The remodel begins

Today was the first day of getting to school from the apartment.  We almost always walk to school but the apartment is too far away to do get there on foot or even biking.  We left later than I wanted to but we still managed to get there in time.  

After dropping off the kids, I went to our "real" house to grab a couple of things.  I got to watch our storage container be loaded up and taken away.  I hope we see it again.  

I also had a chance to see Serafina participating in class today.  

They were talking about numbers, but I didn't really get what they were doing because I was busy washing the tables.  Mrs. Robinson really likes to have clean tables.  

I stopped by the house again in the afternoon and work was underway.  I didn't really go inside, just grabbed the mail.  

Tom went by on his way home from work and snapped a few pictures of the progress.  

Tonight I made dinner from scratch in our small kitchen.

This all feels very surreal.  We first discussed remodeling over a year and a half ago.  Then even after we had a proposed design, there was a long period when I didn't think it was going to happen.  I went through the five stages of grief over the loss of my dream home project.  But when we moved the kids back into separate rooms and we lost our office, it was clear we needed to make a change.  It still took a while from that point to really lock down a builder and decide to move forward.  Then everything seemed to happen quickly and now I'm sitting in a strange apartment while my real house is being torn up.  It's exciting and scary and exhausting.

The big move

We had a long, exhausting weekend.  My friend Aida took the kids on Saturday; I paid her in donuts.  I don't think we could have managed the move with the kids underfoot.  I won't bore you with the details of removing almost everything from our house and moving it a mile down the road.  There were hiccups, of course, but we survived yesterday.  Today we managed to do a lot of unpacking.  There are only a couple boxes left at our "real" house and not much else.  

 We had our first dinner at the apartment tonight.  The kids are adapting just fine and it's kind of a big adventure for them.  Tom is smiling in this picture but it's a bit tougher on the grown ups.

Busy week

Wow.  What a week and it isn't even over.  I attended two different back-to-school nights.  At Leo's I got to leave him a note on his desk.  He said I was the only parent that drew a picture and he liked my alien.  

 I've been packing and packing and packing some more.  My dear friend Jenn came over today to help me work on the kitchen, which was great.  And this arrived today.

Our house is just days away from becoming a construction zone.  Walking home from school, Leo asked what it was for and I told him it was the new "time out" spot.

Silly pool pictures

We had a few extra frames on the underwater camera to use up so the kids took it in the pool.  

Hawaii Underwater Camera Pictures

We bought a disposable underwater camera while we in Hawaii that had actual film inside.  I got it developed a few weeks ago but haven't had a chance to post the pictures.  Here they are...

Kids snorkeling.  

Leo and Tom.

Serafina and me.

Serafina flying off the boat's slide.

Tom off the slide.

Tom going off the high dive.

My ocean beauty.

Celebrating Kristi's 40th birthday

Last weekend after the garage sale there were some items left over.  Almost all of them were sold on craigslist or donated.  There was one special item that I wasn't sure what to do with.  It was a hand-drawn picture of my beloved cat Milo.  I got Milo when I was in college but he didn't live long - four years, I think.  He had extra toes on his front paws and a bad heart.  He was cute and my old boyfriend had given me a chalk drawing of him that had been stowed away in our garage for eight years.  No one bought Milo at the garage sale so when I headed out after the sale to take down the signs I took the Milo picture with me.  My friend Kristi was out of town and due back Sunday, so I decided I would leave it on her porch as a welcome home gift.  

Our mutual friends encouraged that idea and thought maybe it should be a gift since Kristi was turning 40 in a week.  We also decided it should just be the first in a week of crappy gifts.  So I went back to her porch and added ribbon and a note.

Our friend Aida took on the second day and passed along this excellent Jessica Simpson book.

It also gave me a chance to regift this shirt I knew I'd never wear.

Last night we celebrated Kristi with dinner and drinks.

We had a grand time.

This morning I delivered the last "days of Kristi" gift - a unicorn horn I had crocheted a while back.

Here are all her gifts together.  She loved finding our "treasures" on her porch and it was fun to plan and execute the gift giving.  In fact, it's much more fun to celebrate some one else's 40th birthday.

We are less than a week away from moving out of the house.  It's been an exhausting, emotional process.  I started crying today when I found a card with my dad's handwriting on the envelope.  I didn't even read the card.  Our house is mostly empty of furniture but a mess of boxes and piles.  A lot of progress has been made but I feel like there is still so much to do.  I know it will all get done despite it being a busy week with two back-to-school nights this week, plus the usual swimming and dance stuff.  Oh and of course Serafina's birthday is right around the corner.  Shew.  I'm just trying to take a deep breath and tackle it one step at a time.

Second day of school

First Day of School - Kinder and Second Grade

The first day of school!  It kind of snuck up on us.  Thankfully I did all the back to school shopping in July because I had a feeling if I didn't deal with it I would be stressing out trying to round up everything at the last minute.  

I got them to bed at a decent time last night and they woke up easily this morning.  Leo was nervous.  He didn't say it but he didn't finish eating breakfast and he was fixated on a wiggly tooth that he thought needed pulling.  The tooth wasn't ready, so I told him he needed to make it through the day since I wasn't going to deal with a bleeding mouth on the first day of school. 

Of course we had to do pictures out front since that's our tradition.  But wow, our lawn and yard looks terrible.  Thanks, California drought.  

 The bird of paradise plant is doing better.  Isn't she cute?

 He wasn't totally sure about his bold choice of shirt for the first day, but his dad assured him that it was a great choice.

 Goofy kid.

 And off they go.  Headed to the same school finally.

 Daddy joined us with a big bag of 2nd grade supplies.

 On campus with my direct donation fundraising campaign banner in the background.

 Tom walked him to his classroom.

 We ran into Ana on our way to kindergarten.

 Gianna, her friend from TK, isn't in her class this year.

Into the kinder classroom.

 Looking at books waiting for class to start.

 Does this teacher look familiar?  It's Mrs. Robinson!  She was Leo's kindergarten teacher and this is her 30th year teaching kinder in this classroom.

 After I left Serafina's class, I stopped in to check on Leo.  He was doing great.  He's in a second grade class with two teachers - Mrs. Spinks and Mrs. Johnson - who job share.  I've known Mrs. Johnson for a few years now through preschool and she is amazing.

 I attended the kindergarten orientation and after just a little over an hour, I was back in the kinder yard.

 It was time for the long-held tradition of passing out popsicles to the kindergarteners.  My hands were really sticky by the end.

 Her buddy Sonja is in her class.

 She dripped red popsicle all down the front of her dress.  But it didn't matter because it was already time to go home.

 We were all done by 10:15am.  She was a good sport while I ran a couple errands and did some packing.

Leo had a full day and did great.  I was so proud of them both.  I was feeling a bit sad since I've gotten very used to their company this summer.  Don't get me wrong they've driven me up the wall and fought like feral cats every day, but they're my buddies.  They belong in school though.