Reflections – June and July 2010

If it were not for the fact that I have pictures of June and July, I would have no idea what I did during those two months. I wouldn’t have a clue. And, chances are, if I don’t have a picture of it, then I don’t remember it happening.

The first weekend in June, Moanna turned three and we celebrated with a fiesta. For a good two hours our semi-quiet home turned into a mad house, and it was fantastic. There were people in nearly every room in the house. At one point, all of the toys were out of the toy box and all of the kids were in the toy box. It is hard to believe that Moanna was a wee one just three years ago; she’s practically a teenager – the hand on her hips says it all.

After Moanna’s birthday, our entire life shifted into planning for our big move to Atlanta. If we were awake, we were in planning to move mode. Not executing the move just planning the move. It was exhausting, frustrating, emotional.

At the end of June, Steve and I went down to Atlanta for a week while Moanna headed back up to Maryland for another week with Steve’s parents. I must say that I was very jealous of Moanna. She was having a grand old time in Maryland while Steve and I were house hunting and having leasing battles. I won’t get into the drama that unfolded on that trip just yet, it will come in an upcoming chapter of “The Move.” Hold  onto your hats because believe me it’s going to be a juicy story.

We were able to wedge some fun into our trip to Atlanta when we were not sniffing out (literally -sniffing out) houses. One day, we went to the famous Georgia Aquarium. We played there for several hours with aninonamies, penguins, jelly fish and the like. We laid in front of the giant tank for along time. Even with all of the little monkeys running around, it was peaceful to lay there and watch the fish.

When we returned from Georgia, we met up with one of Steve’s work friends and her family for a day at Luray Caverns. I had been to Luray Caverns when I was much younger. Back then they had tour guides to walk your through the underground maze. Now they have this recorded tour that you listen to through head phones. They had two tours you could listen to. One for the adults, and one for the little kids. I listened to the little kids’ version so that I could keep up with Moanna’s adventure. She loved finding the stuff in the scavenger hunt mystery. She is still talking about “The Singing Rock” and “Friendly Ghost.”

We spent the Forth of July working at the local 4th of July celebration. Lexington is always a great place to be for the 4th. There is a big hot air balloon rally and fireworks; people from all over the area and beyond come to VMI to celebrate this patriotic day. I come for the food.

Following the 4th of July, we continued to push forward with our moving plans. It was hard to accomplish much of anything because we still had roles to maintain in our current lives in Virginia that were keeping us busy, but we were also up to our necks in figuring out what life would be like in Georgia.

During my last week of work, my coworkers threw me a surprise going away party. I was shocked. Surprised isn’t’ the right word. I was surprised, but I was shocked that they pulled the whole thing off because not much gets past me – that I know of. It was very bitter-sweet. To be honest with you, I had no idea that I cared about my job or the people I worked with that much. I knew that I really liked my job, but the last week was much harder than anticipated.

Because things were not crazy enough, Steve decided that we needed to take a last minute family vacation to the beach the day after I left my job. Don’t get me started. When he pitched the idea of going to the beach for the weekend, I told him he was out of his mind. We had 500 other things to do and our house was no where near ready to load onto a moving truck. His response to my chicken dance was, “We work better under pressure. We are going to the beach!” And, so we did.

I admit, it was a nice intermission. I spent most of the weekend on our beach front balcony in my t-shirt and underwear watching the rhythm of the ocean. Both mornings, we woke up to the run rise just after 6:00AM. We spent the mornings playing in the sand and swimming in the pool. The ocean was flipping freezing so only my toes touched the water. We napped in the afternoons and went out to yummy dinner in the evening. When were doing none of the above, I was on the balcony in my t-shirt and underwear. Why? Because that’s what you do at the beach. Moanna spent a lot time on the balcony too, but she was butt-booty naked.

The moment we got home, the vacation was over (actually it was over in the car when Steve forced me to write down our to-do list) and we frantically started throwing things in boxes. Our organized method of going through everything and weeding out the excess was out the window. Our “we work better under pressure method” was throw a bunch of crap in a box, pad it with some bubble wrap, tape it up and pray that nothing breaks. We did this for what felt like an eternity. In reality, it was three days.

We ended the month of July in a very special way. On July 30th Steve and I went to the DC Temple with several very dear friends of ours to get our Endowments and to be Sealed. As with most things in our life, it was nothing short of an adventure. The original plan was to do the Endowments on the 29th and be Sealed on the 30th. We wanted to space them out to keep from getting overwhelmed. Well, that didn’t happen. A massive storm blew through the DC area the prior Sunday knocking out power all over the place for several days. When we heard about the power outage on Tuesday, we created four or five backup plans in place because there was no telling what might happen. On one hand we were upset that our plans were being tossed around, but on the other hand we were grateful that the power outrage gave us a reason to think about our trip to the temple. Because of everything going on (the packing, the leases, the packing, the saying goodbye, the packing) our trip to the temple had become just a day on the calendar almost. Outside of our weekly temple prep class, we had no time to focus on the temple and what it meant for our family. This “disaster” gave us that opportunity. On top of having to go with plan D or E, Moanna managed to throw up several times that day on the way to the temple and at the temple. Not five minutes after our Sealing was complete the power in the temple shut off again. Thank you Lord for not letting us get on the elevator before that happened.

June and July were emotional months. They were down right overwhelming. In the greater picture of the world, our experiences and obstacles are no big deal. However, to us they were life changing. As a family we had to face a lot of new things. Things that we had little to no experience in. Things that we knew were going to be difficult proved to be much more difficult than anticipated. Things that were sweet were much more meaningful and sweeter than we expected. So to sum it up, we grew. A lot.

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