Beach bums

Sunday we drove the 45 minutes down to the Gulf and spent a few hours at the beach. Its quite a bit different than The Cape or Maine beaches, but sand, sun and water are always fun no matter where you are. It was amazing that there were hardly any people there. You just pull up to the side of the road and park. That's about it! The kids played in the surf, hunted for beach treasures, made friends with the people near us who were fishing and crabbing. Moses was afraid of the waves. Katie Grace and Maxwell enjoyed the warm water and the small waves. Here are some pictures.

Dolly

For those of you concerned about us and Hurricane Dolly, please do not worry, the most we have gotten is cooler weather and some afternoon showers. Nothing to worry about as it is well south of us.

Updates and tidbits

Life is good. We are all so happy here. Its the Family routines that I missed the most, just the little things that used to happen every night. Now we are finding new ones and we are all just so happy in them. After Dinner Jim works in the yard, the kids ride their bikes and I walk with the neighbor ladies (really they power walk and I huff and puff and try to keep up.) We are loving it.

Here are Alex and Jimmy on their bikes:

Katie Grace is still amazed every night when Jim walks through the door, she says to him "Daddy you come home!"

Here is a shot of Katie and Max in their Monkey Jammie's from Gymbo. Aw sometimes they DO love each other!:

Moses the dawg is getting so big, we think he is somewhere around 50-55 lbs now. He is learning to walk nice on his leash, sit, leave it and to play soccer (he loves it, as any true Natale does :)

Jim got me a house warming gift: How do I spell domestic tranquility?D.Y.S.O.N House work is so much more enjoyable when you have the best tools for the job. Its so satisfying.

Finding

We are slowly finding ourselves here in Sulphur. Finding the school the kids will go to, finding the Vet for the dog, finding the grocery store, the post office and the local Walmart. We are all also finding other things, Mom found a church, the kids have all found new friends, (Alex has even gone to a neighbor girls Birthday Party), I have found the neighbor ladies to be very welcoming and even join them nightly for a few laps around the block. And Jimmy would not be our Jimmy if he didn't find the local critters.

Crawfish aka Mud Bugs. He caught about 40 of them right after a huge thunder storm that dumped about 5 inches on us in the matter of hours.

The Jansen Family.

My Oma had 5 children those five children gave her 17 grandchildren, and those grandchildren are working on the next generation.

Family portrait, Oma & Opa and their children. Uncle Ben, Nel, Uncle Bruce, Uncle Dennis and Uncle Brian.

Oma, Me and Alex and my Mom Nel.

A few days ago, my cousin Nora gave birth to her first child Kate Elizabeth S., the first grandchild of Uncle Dennis and Aunt Susan, and the 10th? great grandchild to our Oma. I wish she could be here to share in the joy of the growth of her family, and to know that even though we are spread out all over the Country, that we still keep in touch. Emily, Nora's younger sister, hostessed a fine BBQ for us as we passed through MD on our way down, where we had the chance to see their brothers Peter and Brett, Aunt Nikki and her oldest, Eric and his wife Rhonda. Not to mention my Brother Luke, his wife Rosanna and their new baby Kayla. (check out Em's blog for pictures of the BBQ)

We are also in contact with the Jansen's from Colorado, Uncle Bruce, Aunt Barb and their children -my cousins, Cara, Mark and Brad as well as their wives and husband. I enjoy learning all about Cara's Children Payton and Brady, and Mark's Son Nolan.

And last but certainly not least to join this blogging craze are my Uncle Brian and Aunt Denise.

What a blessed Family we have, as Nora quoted beautifully in her latest post.

“My soul magnifies the Lord,and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;for he who is mighty has done great things for me,and holy is his name.And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.He has shown strength with his arm;he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate;he has filled the hungry with good things,and the rich he has sent away empty.He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers,to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”Luke 1:46-55

I know... I know...

I promised you all pics and details would be up alot sooner than now, but with a house and yard that look like this, would you be inside playing on the computer?

We are LOVING IT!!!

Some quick details. The trip down went well. The kids did surprisingly well for the long 2 days at the end. We are pretty much all unpacked, now its just finding homes for everything, and trying to remember where you put them. I still forget where my bread drawer is and end up opening the wrong drawer every time. Jim went back to work on Monday, this is his short week, 4 days only till 4pm and his commute is only 15 minutes. The kids are loving the house and the pool, daily swimming, riding bikes on the super safe street around the block, meeting neighbor kids, playing with neighbor kids, having neighbor kids over, going over there ect. We have already met 4 of the neighbors around us. Two of those have even stopped by with cookies to welcome us here! Its amazing, everyone has been so nice. There are 2 boys across the street, a boy and an older girl next door, 2 girls and 2 boys three houses down, and more that live on the other side of the circle that we have not had the chance to meet yet. As for me, I am loving the house and garden, I love gardening, and after my initial feelings of being overwhelmed by all of the new flowers and trees and shrubs, I am diving head first into being a southern gardener. All of my Gardening books have really come in handy so far. Alex and Jimmy will even have their own veggie gardens. The fruit trees are coming along well. We have Lemons, Key Limes, Grapefruits, Navel Oranges and Mandarin Oranges. YUMMY!!!

As for the dog. Meet Moses!

He was born on 3/31. He is fitting in really well with our family. Doing pretty good potty training (the only accidents happen when we don't let him out in time) And he is doing great with the crate training. He is leaning his sit, stay, down and leave it commands, he is doing pretty good with those. He loves pig ears and playing soccer with the kids. Not sure how much he weighs yet, but its got to be over 35lbs!

He is a LAZY DAWG. Most of the time he is lounging on the carpet in the living room, on the kitchen rug or the back doormat. Here are some pictures of him.

I promise I'll post more often now. It gets pretty hot here in the afternoons. Our days usually are taking the dawg for a walk and swimming between breakfast and lunch, then after lunch we are going to be inside people, because even with the pool, our tender New England white skin will quickly burn in this hot Louisiana sun.

Saying Goodbye- Rolling on

I love this house. I have always loved this house. When we first had it built, we picked out the floor plan, the paint colors, the color of the rugs, the floors, the counters, the siding, the shutters... then as our Family grew we were able to expand the house, adding on a huge addition. Again we designed it and picked out the colors. All of the landscaping was done by our hands. Iris' from our Neighbors house growing up on Stoddard St. that went from Northampton to Gaithersburg with my Oma when she came to visit, then made their way back up here after we went to visit her one Easter. We now call them Oma Iris' and they have taken over every place that they have been planted. (If you knew my Oma, you would understand.)

10 years is a long time to live somewhere. A lot has happened here. We were building it when our first child was born, she spent her first Christmas here. The rest of our kids were all brought home to this house. They learned to walk on these floors, they learned to ride bikes in the driveway and catch frogs in the yard. I know every little creak that this house makes, I can tell you who is running around upstairs based on their footsteps. All of the stories, the parties, the birthdays, holidays and the firsts for our kids took place here.

How can you say good-bye to someplace that has been so good to you and your family? Every crayon mark on the wall and every stain on the carpet tells a story about my kids. How can we say goodbye especially knowing that once we leave, it will be empty. Its almost like we are abandoning it, no new owners, no new memories. It will sit here until the company can sell it, and who knows when that will be.

I am sad to leave this place. My house, our home. I think its finally started to sink in that we really are moving. The movers came today with their huge truck to scope the place out. They will be here bright and early tomorrow morning.

I told myself that I am not going to cry, but who am I kidding? I'll cry like I did the time I put Alex on the school bus for her first day of Kindergarten. And once I am done crying, then maybe after crying some more, I will finally be 100% ready to start the new chapter in our lives. New house, new home, new memories, new stories, new friends, new parties.... I think I am ready. As Jim says. This is what we do, we blaze trails. First to get married, first to have babies, first to buy a house, and now first to move their family away. And as he puts it... "this is how we roll.' Roll on and on. Rolling on.