Toothless

Kiwi finally managed to get both of her front teeth out.

Tooth #1: This tooth was not going to Boston.  The adult tooth was coming in, it was hanging by a thread and it needed to come.  Grandma pulled it out, but somehow it was mom's fault, so she was mad at me.  I didn't really care.  I just wanted it gone.

Tooth #2: This tooth was not going to go to school with Kiwi. The plan was to give her until the Sunday night before she started school again and then I was pulling it.  By the time Sunday came, it was so loose and the adult tooth wasn't coming in yet, so I thought I'd give her the chance to do it herself.  On Tuesday it started bleeding at school, so she was sent to the nurse and the nurse pulled it out.  She said it didn't hurt too. I could have pulled it out myself, but she would start screaming before I even touched her.  Sometimes it just takes someone who isn't mom.

Part 2, or New Hampshire Vacation

After flying 3 1/2 hours from Dallas to Boston, with a touch down in St. Louis (HI SARAH J), we hopped in a car for the three hour drive to North Conway New Hampshire.  Go to Housing Troubles if you have no idea why we would be driving to NH.

For those of you who live in a hole, let me remind you that this was once week post Hurricane Sandy the news was saying.  So when we exited the airport to find snow starting to fall from the ground, some people were freaking out (cough*Luann*cough).

Snow outside McDonald's

Thankfully more rational opinions prevailed and we did not turn back and stay the night in a Holiday Inn Express somewhere along the way.  Once we were in NH, it was not even raining, and it was smooth sailing all the way to the resort.

Now, if you were fresh from AZ in a new state way up north where it was cold and it got dark at 4:30 every day (ugh) what would you do with yourself?  If you answered "Watch a lot of TV' than you got it right!  But we did other things.

 We climbed rocks

 We played in leaves

 We walked to a pond

 We walked in the woods.

 We learned to skip rocks

We played hide and seek

And we waited until it was time to move in. It's hard to wait.  But moving in was much harder.

Interlude to Act II, part 1 or Dallas Vacation

If Act I was our time as an Evans Family in Tucson (6-29-2001 to 11-5-2012), then we don't start Act II until 11-15-2012, when we actually have a place to live. The interlude takes place in Dallas, TX and Bartlett, NH. This post is the Dallas portion.

We visited my sister and her family while here. She works in a hotel, and got us a steal of a rate for a suite. It was only for a full day, so not enough time, but we took what we had. I think we wore out the little ones. But they were sooo much fun for all.

Not clear who is having the most fun, JW or J?

Kiwi keeping the twins locked inside

And a trip to the park was a nice adventure. No one fell into the gross lake water, despite a few attempts by JW. G-man had the most fun, I think:

Digging out who-knows-what at the lake

And the requisite group photo. If you take enough pictures fast enough, you end up with one that is not half bad, considering the subjects.

Gman, S, Mr S, JW, J, Kiwi

Leaving on a Jet Plane

You find yourself in the following situation: You have to move your family nearly 3,000 miles due to pressing circumstances (e.g. job, weather, etc.). What is the best way to accomplish that:

a. Drive like crazy people with a minivan and rental truck with only two drivers, for over 50 hours, crossing half of the states.
b. Fly like a bird, ship the stuff and cars, and hope the kids can handle a (relatively) short airplane trip.

If your answer was A, you have not traveled with kids.

So, pack baby pack.

You can't tell from the picture, but we managed to get down to 12 linear feet (1' X 8' X 9'). Still too much stuff, but better than the estimated 20' of the quote. Good thing they only charge by the linear foot. The best part is that we had a lock on the bulkhead, and by the time we got to Boston and needed to unlock it, I had to buy a new "key":

It was faster to use this key than the one that came with the lock.

And lastly, we had to get a rental car for the last weekend we were in Tucson, since our cars left on Friday November 2nd, and we left on Monday November 5th, we made two trips to the airport to drop off people and stuff. Mr S and I wondered the Tucson International Airport, and found all sorts of interesting things. Including the hidden planes (or planes designed into minor decorations). Look closely at the stairs, and you can see them. Mr S thought that was pretty cool to find.

And to wrap up the adventure in Tucson, with only a little bit of tears shed on the flight out, here are the kids having a great time looking at the planes:

Housing Troubles

True to form, nothing we ever do can be done easily.  Due to the fact that we were living on the other side of the country, finding housing in MA was an issue.  Chad had a week of on site training beginning of October.  His one goal during that week was to find us a place to live.  Here were our requirements:

3 or more bedrooms
no less than 2 bathrooms
Lead free
backyard
No more than 30 minutes from work
Something that is not more than double our current mortgage

Seeing as we were moving to a place that has been around since the beginning of the country, there are lots of homes with lead paint.  Finding a place with two bathrooms is hard.  Plus, housing prices here are INSANE! Balancing price with distance was difficult.  So Chad had his work cut out for him.  But he found an awesome place:

We don't actually live in this side of the townhouse

So here's the good news and bad news:
Good news: We found a place that meets all you requirements
Bad news: Someone else had already applied
Good news: The other side of the townhouse will be available November 15th and rent will be less because the kitchen isn't upgraded.
Bad news: We were planning on being there November 7th
Good news: We just upgraded our time share to include RCI so we could do an exchange for a week at a resort in the area.
Bad news: There are no resorts in the area.

We found a resort in New Hampshire that was 3 hours away.  It wasn't perfect, but when you're homeless, you take any option you can get.

Cleaning House

In order to actually get out of town, we had to get rid of so much stuff. Enough so that the semi-yearly Brush and Bulky pickup was not enough. So we finally took a trip to the Dump!

Clearly nothing pretty to look at, but both Mr S and JW loved the trip.

And since we are going so far, and NOT driving, we had to get the cars there. This was almost worth the price of admission, just to see the guy drive the van up a steep incline BACKWARDS! I was sure he was going to drive it off the end, which would have been great to get the insurance money.

The bimmer was not as entertaining after watching the van get put on, but still cool:

And no, the boxes were not important, it was just the backside of a grocery store. No Mr S or JW to obsess over the recyclables.