It's Been A While...

But that does not mean that we McBrayers have not been busy!

Holden is now officially signed-up for kindergarten.  He'll be starting at Charles Longer Elementary School in the fall.  The school itself is a scant 0.07 miles from our humble abode here in the borough of Hollidaysburg.  I will greatly enjoy walking him to and fro -- at least while the weather is pleasant.  

We have also enrolled Holden in swimming lessons at the YMCA beginning in early March.  We attempted to self-teach him how to swim when we lived in West Milton, but the pool at Bucknell was cold and deep.  We are hoping to have much greater success in this newer, warmer and more shallow swimming environment.

Fiona is finally starting to show progress on the potty-training front.  Prior to the wicked sickness that ran it's course through the famiy, Fiona had gone nearly a week without wearing any kind of diapers (in the daytime hours).  Due to the 'explosive' nature of the stomach bug, it was necessary to regress to daytime diaper usage.  This was disappointing, to say the least.  However, we have seen great improvement since then.  Fiona rarely has a wet Pull-up and I think that starting tomorrow, we may try to get her back into her little girl underwear -- sans diaper.  YAY!

Melissa is still loving her work -- but has spent several late nights on campus this week.  While she loves to be on campus and see the 'fruits of her labor', she has been tired.  I think that it has become clear that we are no longer 18-year-old college kids who stay up late all of the time.

Lastly, we went to church today.  I think that we have found our new church home here in Hollidaysburg -- which is extremely pleasing.  One of the reasons that we never really felt 'at home' in West Milton/Lewisburg was because we never got involved in the community.  Melissa had her work, and I took care of the kids, but we never really 'connected' with anything outside of our family.  I think that things appear to be very different here.  Both Holden and Fiona had a great time in Sunday School while Melissa and I attended the worship service.  We even ran into one of Holden's friend's parents (whose family is also new to the area).  Things just felt right.

I guess that's about it for now.  I hope anyone who might be reading this is happy and healthy, just as we McBrayers are!

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Love My Goat

Four kids. One house. Lasagne. Love My Goat wine.

We had a great dinner with our friends the Meadows last night. Hopefully, this will become a regular occurrence in Hollidaysburg.

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The Move (Long Form)

We've moved. We did it.

A photo-documentary will be forthcoming, but for now let me say that it was quite an ordeal. Special thanks go to both Popeye & Mamaw McBrayer (my parents) and Grammy & Noni Angelo (Lis' parents) for helping with the move -- and with the kids. I have no idea how we would have been able to pack up a 26-foot-truck with children running around... to say nothing of unloading said truck.

Yowza.

The schedule went something like this:

Wednesday, November 26th: A surprise, one-day-earlier-than-planned visit from Popeye & Mamaw. Also, a surprise call from the U-Haul guy to invite me to pick-up our truck one day early... at no extra charge. Everything was coming up BERT! Popeye and I drove to Shamokin Dam to pick up the truck while Holden was at school and Mamaw took Fiona for a walk. Awesome.

Later that evening, Grammy arrives to spend the night as well. All seven of us dine on delicious Chinese food. Yum. We were one fortune cookie short -- so I gave mine up.

Thursday, November 27th: Happy Thanksgiving! We were all up early. The kids ate breakfast and said their goodbyes to the Browns (our neighbors). Grammy packed Holden & Fiona into her car and left around 8:30 a.m. Then I grabbed the keys to the truck.

After parking it sideways across our street (making it so that nobody could pass the beheamoth), we all started carry boxes to the truck. Thus, the long process of loading began. Around 10 a.m., Noni (Melissa's dad) arrived with his pickup truck, and some real muscle, to help load. Shortly after Noni's arrival, my brother Sean showed-up to lend a hand as well.

Packing the truck continued well into the afternoon. Finally, circa 4:00 p.m. when there were only some odds'n'ends left in the house, Melissa and I dismissed our workers to head home. She and I then spent another three hours cleaning. Vaccuuming. Scrubbing. Sweeping. Etcetera-ing. The last thing to go on the truck was our mattress.

The Wife and I finally hit the road just after 6:30 p.m. Having had no food since lunchtime, we decided that stopping in Lamar, Pennsylvania would be a good way-point for dinner. Our plans for a Dairy Queen dinner/treat were dashed upon the realization that the store was empty due to the Thanksgiving Day holiday. Fortunately for us, the TA Truckstop was open, as was the diner housed within.

Weary from our day of truck-packing, Melissa and I dined on some scrumptious truck-stop food. Melissa had an open-faced roast beef sandwich and french fries -- both drizzled with gravy. I had biscuits and sausage gravy with two eggs (over-medium) and a side of white toast.

We both got milkshakes to go.

At long last, we arrived in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania around 10:00 p.m. The first thing off of the truck was our mattress, so that we had something on which we could sleep. Unfortunately, we had no bed linens, so we simply slept on the bare mattress.

Friday, November 28th: Black Friday! No shopping for us though (not that we would have wanted to). The morning started with a cup of coffee and some Sheetz food. Our closest Sheetz store is a mere six blocks away (Melissa counted). After breakfast, we opened up the truck and went to work. With the (much appreciated) help of Melissa's cousin Benjamin Lang and our friends David and Brooke Meadows, we had the truck empty by lunchtime. Simply amaza-zing.

Added bonus: Popeye hooked-up the new gas range and the washer and dryer while we unloaded the truck.

Also keep in mind that we did not have to worry about our children at any time. Thursday night they were with Melissa's parents and all day Friday and Saturday they were with my parents. Awesome.

All day Saturday we unpacked before heading to Huntingdon for Melissa's families' Thanksgiving dinner. We repeated the process on Sunday with my family. Every chance that we have, we are unpacking boxes and hanging pictures and shelves.

On Monday (yesterday), Melissa started her first day of work at her new job. Despite being a little bit overwhelmed, she seems to have enjoyed herself. I think that she is very eager to dive-in, but first she must go through all of the rig-a-ma-role that comes with a new job (signing health insurance forms, W-4, etc.).

So, that is the long-form version of The Move. As I mentioned earlier, I will be posting pictures soon (as soon as I can find the device that uploads pictures from my camera).

Until then.

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