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It took a lot of work and effort, but we managed to get our belongings into storage. Major furniture that was broken and needing to be replaced was given the proper furniture funeral.

On the 31st, we were finishing removing our belongings and hit the road. The funny thing is when I was packing clothes for this move, not all of them fit into suitcases or a box. My pants in particular were the items I was really concerned with not making it into the van. "This stack has to go in the van." "Don't forget my pants." "I won't have anything but undies to wear if you forget MY PANTS."

As the van was packed up tight with stuff, one box didn't make the trip and went into storage. The following morning as we were getting dressed for the day, Homer asks where *his* pants were. Um... well... let me look. Eeep. Sorry Homer, your pants were in that box you didn't want to take in the van. You have nothing but undies and suit pants to wear. HAHA! I was such a harpy about my pants.

The nice part of this move is the general mood of our family has changed for the better. While each thing we are doing down here would have been done up there, each step is sort of energy and emotionally draining. If we were still up there, I'm sure our rebound back into action each day would be much more difficult. Here our funk lasts maybe an hour or two and then we are back to enjoying the move and different scenary.

Homer is invited to interview at his preferred location to work, and is going to go attempt to do that today. Cross your fingers!

The movie Up! was fabulous. Doug the dog is our Yoda, well except Yoda isn't trained very well and has the energy of a constant tornado. But everything else about the dog is our dog. The girls now want a talking collar for Yoda.

The bird was inspired by a bird from our local zoo. It was cool seeing the little mention of the Sacramento Zoo in the credits.

Also, my mom will be pleased to know that as much fun of her as I made when I when I was Juliet's age about her crying like a sap at movies or television, I've now become that lady. I think that the lovely moments are even more heart jerking than Jessie getting left in Toy Story 2.

I'd love to go back and watch it in 3D, but I probably won't get the opportunity. (Serafina was freaked out by the idea of glasses, and the movie started way later past bedtime.)

In a completely unrelated subject, Juliet wants to know why Dora the Explorer is oblivious to the fact that she shouldn't be so nosy looking in other people's Christmas presents. In fact, the more Juliet thinks back to the other episodes, she thinks Dora sort of tramples over her friends and expects to be loved as awesome and that's just rude.

I fell down the stairs last night. I made it down two steps and then slid down the rest injuring my back something fierce. I feel as if the stairs became a car and ran me down from behind. My neck, my shoulders and my hips are just aching. It puts a huge damper on continuing to unpack and get this household into shape. =oP Now the goal to survive without moving my body much at all today.

Last night, I was trying to figure out long term planning since the short term planning has been working well. When it is time to enter seminary studies, either I could move down to the bay area with my family, uprooting everyone and seeing our cost of living spike dramatically, or I could commute and miss out on a lot of family time, or I could study from home with occassional commute stays on campus. If I studied from home, I would need to be already participating in an emerging ministry, which happens to be my big idea anyway. So I spent last night brainstorming (much to the approval to Serafina, aka Imagination Mover's biggest fan) every part I could think of about my big idea. Once my computer had finally been turned over by Juliet and Serafina, I was attempting to catch up on two weeks of blog reading when I discovered on Marley's blog that California appears to be about to tackle open records again!

Exciting stuff this is! Never mind that I haven't figured out which assembly member is going to present the legislation, and never mind that I am fearful of the group putting the effort behind this legislation is stating they are willing to compromise access for some adoptees in order for many to have their records. But the fact that it has been so long since the last attempt is darn exciting. I joined Cal Open immediately so that I can keep up with what is going on, and to make sure I am sticking with the group that unapologetically insists on a clean bill with no adopted person's rights being trampled for the others.

Athena has slowly started eating regular food. Because of the family histories of allergies, I am pretty methodical about what foods are given and when so that I can watch for a reaction. Also, because of Juliet's texture aversions when she was little, I also give the girls a chance to really acclimate to the foods for seeing if they are chewing or swallowing alright before moving on to the next food. Athena basically for the last few weeks has been experimenting with rice crispies. In the last week or so, she's finally figured them out and how to eat them, so I've been contemplating which food to give her next.

Earlier this week I baked up a batch of the most awesome tasting Sugar Cookies ever. I promised the cookies to Homer, Juliet and Serafina before Christmas, and well it took until earlier this week to finally bake them. But it was so worth the wait! Each of us really had this look of utter content while eating these cookies, and the sad sack of Athena baby gave us either the look of disappointment she couldn't eat the cookie too, or it was the look of frustration that demanded we hand over the damn cookie already.

The cookies ran out by late Wednesday evening, but around the house Serafina left a partially eaten cookie or two around the house. Yesterday morning Athena was crawling around the bedroom floor getting into her usual mischief when I noticed that it had gotten really quiet in the room. The kind of quiet that means your child is up to no good. I peer over the end of the bed to see what the baby is up to, and next to a low coffee table, Athena baby is laying on her back with the most awesome happy face ever as she has clenched in one of her fists a petrified partially eaten sugar cookie. Athena happily gnawed on that cookie with smug satisfaction that she finally got one.

I picked Athena up and took her downstairs to show Homer what had happened, and we were in giggle fits over her determination. Homer battled it out with Athena trying to get that cookie out of her fist. She held tight while trying to cram that cookie back into her little open birdie mouth.

Look at my new nifty icon (icon was Laurel and Hardy doing a happy dance)... well that's us in our household right now! Katie ate all twelve meals and met her first food goal of eating 1/3 her requirement during the first 24 hours.

(And yes, by all means swipe the icon if you like it)