Change is good...

Unless it's a hundred dollars in pennies covered in trouser lint.

Who am I kidding? Even then it's good since, heck! It's a hundred bucks! But I digress.

Recently, I've been marveling at how much our lives have changed in the past four months. I have these surreal moments when I have to stop and ask myself, "Am I really here? Thousands of miles from home?" There are even times, as I am writing my return address that I write Jacksonville, Utah.

Weird.

But change really is good and I really appreciate the changes we've experienced. ( Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure I was catatonic for the first few months of living here. It was probably a combination of the move, having a baby and realizing a major career adjustment, but since we've found our footing, I've been feeling better and better.

A few months ago, as we were walking home from dropping off Sunny and Bunny at the bus stop, we turned the corner toward our home and Lulu enthusiastically cried "We're home!" That beautiful moment was a turning point in my Utah-to-Florida transition. The house we were terrified to actually move our stuff into has become our safe haven. As temporary as it is, we are happy, safe and comfortable here.

What, you may ask, has changed in the past few months? Plenty.

#1 Dinner. We have it together. It's glorious. For years He-Man would have a 5:10-5:30 window of opportunity to eat dinner with us, coming home from his day job as a DC and leaving for his secret identity as a software tech support agent. We learned to gobble up dinner in record time, share 'Highs and Lows', read scriptures together and accost Daddy with hugs and kisses....all while trying not to talk with our mouths crammed full of food and/or smearing food onto his clothing while bidding him goodbye.

Now, we set our table to eat, chat, laugh, even fill out a Mad Lib every once in a while.

For the first little bit, our dinner's lasted a grand total of 5 minutes. Then, we'd just sit around and stare at each other. It got very boring.

Unfortunately, when your accustomed to eating dinner that fast, your prone to develop atrocious table manners.

And a wicked case of the hiccups.

We are currently working on that.

#2 We have 4 kids!! I've never done that before. Frankly, it's kicking my butt. My guess is my over-protective, very active imagination was already on overdrive with 3. Now with four I'm not unlike a crazy bag lady spit washing the invisible peanut butter off her kid's face...only to the rest of the world, she's really wiping the face fur off an incredibly ticked-off Pomeranian.

I'm pretty sure there's a medication for that. In the meantime, my children are not allowed to so much as glance at a retention pool without their mom forcing them to show her how to do the breast stroke in mid-air.

*Speaking of retention pools. In Utah we had a nice gated yard with a garden, trees and those nasty 35 year old bark chips that resemble dog poop. (What really stinks is when you actually mistake dog poop with the bark...and we didn't even have a dog!) Here, we are doors down from a retention pond that had a very real and very agitated alligator in it last summer!! When there aren't sunbathing alligators irritated at gawking, freaked out neighbors, the snakes use it for their pool parties. Seriously!!

Now there's 101 random accidents just waiting to happen. (Over active imagination strikes again)

#3 The ocean. I love it. If I believed in reincarnation, I'd be convinced of a past mermaid life. I do however, have a great hope that there are oceans in heaven. Some of our happiest moments have been on the beach. When it warms up, I'm looking forward to beach front yoga and waking our kids up before dawn and hauling them to the beach to see the sunrise.

#4 The water...blach! I'm pretty sure Jacksonville isn't going to be bottling it for mass export anytime soon. If there was a name of flavor for this water...and honestly, water should NOT have a flavor, it would be 'dirty sock'.

Really. I'm actually a little concerned about my family drinking it.

#5 It kind of goes along with #1, but seriously, cutting back from 80+ work weeks to 40 hours totally ROCKS!! Have I mentioned how much I like this guy?

(Seen here as the victor, Dada-ROAR, in our FHE Connect 4 Tournament. Beating out Gladiators like 'The Ab-structor', 'Holly Berry Crusher' and the Eve of Destruction...You do not want to go toe to toe with those formidable opponents!)


Our time with him has yet to get old. It's really, really nice. I need to recognize this for the blessing it is. It's been an answer to very fervent prayer. I still can't not say 'thank you' for that one!

#6 Perhaps the one change that hasn't been so happy is the obvious one. We miss our family and friends like CRAZY! Bunny kisses a bedside picture of her best friend/cousin Red, regularly. Sunny can hardly bare to talk about her cousins without getting choked up and chatting on the phone still isn't enough for my sistas-from-other-mistas fix. That's hard.

But really, I won't complain. Because I get to keep them and all the other lovelies that our rolling stone picks up as we go along.

So what stays the same?

My baby weight, apparently. It's barely budged.

Whether here or in Utah, I'm pretty sure I'd still wake up to a pile of poopie by my bathroom floor from potty training run a muck. Only, if we were still in Utah, we'd be dealing with poopie plus shag carpet; not a good combination.

We are happy. With a determination to bloom where we're planted, we're working on growing a mighty fine planter of flowers.