What Time is It?

So, we've only been home for a week now, but already Cincinnati seems like a lifetime ago! In an effort to remember the place, I'll recount the highlights of our last days there.

Ethan and Grace "helping" to pack

The number one life lesson I learned this summer is to ask for help when I need it. With three children ages 4 and under, I quickly realized that there was no way I'd be able to pack, clean, and move us all on my own while Scott was finishing up his internship. I recruited help from some friends in our ward for a couple of days during our last week. It is amazing how much easier it is to get stuff done when you have no kids underfoot!

seven of the THIRTEEN boxes of junk that we accumulated over the summer and shipped back home to save space in our suitcases. Yikes!

Life lesson number 2 learned -- there is indeed a time and a season for everything in life, and this is neither the time nor the season for me to have a spotlessly clean house. However, I was excited to discover that for those few hours when I was able to clean without interruption and without immediate destruction from my young kids, I actually really enjoyed myself! This is huge. Perhaps the time and season will come one day...

In the midst of all the moving preparations, Scott celebrated his 30th birthday! It was on the second to last day of his internship, and despite the craziness of the timing, I really wanted to make sure that such a milestone birthday was celebrated correctly. The kids were only too happy to participate. For the theme, I turned to our resident party girl Grace, who decided that he wanted a Harry Potter party. Alright. Well, luckily our local grocery store still had plenty paraphernalia leftover from the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix premiere and we scored some paper products which worked perfectly. Whoa, that was a lot of P's. Because Scott doesn't like cake very much and because everything was pretty much packed up anyway, we opted for ice cream instead. And not just any ice cream, but the crack cocaine of ice cream -- Graeter's Black Raspberry Chip. Seriously. It is the crack cocaine of ice cream.




Moving day finally came and all I have to say is that we left that place looking GOOD. We do not exactly have the best track record when it comes to getting back our deposits, but if we don't get ours back this time, I will be TICKED. We dropped off our keys and had plenty of time to spare before our flight, so we headed over to the Children's Museum for one last hurrah before we left. That was fun. Not so fun? Getting to the airport and finding out that our flight was delayed an hour. Awesome. The kids were surprisingly well behaved with all the down time there, but once on the plane, Tropical Storm Grace began to brew. Talk about a mess. She was going on about day 4 without a nap, and the flight took off right at her usual bedtime. I optimistically (read foolishly) thought she would be so tired that she'd conk right out and sleep for the majority of the flight. Not the case. Even being buckled in her car seat couldn't stop her from annoying everyone around. From repeatedly kicking the seat in front of her, to messing with the window shade, to intermittently screaming just for kicks, it was the longest 3 hours and 17 minutes of my life. Ethan and Sophie were both super champs, though, so it could have been much worse.

Scott unleashing his inner child at the Children's Museum

All our luggage

Going through security with all our junk and 3 little kids was a pain in the butt


Here's Grace entertaining herself in the airport


Sarah and Andrew made us a welcome home sign

Grace finally did conk out -- driving home from the airport

Coming back home was so weird. It didn't even seem real for the first few days. Of course, having everyone come in town for Sarah's wedding helped to speed reality along. The kids had so much fun playing with all the family. We were so sad to see everyone go yesterday.

The lovebirds

Having fun at the wedding





Hansen sibs

At the reception:

After Grace made a MESS with her piece of chocolate cake, she kept asking me for the Tide pen. When I finally understood what she was saying, I obliged and got one out for both her and Ethan and they both got to work cleaning the chocolate stains on the tablecloth.

We love the Gruwells!

I feel like there's a curious lack of stories here. Of course, last time I wrote that I jinxed myself, so hopefully there will be no new haircutting horrors this week!

In closing, all I have to say is: "What team?!"