The things we love, and those we don't

Now that we are past the moving in phase here in San Antonio I've really been thinking about all the things I love about our current city. I absolutely love the side of town where we ended up. Everything is so close. We have a huge shopping center right behind the house with most of the shopping I could ever need. The other day we had to get the cars inspected and while waiting I walked to the post office and then to the insurance agents office. I was having flashbacks to my time in Honduras as I walked down the dirt road where the post office is (they are repaving it) in the 100 degree heat. I might have even been honked at by a group of latinos in a car, or maybe that was just in my head. This week we played the fun waiting game at the DMV for a Texas license and just as we made it to the front of the line, almost 2 hours from the start of our adventure, Abe had to go take the kids to swim lessons. So I just waited and walked home. We have never lived so close to things before. In the heat I was regretting my decision until I took a little detour by the Sonic for a drink. I can't wait for it to cool down some so we can take more advantage of our close proximity. We get a lot of strange looks when we walk to church.

The other thing I really love is being in such a friendly town. Its probably the same all over Texas but you just see a lot of nice helpful people. We were driving somewhere the other day and watched several cars pull over on the interstate to push a car that had died in the middle of the street. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone was always that helpful to a neighbor.

There are a few things that I'm not so found of... mainly the military way of doing things. I needed a new military ID now that Abe is on active duty again. I made 3 trips to the ID card office. One day I got there and they had just closed because they close at 4. But there is no hours listed on the door so you never really know. The second time I came at 3 but I guess they close even earlier on Friday because once again the doors were locked. Finally I got there early enough only to find out that unlike the last time I got a new card your "sponsor", Abe, has to be with me. The other options, according to the helpful woman at the check-in counter, was to wait the 2 hours that they were estimating it would take me to get to the front of the line and get a piece of paper that I then had to take back to Abe for him to sign and then I could come back again and sit ANOTHER 2 hours with my children to actually get the ID. Oh no she couldn't just grab me one of those forms, I had to wait for it. Like that made any sense. Needless to say I did not wait and actually was able to find a day where Abe could get off early enough to actually get it done. I feel like I'm finally getting to the end of my crazy long list of things to get done when you move. Yeah! Now maybe we can start doing fun things instead of spending all our time in line at the DMV, ID card office, Tax assessors office, immunization clinic....

The kids are enjoying our move and all the fun things San Antonio has to offer. We have been doing swim lessons the last two week. The kids have loved it even though they have learned absolutely nothing except Taylor makes a great teacher's pet and can sweetly convince the swim teacher to just pull her along in the water rather than making her swim. On the first day the teacher told each of the kids to put their face in the water. All the kids did it until she got to Taylor. She is my child, and I hate going under the water, so I knew she wasn't going to do it. She did put her face close to the water and then smiled nicely at the teacher and said "No, thank you." And that was that. Now I have to find swim lesson that will actually teach them how to swim. Ethan keeps us on our toes as usual. On the way home from swim lessons he re-started an earlier "discussion" about how I don't let them watch tv when the babysitter is here in the mornings to watch them for a few hours. I explained to him that I pay the babysitter to watch them not to watch them watch tv for 2 hours. There was a pause in the back and he starts again.
Ethan: "You pay Darlene (the babysitter) to entertain us."
Me: "Yes"
Ethan: "I think watching tv is fun."
Me: "I know you do"
Ethan: "So if watching tv is fun then it entertains me so you should let us watch tv with Darlene."
I love how he logics through the things that he wants. Not that it changes my mind but I love watching them grow up. Sunday at church they decided that they wanted to go to Nursery and Primary by themselves. They were adorable. Taylor idolizes her big brother and loved him taking her to class. I just can't believe how big they are getting.

We went down to the coast last weekend with some friends from the ward. It was the perfect weather to head to the beach. It was hot but not overwhelmingly so. The kids had a great time and so did the adults.
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This weekend Abe had to work Saturday and Sunday so the kids and I decided to come up with lots of fun things to do. We started off at the zoo early in the morning. Of course it would be the one day that it actually rained in San Antonio. But it didn't last long so we just kept on going. It was better than sweating.

Aren't they so cute!

The goats don't like the rain so they didn't want to come out and play.

After the zoo we headed to a great park on base. This park had everything. It was so nice to have some nice weather so we could actually survive time outside. You can tell from their faces that we take the park very seriously.

After the park we headed to the pool for a nice swim, with the life jackets on since no one learned a thing in swim lessons (but I'm not bitter :). Such a great day. But we definitely missed Abe. It is going to be a hard adjustment getting used to him working weekends and not being around for all the fun. We are hoping to check out some more San Antonio fun this week when my mom comes to visit so hopefully he can get a day off in there.

We Have Arrived

Wow, I think we can finally say we are settled in San Antonio. I can't believe graduation was a month ago. The time has really flown by. After graduation it was a whirlwind of packing and loading the moving truck, a few final visits with friends and then we were off to San Antonio. What a long drive! I'm so thankful to my mother for watching the kids so I could do it by myself. I spent the first week cleaning, painting and just sitting around waiting for our furniture. There is nothing like sitting around in camp chairs and staring at one another in the evenings. It was fun to have Michelle, Abe's sister, stay with us and keep me company during the day. We were hoping that our stuff would come before the kids arrived but we weren't so lucky. We still had 4 days of "camping" once the kids arrived so those were some long days. Our first military move has definitely been a learning experience. The movers finally came at 5:30PM on last day of their 2-week window and unloaded until midnight. The driver laughed when I asked him when he was going to come back and unpack the stuff, which is included in the military move. It was pretty frustrating but most of our stuff made it here safe and sound.

The next couple of days were a whirlwind of trying to unpack before the Fish family came for a visit. It is so fun having family within driving distance. We were so excited that everyone could come down from Dallas and stay with us. They are such easy company. We took a trip to one of the nearby rivers and had a day of tubing. I really wish I had gotten some pictures but Carol was the only one with a camera. The kids had a blast playing with their cousins and everyone played so great together. I had a last minute trip to Dallas for work so we followed everyone back to Dallas to continue to the fun at Zeb and Leah's house for a few more days. They were so sweet to watch the kids so I could do some training. The house isn't nearly as excited without Michelle and all our family around. We are still adjusting.

We are finally starting to feel like we might like our ward. It is always so hard to leave a place you love and have to start all over again. Our new ward has an interesting mix of military and non-military families. We are pretty close to an Airforce base and I guess they have some training programs there that only last about 4 months. So there are a lot of families that just come in for a very short time and everyone seems very hesistant to befriend them because they will just leave. So when anyone hears we are military they assume we are short-term. Finally people have started asking how long we will be here and they are somewhat satisfied with the answer of 3 years. Today they had a 4th of July pancake breakfast and the family at our table said to her husband "Honey, they are going to be here for 3 years. That is pretty good. I think we can be friends." We all laughed but I think she was serious. So Independence Day was jam packed with fun activities starting with the pancake breakfast and then a great lunch with some of Abe's co-workers. Abe got a new grill for a graduation present and he cooked up some delicious chicken for us. Then we went to a member of the ward's house for a pool party and bbq. I would have to say that the lack of fireworks on 4th of July has been a let down. There are in a really bad drought in San Antonio so they thought fireworks were too much a fire risk. We are all missing them. Maybe next year.

I added a few of the pictures we have taken since we have been here. Hopefully I will get better. On Saturday Abe took Ethan for a little father/son time and they went rock climbing at the YMCA. Ethan was a little hesistant to begin with but with enough coaxing he made it all the way to the top twice. We always knew he would be a great climber. We also braved the heat for some bike riding at the airforce base. It was perfectly flat sidewalks that were great for riding. We are starting to feel at home here and enjoying all the things there are to do (and all the shopping that is so close.) We are missing our Virginia friends very much but our guest room is fully operational so we would love some friends to come visit.