To North Dakota

We left Cedarville Tuesday the 24th at about 5:00 in the morning for North Dakota. I'd like to say it's our last stop on the moving train and that we know where we will be putting down new roots, but I can't. We just don't know.

The babes were angels the trip through. We filled our twelve hours of travel as follows:

Tinkerbell dvd

Angelina Ballerina dvd

The Twelve Dancing Princesses dvd

kiddy laptop computer/play camera time

short Natalie Reading To Heather session

Veggie Tales God Made You Special dvd

Laurie Berkber's Victor Vito album

Lana del Rey album... every song!

Tinkerbell dvd, again

the combined collection CD consisting of the stories:

I Love You Stinky Face

Tell Me a Scary Story... But Not Too Scary!

The Little Mermaid

Finding Nemo

A little more Victor Vito

tears.

I can't blame them for the tears. They were bound to happen; ten hours of car time, even with McDonalds and gas station breaks in between, are bound to create haggard children.

Larry and myself? We had fun walkie-talkie-ing it from Illinois to North Dakota. The last hour of the trip did me in as well though, and by the time we had unloaded our vehicles and crowded into our new living quarters, I was mentally and emotionally exhausted and shed a good deal of tears. We all slept soundly that night.

The apartment Larry had been inhabiting for the past 5 months was as gritty as I thought it would be. But hey- I'll give him a break- he had no vacuum, no chemical cleaners, no womanly sense of cleanliness both in the phycial but also olfactory sense to get him through. The morning after arrival was a hurricane of organizing and sanitizing. I had the good idea to bring a candle... it's been burning almost nonstop since we got here.

I miss my home terribly. I really loved that place. And the comfort of sofas and dressers and big closets and beds with matresses for everyone and a room for everyone and a backyard and a town we knew inside and out... I miss it all.

We are a family that is together again though, and really, my home wasn't much without Larry there. I'd rather rough it out here than be sitting in comfort back home.