5 days down, 2 to go

The hotel we're staying in is really nice. But I'm kinda tired of living in a hotel, all the same, and (as you can see above) counting down until our stuff arrives on Wednesday. And crossing my fingers that there aren't any delays. The driver of the moving truck said he'd give me 48 hours notice prior to his arrival, so that means he should be calling today...

Speaking of the driver, I forgot to mention in my last post a funny little tidbit about him. Both times we've moved with professional movers, we've had a great driver, memorable in some way. This guy has been awesome, he went way above the call of duty on a couple different occasions...for one thing, Cole's quite-difficult-to-put-together bed had to be completely disassembled in order for them to put it on the truck, but he's going to reassemble it when we get there. Also, the guys who packed our stuff were less than thorough. When the loading guys came we discovered a couple of dresser drawers still full of stuff. Not a big deal, but what was a big deal was when we discovered that they hadn't packed up the stuff in my cedar chest--stuffed to the brim with random breakables. The driver took it upon himself to pack it up. I was deeply grateful. I could've done it, but I had two clingy kids hanging on me and begging me to go outside, and it would've been very painful.

Anyway, near the end of the day as they were finishing up, the driver was sitting on the living room floor doing paperwork when his cell phone rang. I was in the kitchen cleaning and not paying much attention, when suddenly I heard him say, "Zaraz, zaraz." My ears perked up immediately. Was he speaking Polish?!? Sure enough, as he continued the conversation I became sure he was. When he hung up, I asked him where he was from. We had a great conversation about Poland. That's one thing I love about having served my mission there...you don't run into Poles very often, but when you do, they become instant friends because it's so uncommon for them to meet an American who speaks their language and understands their culture. As a funny side note, earlier in the day when I was showing him the stuff that needed to be loaded in the garage, he suddenly asked, "Are you Mormon?" Puzzled, I said, "Yes, actually. How did you know?" He said, "The food." We did have a tiny little bit of food storage in there, but I had sold about 80% of it before moving day! The things that give us Mormons away...he said he had recently moved a Mormon family with 9 kids from Albuquerque to Salt Lake City, and they had a 2-car garage entirely full of food. We must look a little strange to people sometimes. :)

Anyway, so here we are, waiting for our stuff to arrive...but we've found some pleasant ways to pass the time. On Friday I took the kids to Ellanor Lawrence Park, which is essentially a huge forest with lots of walking trails and a pond. Gorgeous this time of year, with the fall colors and the crunchy leaves underfoot, and the smell of forest and decomposing leaves. It has been so long since we've had close access to nature, I just kept breathing in the fresh air. I couldn't get enough!

Saturday we took the Metro into Washington, D.C. It was my first time there, and didn't disappoint! Everything on the National Mall is so beautiful, well kept, and impressive. We only visited one of the many museums, the Smithsonian Institute of Natural History. We thought that would be most interesting to the kids, with the dinosaur skeletons and everything. They did like it, though their attention spans are still too short to explore a museum thoroughly. We also saw the White House, the Capitol Building, the Washington Monument (how could you miss it!) the World War II Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. There was a lot we didn't see, but it was kind of like having annual passes to Disneyland--we don't have to wear ourselves out seeing it all in one day, because we live right here and can easily go back whenever we want. I need to make a list of all the historical sites worth visiting and just knock them off, one at a time, as much as we can. There's so much to do and see! I think Mount Vernon is next on my list.

We didn't get to attend our ward yesterday...or should I say, we chose not to, as it starts at 9 a.m. and the kids are still not adjusted to East Coast time. They didn't even wake up until after 9, so we attended an 11 a.m. ward instead. I think I might have to stop using the blackout curtains in their room after all, and start letting them wake up with the daylight...if I don't, they may just happily settle into a pattern of staying up until 9 or 10 and sleeping until 9. It's nice in the morning (like now) when they're still asleep and I can get things done, but probably not the healthiest schedule for them or us in the long run.

After church we were invited over for dinner by some new friends, David and Cheryl. Cheryl is the sister of our friends Kirk and Jamie in Boston. They have two boys; Austin, who is 5 years old, and Jack, who is 17 months. Cole and Austin hit it off instantly - as quickly as I've ever seen Cole take to a new friend. They played very happily for the two or more hours we were there, and when it was time to leave they gave each other a big hug and Cole even planted a big kiss on Austin's cheek. When we got home, Cole said, "My favorite friends are Bennett (cousin), Jalen (cousin) and Austin." Wow. This kid made it into the elite circle with great swiftness! We're going back over for a playdate tomorrow. It was great to see Cole making friends. Weston and Jack were both still a little too young to notice each other's existence much. As far as the adults went, we really enjoyed chatting with Cheryl and Dave! They were great. And it feels good to have friends here already.

Whew! Congratulations on making it to the end of this post, which as it turns out is more like a journal entry than anything! And the kids are waking up (it's 8 a.m.) so maybe we're headed for a more reasonable schedule after all...