Locals

Here are a few pics of our apartment at Oakwood.  This picture of Olivia and Grace watching TV from their beds was taken exactly two minutes after we walked in the front door for the first time.  Oh, and look!  Guess what Henry is doing, too?  I hope the UAB gets here soon.  They've read all their books and I didn't bring any toys.  Going to try and get to a bookstore today, but that's pretty far down on my list, right after Finding A Place to Live and Get the Kids in School.  Strong feelings of guilt that another Monday is going by without them being enrolled.

Yesterday, after we made all the calls we could on rental leads, we decided to take a break and head to DC on the metro.  To your left is Jack practicing looking like a bored local, which was a real stretch for him.  The bored part, I mean.  We went to a few of the Smithsonian museums, which were amazing.  We had watched Night at the Museum 2 the night before, so the kids were pretty excited to see all the stuff from the movie.  I felt like we could spend all day and still not scratch the surface at the Museum of Natural History.  We all had a pretty good day and I was able to get out of my funk for a little while.  It's not a big funk, just a "lack of control and lack of a plan".  It's hard not to dwell on the cozy, easy life we had on Whidbey Island, where there weren't a million choices for schools, everyone just went to the same semi-crappy one and made the best of it.  That being said, we are surprisingly happy living in this apartment.  Jack enjoys not cleaning out a chicken coop and without gardening or online shoe-shopping (no address to ship to), my carpal tunnel has really improved.  Seamus has a multitude of dog butts to sniff, and the kids can go swimming whenever they want.  It's gotten chillier here, according to the locals, and my kids are always the only ones in the pool.  They even went in the rain yesterday, because that's just what they're used to.