Rats, Sand & Tacos

Clark's schedule lends itself to early Friday's so we took advantage of our long afternoon...after Clark passed his first test today! (The audiologist passed his hearing with flying colors and told him he had great ears...)
We took the girls to Ratatouille (two thumbs up, the girls laughed a lot and with only 2 trips to the bathroom and Mia nearly made it through the first hour of the two) in nearby Pawcatuck then followed it up with a scenic drive back to Groton by way of Misquamicut Beach and Westerly Rhode Island. This beach was on my list of "check out" so it was fun to drive through and walk around. It was significantly cooler today so too chilly to put our feet in but we strolled long enough to check it all out. From what we gather its a pretty cool beach: narrow beach, coarser sand, cool rocks, waves and a playground. It's a bit farther than our last beach but we may come back to play another time. We then continued our scenic drive through Westerly, Rhode Island and were enchanted. It has a very quaint downtown with a beautiful City Hall and lots of old, brick buildings, emmaculate city park and serene waterways. We ended up in Mystic again for a bite to eat at Margharita's Mexican Restaraunt where we discovered that Clark is a wax stick prodigy. He built a man on a horse and a bicycle with training wheels...all before our meal arrived. Los Cucos in Texas has set the bar pretty high, I don't think we'll visit "Rita's" again even though our dear waitress tried very hard. The food just was not up to par.
This is a great family.

Sandy Bottoms

We ventured out this afternoon on our very first Connecticut Beach Excursion. After researching a bunch of different locations this morning we set off to test them out, one at a time. Today we visited Rocky Neck State Park in East Lyme, Connecticut.
Our only requirement as stated by Abby was to find "a beach that has sand in the water and sand not in the water".
Our evaluation is as follows:
Haley loved finding shells with Dad but the water was too cold.
Abby didn't have enough sand IN the water (I finally concluded that she specifically wants sandbars to block her from being carried into the open ocean, or something...) and there were too many "yucky things" AKA a few tiny pieces of seaweed here and there.
It took Mia a few minutes to be unconcerned with the sand but then she loved in and would periodically charge into the water where Clark was waiting to catch her after she tripped off the little ledge, and then she would turn and run out while screaming in a shrill voice...she liked it.
We didn't go until 4 in the afternoon so there was no crowd, the day was slightly overcast (it actually drizzled on and off but who cares? we were in bathing suits) and the beach was only a 15 minute drive. Parking did cost us $10 and I'm still confused as to why someone can charge me for going to a beach...can they really own sand and water?...though I did indeed appreciate the use of their bathrooms and ice cold showers afterwards, the girls thank them too but not really.
I'm determined to find us the perfect beach...we'll keep you posted. Rocky Neck State Park gets good marks today.

The Final Purge...

Don't let the title fool you, there has been no more vomit but the complaint department has been brimming past capacity. So here it all is, out in the open and then it can rest in peace. I came to Connecticut this summer with no expectations except to have a little fun, see the sights, love New England. I knew that leaving our comfortable, loved home in Houston would be hard and that living conditions while on base (and perhaps a little beyond depending on our options) would probably be less, desirable. I was OK with that, nay, expecting that. The first week was bad. It was stomach flu bad...and that's not all. I suppose that this kind of thing usually happens to me but I typically don't notice or wallow too long. You see, I am normally an optimist. I can look at the bright side. I have gratitude. I have perspective. But this week I lost it...temporarily lets hope.
Here are my complaints, in no particular order.
Feel free to feel sorry for, criticize, shake your head and call me spoiled, or weak, or trivial. If you may recall, I am indeed capable of wallowing with the best of them. I just got used to having my own bathroom, thats all.

Our accommodations have bad, commercial carpeting...the kind that turns your bare feet black.
The toilet bowls have stains that look like someone's been flushing charcoal...I don't know how you achieve the look thats happenin in there...
Out of 183 marked boxes and 70 something pieces of furniture, about 1/3 fits...therefore the remaining boxes ready for semi permanent storage are currently stacked in the front entry, the family room and the kitchen. (thats a mattress in the "breakfast nook")
I have to reach for everything in my kitchen.
My kids threw up last week (that traumatizes me...."why isn't she eating...does your tummy hurt? are you going or do you think you might possibly throw up?...will you continue to sleep with this bucket in your bed just for good measure?")
I finally had a day that warranted a shower, hair and make up...I looked cute in my new summer dress...my family was all waiting in the car for me to leave for church and I fell down the stairs. It made me cry and I sat very still for 30 seconds while I tried to decide if I had broken my arm. And then I had to get Clark's attention to come back inside where he put Neosporin and a Band Aid on my elbow. I bruised the entire right side of my body...darn wood stairs that actually look kinda cool.
Our family of five shares a bathroom..."please stay out of my stuff...thats Mom's plastic drawer on wheels...please don't touch my toothbrush"
The half bath by the front door has a permanent urine smell and looks like a middle school janitor closet bathroom...I can't really bring myself to decorate it with anything.
There are spiders, big weird lookin ones...
We share a wall with a nice quiet couple who have one, sweet, baby...
My piano is touching the shared wall so I am afraid to play it.
The Navy is giving us flack now about storing our things...
I think I am anemic.
I just bought yogurt from the Commissary that was ONE MONTH EXPIRED.
We still haven't found our camera...and the weird thing is, our old one is missing too...we found the memory cards, dock and everything...no cameras.
I tried to buy plane tickets to Utah last week...I sprang for the nonstop flight since Clark can't go...it was late at night so I didn't bother to confirm...it didn't go through and by the next morning they were too expensive. My flight now includes me, three children, 12 hours, two layovers, late arrival and missing all kind of festivities on the 4th of July....the return flight is a red eye with one layover in Newark.

Are you through reading yet? I think I'm done.
Now lets continue with my original plans.

PS Here are the things that I am grateful for...see, the perspective is all coming back now.
I have a place to live and my family is all healthy now.
My husband cleaned our vomit and put a band aid on my elbow WITH Neosporin.
I get to go to Utah to play with my family for a week and a half.
My husband, sensing the chaotic frustration of my soul spent four hours upstairs yesterday by himself finishing the bedrooms so we could walk around and feel settled....at least upstairs.
We have cool air blowing into our bedroom.
There is an IKEA 45 minutes away.
I have good ice cream in the freezer and a Target the next exit off the freeway.
New England is amazingly beautiful.
My children are adorable and funny.
My phone can take pictures.
Clark comes home for lunch.
I have a testimony and all of that really good, important stuff.
We have a huge bottle of Listerine.
I have good friends and lots of great family on both sides.
I have a really comfortable pillow.

I could go on but I think the purging is complete.
Good then.

Swimmin with the fishes...or just looking at them.

Today I decided, after being uptight and grouchy this morning, to take the girls and head off on an excursion to the Mystic Aquarium. I have moved on from the complaining for the time being and decided that the girls needed to see my nice side for a while.
Mystic has been unanimously dubbed our favorite spot. It is the neighboring town to the North of us. Mystic, though well known for its location of Julia Robert's first film, "Mystic Pizza", is an old New England whaling town. (Mystic Pizza is an actual restaurant that we have frequented both before and to come...its truly yummy.) It is quaint and beautiful and fun. It has lighthouses, beaches (rocky and sand), restaurants, ice cream parlors, piers, boats, yachts, amazing old houses and breathtaking views. We hit historic Mystic Seaport (a replicated whaling town village and "tour-able" whaling ships) the last time we lived here and I am excited to take the girls soon.
Anyway, the girls and I enjoyed our time at the aquarium. It's a big, beautiful place. Our favorites were the enormous hermit crabs and the Beluga Whales.














We pet an American Alligator or Crocodile, I can't ever remember which, and Haley kept begging to go back and pick up the starfish.
It did get rather warm outside so we left sufficiently drained of our activity and went home for some quiet time. Clark and I laughed last night during the news weather forecast. They were moaning about the heat wave in New England, classified by at least 3 consecutive days of temperatures in the 90's...are you serious? Do they realize that the entire Western and Southern part of the country do that every day? Now, most of these New Englanders live without A/C so I feel for them in their "warm discomfort"...I guess our dear friends and family in Houston are just stuck living in sucky weather, get used to it, you get no attention for sweating your weight in perspiration every day between the months of March and November. When we arrived here and found out about the no A/C thing, you'd better believe that our A/C accustomed fannies were out at Target buying window units and installing them the same day. (OK, we didn't buy them at Target, we bought them at that other place but I didn't want to go to that particular place but we had to.)
How did I get so off subject?
The aquarium was great. We definitely need to take Clark back sometime. Tomorrow we may try a beach.
PS I have a lifelong ailment...no matter how many times I have spell checked the word, and it has been in the hundreds I'm sure, I still can't spell "definitely"....I spell checked it and spelled it right just now by the way.

Last man standing...and an air show...

So there are a few details I left out of my last blog...although I do recall mention of "the vomit". So I'll bring us all up to speed. Little Abby ushered in the vomit on our first night here in Connecticut, in the hotel, all over the bed. Then two days later Haley jumped on the bandwagon and threw up on the floor of her room, the first night in our new place, with no cleaning supplies to be found. Then two days later little Mia, feeling quite left out decided to end our magical FHE in Mystic (Mystic Pizza, ice cream, walk along the water) by up-chucking in the car on the way home...now wait, we got all our bases covered, right? Hotel, check. New digs, check. Car, check. So a couple days later I thought we were in the clear...but my Outback wasn't sitting so well (I know, Outback! I mean, come on, Friendly's I can understand but not the Outback!) I shared in the girls' wealth, ALL night, times 100. I have never been so sick in my whole entire life. At one point Clark was actually holding me up so I wouldn't fall off the potty OR drop the bucket on my lap...too much information? Come morning I was literally one stomach spasm away from asking for the ER. I spent the entire next day recovering and laying on my back. Then I spent much of today recovering from resting...you know, atrophy and all. (So you can imagine the frustration to my slightly OCDish self that it all puts me 2+ days behind on unpacking...) And remember a couple of blogs ago when I awarded Clark all those points? Multiply that times 2,000,000. He has cleaned vomit from all manner of places this week and is left the lone man in good health. Do we love him? Yes, we do.
And while we're on the subject (not to jinx his health or anything) I have a theory...actually its kind of HIS theory. Clark hardly ever, ever, ever gets sick and you know why? He gargles regularly with Listerine. I hate the smell of it almost as much as I hate swishing with it. The Naval Academy is responsible for his support of this theory. The detailer at the Naval Academy would have all the midshipmen line up with their mouths open and spray Listerine down the line to keep them all from getting sick during Plebe summer to cover up the fact that they are really trying to kill them ("the Count insists on everyone being healthy, before they're broken".)
So now I am trying to figure out how to line up a 1,4 and 5 year old each night before bed, take a squirt of Listerine without crying out in pain or swallowing...pass along any advice because we are NOT doing this week again.
So, on to more pleasant things...
We had to get out of the house today, you know, fresh air. Yesterday we saw a commercial for an Air Show and off we went.
We attended the Rhode Island Air National Guard Show at Quonset Point complete with cargo planes, trick planes, really loud planes and the Blue Angels (they are the only ones I know by name...)
It was a lot of fun. The girls were pleasant, the temperature was mid 70's with a breeze, and the sky was clear...and only one trip to the porta potty (I only gagged once...I AM recovering from the flu remember...) Hopefully just the first of our many excursions of the summer...and I vow that the rest of my documentation won't be prefaced by paragraphs and paragraphs of grotesque stories with too much information...but I can't promise anything, this is after all the realities of my life, the good, bad and the ugly...but hopefully mostly the sweet.

We're back on the grid...

(disclaimer: as always I apologize profusely for the random organization of thoughts...it's here, it's done, now I can unpack more boxes...)
We have arrived....not completely unscathed, but we are here. We decided to take our time getting to Connecticut because 1795.75 miles is a long ride for three little people. Plus, we were passing through all our old stompin grounds so we thought we would stop and take time to reminisce. The first night we made it almost to Atlanta. We discovered (after many many nights throughout the years at sub-par hotels) that a good night's sleep is worth the extra money. Hampton Inn is our new favorite hotel because they have down comforters and fluffy pillows. After a good night of restful sleep we made it to Charleston, South Carolina.
Haley was especially excited to see the hospital where she was born. We lived in Charleston as newlyweds...our first "military assignment". Clark's bro is going through the same Navy pipeline as we did so we stopped off for a visit with good 'ole Noly Boly. We drove by our old digs, remembered great times and excellent friends, went searching for Charlie the 14 foot alligator that lives on base, ate at our favorite restaurant and walked downtown Charleston with our friends, Ben & Jerry. I love Charleston. We pulled out the next morning and headed for our more recent residence in Virginia (where we lived before Texas). We also love Virginia and have good friends still there (the stationary, non military type...)...shall I take a moment to note that despite my very conscience efforts to keep the whereabouts of my camera in mind at all times during this move, it eluded me and is still missing....so all pictures are courtesy of Nolan or my cell phone (which is why some of them are so tiny).
We stayed with our good friends (our Costa Rica pals) in Virginia for a couple of days eating home cooked meals and playing Nertz and Take Two. We visited the zoo and enjoyed the company of our friends....sleeping arrangements were generously free but a bit tight...a family that sleeps together, stays together, right?
The Millers finally got rid of us and we went straight to Washington, D.C. to spend a day or two with Spencer and Sho who also generously put up our family of five in their living room. They live in a cute apartment in a neat area of Bethesda. We rode the Metro into town and met Sho for dinner then spent the next couple of days visiting with Clark's old CO and teaching the girls all about war and memorials and lots of patriotic good stuff. (I could write an entire journal entry about the sweet experience of teaching our daughters, old enough now to understand, what their father actually does for a living, and why they can visit their family and play with their friends and go to church. Clark had some neat moments with Haley teaching her about freedom, etc.)

We hit the temple on our way out to show the girls and use a clean restroom with a very brief tour of the visitor's center (they got such a kick out of the house inside the visitor's center.)

There was no vomit until we actually hit Connecticut but all the girls had their turn....Sometime I'll tell you about the other Connecticut vomit story that happened to me the last time we lived here...needless to say, we won't be eating at Friendly's while we live here this time.

Here are my favorite things about moving:
new adventures
new friends
being with my family

Things I absolutely HATE about traveling:
fast food
public restrooms
taking little girls to public restrooms
going to the bathroom in public places
using public toilets
watching two little girls use public toilets
gas station bathrooms
rest stop bathrooms
fast food establishment bathrooms
(and we have been to every single one between Texas and Connecticut, I assure you)...I can't wait 'til we have boys and Clark has bathroom duty...every time we stopped it took me an hour to get out of the bad mood I got into by taking them to the bathroom.

I'm not sure I have the energy to elaborate on the details of our living arrangement just yet. Let me finish unpacking boxes and hanging some pictures before I feel ready to share....let me just provide you this teaser...the bathrooms are not as nice as some of the public restrooms we saw along the way.
But don't worry, there's a killer playground outside our back door and great neighbors...and hello, New England all around us. We'll be great...just get me through these boxes and bored little girls.

I'm sure I left out some fascinating details that I'll remember later...or maybe I won't remember them, I've tried to repress some of them and others are not worth sharing, yet.

Everything you own in a box to the left...

We organized, we shuffled, we packed, (we visited--Thanks Kris for the surprise visit on our sad day...) we painted, we fixed up, we cleaned a little (and discovered that avoiding a nervous breakdown because of details like totally cleaning the house that you are abandoning is totally worth $120 for someone else to do it), and locked the front door.

We did it, we packed it up (well, someone else packed it up) and we left...probably the hardest move so far because we were leaving home, for real. We loved our neighborhood, our friends and our family...it was a good time.

Time to say Good-Bye...

We've said a lot of good byes already and we're not even gone yet. We sold the trusty Honda last week and are temporarily a one car family...its been fun and interesting...lots of bonding time. We also said good-bye to the Love Sac...good times, good times.
On Friday Clark and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary. We had a delicious dinner at the Melting Pot where he had incredible flowers waiting at the table--followed by a leisurely stroll through the Galleria and a couple of new shirts. Our amazing babysitter even tried to give us the night for free because it was our anniversary and she is awesome but we settled for paying her just half.
I wish I had time for more details and pictures but I figure its lucky to even be getting an entry in before the packers come tomorrow. We pull out officially on Thursday morning so today was our last Sunday which means last Sunday dinner at his parents' house. I didn't expect the tears to happen until we actually pulled out but there have been many already. It didn't help that Clark's sister put together a slideshow to music of pictures of our time here..."Niagra Falls Franky Angel"...
It's going to be an emotional week.
So I'll be temporarily signing off for the next couple of weeks.
See ya in New England.