuquerque for our final night and pulled up to the hotel, the backseat of our car looked like we were transporting a group a child hoarders to treatment. It was like those old VWs you sometimes park next to with floor to ceiling junk and wonder how anyone could possibly drive around with so much crap in their car. I think the valet was waiting for a family of feral cats to leap out of the layers of clutter covering the floor of the car when he got a look inside. All I could do was shovel with my hands layers of the crayons, stickers, markers, coloring books, beads and snacks that I had so lovingly packed for each girl in their own backpack before we left and dump it all in the trash can on the sidewalk.

Ceci asked "are we there yet" before we reached St Louis and I think she least enjoyed our journey. She said the other day that she wanted to move back to Wilmette and then hesitated and said she had changed her mind and didn't want to move. I asked her why she now didn't want to move back and her reply was "If we move back, do we have to drive back?" I told her we could fly and she said that in that case she'd like to move back.