Yes, I'm still alive.....

Okay, I'm totally lame and haven't blogged in ages. I haven't been reading my friends' blogs either. I have a good excuse for the recent months, but before that, not really.

Here's the update:
Yes, I made that bacon explosion. I did a half recipe, though. And I did it in the oven because I don't have a smoker. Oh, and I substituted breakfast sausage because I had it on hand. It actually wasn't bad, though you only want to eat a little at a time.

Ruby had a flurry of field trips at the end of the school year, which occupied quite a bit of my time. She finished Kindergarten and then cried that night because she missed school. She always wants to send pictures to her teacher, who we both just loved. We have registered her for her new school, which starts on the 24th, and is just a short walk from our new house. She loves school and is really excited to start again, even though it will be at a new school. She keeps asking how many days until school starts.

We moved!! No more apartments for us! We are living in luxury in a three bedroom manufactured home. The yard is small, but it's a yard. The house is fabulous. The kids are loving having their own bedrooms. We painted Ruby's pink and Russell's is blue. We also painted the laundry room (yes, we have a laundry room!!!) a different shade of blue. All the other rooms, except the bathrooms (yes, that's a plural) have been recently painted and look nice so we didn't bother with them. Our kitchen has a breakfast nook, which we have turned into my sewing area. The dining room had carpet. I ripped that out before we moved in and put down resilient vinyl plank flooring. It is awesome. It looks just like a wood floor, feels like a wood floor when you slide the chairs on it and stuff, was super easy to lay (I did it all by myself), and it's waterproof! I'm also going to put it in the master bathroom, which is presently carpeted, but I'm going to deal with the boxes and stuff first. We're totally loving all the space we have--and the closets! Our whole apartment had enough closet space to make one mediocre closet. And we had virtually no cabinet space in the kitchen. Now both of the kids have good closets (with storage space above them) and Charles and I have a walk-in closet. And the kitchen is fabulous! We went from having about 834 sq. ft in the apartment to about 1290 sf now. We're loving life! One of these days I'll find my camera and I'll get enough boxes unpacked to actually take some pictures. The kids have made some friends here. There seem to be quite a few other kids on our street. And it's a private street, so there's not much traffic.

Thanks to their most generous auntie, the kids are taking swimming lessons this week and next. They just finished for this week. Ruby LOVES them and has made good progress, learning to do almost all the level 1 stuff. Russell, on the other hand, is not so thrilled with them. You see, his teacher wants him to actually move his arms and legs and--horror of horrors-- wants him to put his face in the water. He did fine the first day. The second day he got out for a few minutes until he saw the big floatie hippo all the kids were going to ride on. Then he got back in. Yesterday he got out crying about half way through the lesson. I let him stay out yesterday but told him he had to do his whole lesson today. Well, each time it was his turn to do the individual instruction with the teacher, he climbed out of the pool and tried running over to me. Unfortunately for him, I was unsympathetic and stuck him back in the pool each time. So, after about 4 attempts to get out of the pool, he finished his lesson. I told him he doesn't have to go back for three days. That is, not until the next session starts on Monday. Luckily, our mobile home park has a very nice pool so I can work with him and hopefully he'll be more open to the face in the water thing by next summer.

The only down side to our new location is that Charles now has an hour long commute each way. We're only about 11 miles from his office, but we only have one car and I am not giving it up. So, he gets to take the light rail. We're about a mile from the station and it's a bit of a walk between his office and the station he gets off at, so that's why it takes so long. It's cheaper than driving anyway. And he get excercise and some down time to read his scriptures on the train, so it's not really a down side. Just the part about seeing less of him is. We were spoiled by his previous five minute commute. The other thing is that I have to do all the shopping now. I can't ask him to pick stuff up at the store on his way home from work. I can live with that.

Well, time to stop procrastinating and get on with the unpacking....