Are We There Yet? Church & State

DAY 17-18:  CHURCH & STATE

Sunday we decided to attend what will be our regular ward once we move into the house.  It was a rather long drive, but when compared to our recent history of driving, it didn’t seem like such a long way after all.

B took her usual 30 minute nap on the way down.  And she woke up grumpy.  And the girls talked her out of it.  We ate some PB&J.  And we tumbled out of the van into the church parking lot amidst a flurry of dog hair.  We had to park in the furthest possible spot from the building because we needed as much shade as possible for the dogs.  We didn’t dare leave them in the hotel when we were going to be so far away for so long.  The current hotel was more ‘dog tolerant’ and not so much ‘dog friendly’.  So they were stuck in the van, getting checked on and hydrated often. 

We felt totally conspicuous as the new family that everybody kept staring at.  It didn’t help that our children seemed to quadruple the volume in the chapel.  But in between meetings everyone was so friendly and welcoming.  It seems like there are a lot of other families here in the same boat with us.  They’ve relocated from various other far away places.  Many of them have long commutes.  And they all seem to love it here.  Good sign. 

The kids left their classes grinning.  J said he had the best teacher ever.  Which is really saying something since he had a fabulous Sunday school teacher back in Cali. 

The rest of our Sunday was spent driving back, securing dinner and putting the kids to bed as early as possible.

Day 18 dawned bright and early.  Too early.  We had to drag some sleepy kids out of bed because we had to drive back down near the house so we could get the kids registered for school.  We had to make sure we had time to hit all three schools.  For the record, three schools is too many to deal with.  Things went fairly smoothly with the elementary and the middle school.  They were all nice and sweet and helpful.  But the high school was a whole bundle of trouble.  Long story short, it took multiple phone calls, several different visits and some pleading before we finally got K registered the day before school started.  Shaggy kept teasing her about skipping school for a year.  She actually handled the uncertainty of the whole thing fairly well.  Better than I would have at her age.

Then we did some more boring (DMV, bleh!) but necessary stops before driving all the way back to the hotel.  Poor kids.  They were strapped in the van today for as long as if we had still been road tripping.  Not a very fun day.  And worst of all, I didn’t snap a single picture today or yesterday.

I think it’s safe to say that will change tomorrow since we’re feeling brave enough to head to the Mall with all the kids.  We may be crazy, but we’ll see what tomorrow brings because we’re not there yet.