Lauren and Will practice thankfulness and silence

3 weeks.

21 days.

504 hours.

I had to go back and count the weeks on the calendar. It feels so much longer than that. Granted, we’ve not lived with any sense of order or rhythm. I haven’t woken to an alarm for 3 weeks now, though I set one every night. Just in case.

We’ve been living in temporary housing, shuffling between homes. The kids spent their first week in California living with my parents as I got settled into a new job located 90 minutes to the south.  I figured I’d easily be able to pop back and forth on the weekends, reconnecting with the kids and enjoying a little downtime at “home.”  But the drive quickly wears thin.  And it’s not the traffic–in fact, last Friday, I sailed along I-15 with only a slow spot here and there.  It’s just that it’s 87 miles of freeway driving. And that’s a long way to travel week in and week out.

So, last Sunday I told the kids to pack up and plan on coming with me to Escondido.  New friends invited us to stay at their home while on vacation. I told the kids to think of it like being up at Big Bear–a fully stocked cabin with cable and internet.  What I didn’t realize is that when I’m at Big Bear with the kids, I’m NOT working.

The past 5 days have been long ones for Will and Lilly.

• They’ve taken to sleeping in really late so as to shorten the daylight hours.
• There was a day (or two) where they argued so much I went into my room. shut the door, and looked for a movie to watch on Netflix.
• We found the mall, walked slowly from store to store and ate a leisurely dinner.
• a trip to the beach with a new friend
• We went to the bookstore to find something–“If you promise me you’ll read it, I’ll buy it.”–to pass the time.
• Uno, Mancala and a pair of bikes made brief appearances to break up the monotony
• They discovered the 7-11 just around the corner.  $10 buys a lot of Slurpees and donuts.

Wilma and John Apostol, Lori Vermaire, me, Will and Lilly. Coronado Island

And then, along comes Friday.  We made it through our first week!  We joined Mark and Lori, and John and Wilma for an Italian dinner and a local production of West Side Story.  It felt like a mini-celebration for what we’d endured.

We reminisced about the crazy days–all 5 of them we had just lived through. You’d think we had faced the apocalypse. Rather, it was just a regular, boring hot summer week with no sense of order or rhythm.

What’s a mom to do?

I know! Send the kids to Grandma’s house!

Sunday night, they’ll be back in Anaheim.

A wonderful lunch with the gals and their gals from Crossroads

Technology has changed our lives this time around. Lilly enjoys Facetime to connect with her friends in NC