Sorry for the delay in posts. We have had a busy couple of weeks. We closed on and moved into our house. We hired movers to move our stuff and all in all, they were good. I have a suspicion that they might have helped themselves to a few unopened toys that were in our garage but I don't have anyway to prove it so I just hope that I find them when we are cleaning out the garage in the next few weeks. I believe that while they were moving our stuff in the house, they had the doors open and a lizard wanted to make a home within ours. Luckily I found it on the wall late last week and caught it in a butterfly net and put it back into it's natural habitat.
We are slowly but surely getting through the mountain of boxes. Our office is full of them as is our garage. Our next project to tackle is the garage so we can get our cars in there and get them out of the heat.
We have family coming this Friday and will be here until next Saturday. We are so excited to have family down and even more excited that we have a place for everyone to stay. A little icing on the family visit cake is that we get our dogs back. I can't lie, I have kinda liked not having the responsibility of taking care of the dogs only in the respect that we can leave and be gone for hours and not have to worry about coming home to let the dogs out, cleaning up the endless amounts of hair that Cooper sheds and Lucy's fickle ways. But I do miss them, I really do. Especially after meeting our neighbor last night and his yellow lab Foster. Olivia misses the dogs so bad it hurts I think. My mom has been more than gracious to keep them and take such loving care of them as long as she has.
Here are a few pics of our house-the walls are sparse and the floor is littered with toys but you get the idea.
Disclaimer-this post is not going to be cheery and upbeat. So if you don't want or don't care about my momentary complaining, don't read.
I try and not put a lot of complaints into my entries as this blog is meant as a way to keep up with what is going on with our entire family and who really cares anyway, but today that is exactly what I am doing. I have a lot on my mind and don't really have another outlet to vent.
Today is a really hard day for me. My best friend is having her baby today and as over the moon happy for them that I am, I am so very sad that I can't be there to celebrate with them. This is just another celebration or milestone that I am missing out on. I missed both my niece's birthday parties this year and I am sure that there will other things that I am unable to attend due to the miles between us. It sucks, it totally sucks.
Another sore spot is how much Daniel works. When we made the decision to come down here we were under the impression that there would be a few months(March-April) that he would have a few long days due to the shut down that was taking place at the plant. Well, that doesn't seem to be the case. It is the middle of July and just since last Friday he has worked 24 hours of OT. Monday and Tuesday night he didn't leave work until 9 pm.And this is every week, he works late at least 3 nights a week. So not only am I left with no friends and no adult contact all day but then I am left as the solo parent to do all the dinner/bath and bedtime routines as well. That gets old real fast. I keep hearing that this situation(the long hours) is temporary but I have been hearing that for the last 7 months. I usually end up eating dinner by myself and I am sick and tired of it. Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful that he has a good, secure job that allows me to stay at home but I honestly don't know how much longer I can deal with it.
Living here is another unfixable situation I think. We made the decision as a family to do what we viewed was best for our family in terms of allowing Daniel to advance at AB. I never in a million years would imagined how much of a test it would be. I am SO lonely here. The walls of this craptastic apartment seem to close in a little bit more everyday, I have no friends, well 1 friend but I think we are only friends because of default, I have no way to doing anything for myself because Daniel works so much and if he is off, he is so tired that he can't keep his eyes open. We close on our new house on Friday but that is a whole other source of stress. I haven't been sleeping at night because I lye awake worrying about how we will make all our bills due to the increase in everything, mortgage pymt., water, power, property taxes, the list goes on. Now the rational part of me knows that we will be just fine, we may just have to cut back on luxury things(which we need to do anyway). People keep telling me that once we move I will make friends and blah, blah, blah. I am not so confident. Like I said earlier, I have 1 friend, who actually lives right around the corner from where we are moving, but it is not her job to make sure I get out and make friends and with Daniel working all the time I don't see us standing out in our yard socializing with our neighbors like we used to back in Illinois.
I just don't know where to turn anymore. I can't talk to Daniel because as hard as he tries to understand, or even say he does, there is no way he can. He has adult contact with people his own age, he gets to go out and eat lunch everyday with people whom he doesn't have to cut their food up or make sure it's not too hot and he has a list a mile long of things to keep his mind distracted from what is going on at home. I feel as though he is under so much stress at work that he doesn't have time to listen to me, so where does that leave me? I will tell you, it leaves me being bitter, resentful and angry most of the time.
I could go on and on with my random ramblings but if you have read this far, I am sure you are sick and tired of the complaining and have probably tuned out. And honestly, I wouldn't blame you. As most people have politely told us, we decided to come here so we have to deal with the consequences.
Sorry for the delay in posting. We have been busy little bees. This past week our very good friends John and Kendra and their boys Logan and Sam came to Houston for their summer vacation. We were so looking forward to seeing them all and Olivia was more than excited to see some old friends. They arrived on Tuesday and stayed until Sunday morning. They arrived late Tuesday afternoon, so all we had on tap was to go grab dinner and then hang out and catch up. On Wednesday we planned on going to Space Center Houston and then to the beach. The Space Center was fun but not very kid friendly for kids below the age of 10. Logan and Olivia had a really good time though, so that it was worth it. After that we headed to Galveston to go the beach. Thanks to Kendra doing some research on the best beaches in Galveston, we found the perfect beach. Not crowded and a little off the beaten path. There was a tropical storm out in the gulf that made for some really good waves. Everyone fully enjoyed the beach. Cameron was fearless and would have spent all day in the water had we let her.
On Thursday we went to the Children's Museum and the Downtown Aquarium. Both of these attractions were nice except the Museum was overran with Kid's Camps. That night we went out for John's Birthday. I won't tell how old he is, but for any of you who know John and Kendra, be sure to ask next time you see either of them ;-).
Friday we went to the Houston Zoo. Daniel was unable to join us on the adventure because he had to work. We were only able to last a couple of hours due to the excessive heat.
Saturday we went to the Museum of Natural Science. We all really enjoyed it, lots of stuff to interest the kids as well as the adults.
We had a whirlwind week but it was wonderful to see "family." In my infinite forgetful self, I took zero pictures of all our adventures. I got some video of the girls playing in the splashpad at the Aquarium. So as I wait on Kendra to send me pics, I will leave you with some video(s) of the girl at the Splashpad.
