Smith Family: Moving in

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Moving in

We are finally in our new home...sort of. Half of our worldly goods are still in boxes but we are here. The kids are in school now so I can begin to dig out of the mess...

Leaving our home on Lakehurst was a sad day, lots of goodbyes and tears. It is always hard to know you cannot return to the memories you have made. I passed out cookies and Books of Mormon to my neighbors that week and bade them farewell, wishing I had done more to get to know some of them. I knew the girls and their friends were taking the move hard, but when I found a heartfelt goodbye note from one of Caden's friends I bawled my eyes out. I didn't realize how close they had become...

When we moved to Iowa, the kids had to work hard to catch up in school because the schools there are more advanced, but now it is the opposite... They are working on things in math that our kids did two years ago. Solei has been in band now for two years, but in Duluth they are just beginning... "Mom, all they do is play 'duh duh duh' over and over again!" Maybe it is time for private lessons. The schools they are in are rated as some of the highest in the state, but funding is low and they are even talking about shortening the school day by an hour (the kids are all for that, probably some teachers too!).

The Smith family camera has gone missing since the move so that explains why I don't have any more photos, but I'm going crazy because Duluth is so beautiful right now... color everywhere... not just on the trees, but the ground is covered in leaves too (great for kids, not so much for dads). I have never seen so many leaves! The woods are starting to show their depth, and today there was a cool fog mingling in the trees in a beautiful, eerie sort of way. I really need to find my camera, but only heaven knows where the movers put it! I did find a tiny photo on the local newspaper website... so it is not mine but it will give you a little idea of how it looks here in the fall...

We have had three weeks of conference in a row... Stake conference in Iowa the week before we moved, General conference the weekend that we moved, and now Stake conference again this weekend in Duluth... the kids are more than ready to have regular church meetings again.

"Why did the chicken cross the road?" That is Taron's favorite question right now... and the answer is always something different, like "because he was a banana" or "he wanted to scratch his foot". Even Ella thinks it is great fun and they can hold a whole conversation about adventurous chickens and the reasons for their expeditions.

Whenever Chris and I go out to dinner here, it seems like we see someone from the ward. Last weekend, we went to a little Mexican restaurant after the Saturday night session of stake conference and about 10 other members showed up! It was fun getting to know them, and I think Chris even made a new hunting buddy.

Well, that's about it for now... gotta run.

1 comment:

Debbie Hadley said...: I'm so glad you made it! Moving is so hard emotionally, and physically. I wish I was there to help you. That picture is beautiful.; October 13, 2008 at 11:08 AM

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The Mind of a Child...

When Solei was a toddler, she found some bark that was lying at the base of a tree and said in disgust, “Ooooooh! Tree poo-poo!”

When the girls were little, we were taking a walk with the dog who was bombarding Sierra with her friendly but slobbery kisses. Frustrated, our sweet little Sierra yelled out “NO KINA, I'M NOT YOUR ICE CREAM CONE!”

Telling Ella how to crawl, Caden explained “But I’m four, so I crawl standing up.”

I was sitting with Caden one day and I told him that the couch used to be a cow (it is leather), and I said (half jokingly) “did you know that cows turn into couches?” To which he replied, “No they don’t, they turn into pies!”

Watching the Tabernacle choir sing during conference, Solei (who was 8 yrs old at the time) said that they should sing “Do as I’m Doing” (with all the motions, I’m sure).

We put in an underground fence for the dog and Caden (age 5) saw us burying the wire. We then put up little white flags to mark where it was. A few days later he went outside and turned on the hose. When I saw him, I asked him to turn off the water. He looked at me questioningly and asked, “Until when? Until the fence grows?” He thought it needed watering!

Taron (2) looked at the varicose veins on grandmas legs and said, “owy... lightning!”

When Caden was 5, he would ask if he could go play with his friend in the morning, and I would sometimes reply, "No, it's too early". Well one day he finally asked me "can we not play on 'too early's? Can we play on 'one early'?"

Sierra told me one night that when she was little, she used to think the word “couch” came from the word “cow”, and that our couch had a cow inside (partially true since it is leather). She would try to sit down carefully so it would not run away. She thought the wood parts inside were it’s bones and the black pegs on the bottom were the feet.

Sometimes Taron (age 2) would find dog poop and say “Eew! Dog poop!” and then proceed to stomp on it as if it were a bug.

Caden (age 5) and I were talking about the sounds letters make and he asked if I knew what the sleepy letter was. I replied that I didn’t and he said, “It’s the Z... when you go to sleep then the Z’s come out of your head. And there’s a big round white thing too but it’s invisible. Maybe he had been reading too many comic books...

Sierra (age 8) made a Halloween card for her friend and wrote ENSTINE (meaning Einstein) on it, I thought it was an odd thing to put on a Halloween card so I asked if she knew who Einstein was and she said "Isn't he the guy who made Frankenstein?"

Caden (age 5) asked if it was a ghost who said the sacrament prayer because he couldn’t see anyone at the podium but he could hear the voice.

When Taron was 2 he would always respond to an “I love you” with “Much”.

Taron (3) woke up one morning, started to play and when I asked him if he wanted a pancake, he said, “Oh yeah, I was supposed to be hungry!”

Dad was singing “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam” and Taron said “Jesus likes sunbeans, they’re delicious!”

I was teaching Taron (5) how to read, and came upon the word "loose". I told him, "the two O's say "oo" and the E is silent. Slowly and deliberately, he sounded it out........"Loooosssilent".

Caden had been learning to tell time in school and was asking me about the big hand vs. the little hand on the clock. Apparently Taron was listening somewhat because he held up his right hand and asked "is this the big hand?"

Ella (4) came up to me with some of my reading glasses and said "Mom, when I put glasses on, I still don't know how to read!"

At a restaurant, Ella was impatiently waiting for her food and, looking for the waitress, she asked "when is the human coming back?"

One morning I said, "Ella, come look! There's a wild turkey in the backyard!"
Ella (excitedly): "Can we kill it?!?"
What kind of daughter am I raising???

Ella mistook another guy for Chris and was about to follow him to his car, but soon realized her mistake and said, "I was about to follow the 'not dad'".

Smith Family

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Moving in

1 comment:

The Mind of a Child...

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