Robots Make a House a Home

Hello again! Like the new layout? The picture was done by  Danielle Davis. She has a shop on etsy.com and she drew these robots to make into vinyl stickers for my car. I loved them so much I asked her if she'd send me the file to use on my blog and she happily did! So go check out Danielle's store!

We've been in Jersey for a few weeks now. We expected to close on our new house on September 12th, but as always in this robot's life, things did not go as expected. My parents were nice enough to let us stay in their empty rental property and put up with us coming over for internet access and countless dinners for so much longer than they expected. I really can't thank them enough. The new district wouldn't let the girls start until after we closed on the house, so they have been with us all day every day for this whole ridiculous process.

But, after many, many delays, we finally closed on our house last Wednesday! We immediately mailed the change of address cards I had made back in August in Washington, grabbed the kids from my Mom's and headed over to our new house!

With the help of my sister, Crystal, and her husband Bill, we dragged all the things we brought with us cross country into the house. Ria wasn't feeling very well and while we were unloading, my sister mentioned that she was in her room crying. When I found her, she explained that she was sad because we'd had to leave her friends in Washington and that our new house was empty and lonely and smelled like old ladies.  I calmed her down with tales of how wonderful our new life will be and promised we'd start making our house less empty and old lady smelly.  We had some lunch and then we headed to the hardware store. We started making this house into our home that very night.

We started with Ria's bathroom in an effort to make her feel like she'd put her own stamp on the house. She picked out the paint for her room and zebra stripped accessories for her bathroom. I hung up her new bathroom curtains and shower curtain and got everything else in it's place and it really seemed to make her feel better.

After getting all the girls to bed, John and I painted Lilly's room... and that's the sort of thing we've been doing ever since. We've made 8,000 trips to Lowes, Walmart and Target, we've painted three room and will be working on a a fourth and fifth tonight. We took down curtains, and hung up new ones, removed countless closet doors and hid them in the basement. We registered the girls for school, only to be told the district thinks Maria needs to be home schooled for medical reasons and they lost the IEP I sent in August for Lilly, so it's going to take them a week to figure out her placement. We've had the phone company here three times to try to get our internet service set up right.

We've also been to my parent's house for paella,

had Bill and Crystal come over to help us paint the dining room and went to a wedding shower today.
We've been busy little robots and with all the work we want to do the the house, we'll be this busy for a while.
We're tired and we're sore, but here we are, a family of robots, making this house a home.

Robots on the Road: Day Nine

Ok! This won't be long because I only have internet access while we sit in McDonald's eating breakfast.

Yesterday was our last day on the road! We slept in then packed up and headed out to have breakfast with Mom and Dad.  Everyone enjoyed themselves, especially Lilly, because they let her have chicken nuggets and french fries with applesauce.

Hana and Saffron decided they wanted to ride with PopPop and Babcia, and off we went.  It was a pleasantly uneventful drive with the exception of me getting pulled over (it's ok, I didn't get a ticket).

We got to Mom And Dad's, had REAL pizza AND water ice, then got settled and called it a  night. Now we have to wait  to go to closing on our house, and then we'll really be home.

So here we are, a family of robots, in Pitman, New Jersey!

Robots on the Road: Day Eight

We're almost home! Today we got on the road at 7am and we were so excited to get on our way! We drove through the rest of Tennessee today along with Virginia and a lot of West Virginia. We could not get here fast enough!

My Mom and Dad own some land down here and came down for the weekend to meet us. We were so thrilled! We met them and had a great lunch. John ordered a salad with seafood and was so disappointed when it arrived covered with cheese. Luckily, Dad was willing to trade with him and everyone ended up happy with their lunch.

We followed Mom and Dad up to their land and it was so great to finally see it! Saffron explored and got spoiled by PopPop and Babcia a little. Hana checked out all the flora and fauna and both the girls were chatting away about "when we come live here" when we were on our way to our hotel for the night. Ria says she's going to make homemade soap and candles to make some money here, because"everyone loves homemade soap and candles!".

We arrived at our hotel, took a swim, chatted with another parent of an autistic child who was in the pool and watched a boy get a crush on Hana. It was so cute watching him try to impress her.

That's all I've got for today, I'm just so delighted that we'll be home tomorrow!
Jersey here we come!

So here we are, a family of enthusiastic robots, in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Robots on the Road: Day Seven

We got a lovely, slow start today. We slept in until 6:30, took our time getting ready and headed out for breakfast.   We ate, did a little shopping and didn't get on the road until almost 10 am. We headed out of Memphis, on our way to Knoxville.

 But, today was a solemn day for us. We came to Knoxville to go to a cemetery.  

Many of you know that John has been estranged from his parents for about 8 years now. They made some life choices that we felt we needed to separate ourselves from.  We love them and we've missed them, but we feel it was the right decision to make. 

This spring one of John's cousins got in touch with us through facebook and said she needed to speak to us urgently. John's father had passed away.  John spoke to his grandmother and decided not to attend the funeral. It was not an easy decision, but he thought it was for the best. So since we were on our way cross country, we decided to come to Knoxville so we could go to the Veteran's Cemetery to see where John's father was laid to rest.

All day I was thinking about the girls Pappy. I remembered how he accepted me quickly when John and I quickly got married at age 19. Johnny loved me, and that was good enough for him. He was a quiet man but he was kind to me. I remembered how much he loved being a grandfather.  When Lilly was born, John and I were living with his parents. Lilly was a particularly fussy baby and when no one else could get her to sleep, Pappy would quietly say, "Give me my grandbaby.". He would sit in his recliner with her head in one hand and her bottom in the other and look at her with so much love it would bring tears to my eyes. Then he would hold her and rock her and talk to her softly, and slowly, she would fall asleep in his arms. 

When Lilly was in preschool, John called his mother, distraught because the social worker at the school had told us we should get Lilly on a waiting list for a group home. She told us someday we wouldn't be able to take care of Lilly on our own anymore. The next time John saw his father, his father was very angry with him. "When you and Leah decide you can't handle Lilly anymore, you bring her to me and your mother. We'll take care of her.", he said. I was so angry at the time. What made him think they could take care of her if I couldn't?  I realize now that it didn't have anything to do with who he thought could or couldn't take care of Lilly. He just loved her so much, he couldn't stand the idea of her being somewhere without people who love her.

No matter how much we love someone, we can't make them the person we want them to be. All we can do is love them for who they are. 

So here we are, a family of robots, remembering in Knoxville, Tennessee.