As of Saturday, all of our possessions are in our new house and the apartment is cleaned. I'll turn in the keys tomorrow (right after I try to super glue the crack in the stone in front of the fireplace where Abby broke it with her head.) Here's hoping for most of our security deposit back!
The more we're in the new place the more I like it. :)
Before I forget, here's the address:
1726 Midbrook Dr.; Rock Hill, SC 29732
Abby and Caleb enjoying the "new" reading chair I found at the ReStore for $50!
Tomorrow is the last soccer game of the season (for Micah). He scored two goals this season and has definitely gotten better all around. I really love going to the game and talking to the parents, but I'm also ready not to have two more nights of our week taken up. We've made some new friends that we should be able to continue relationships with.
Setting up for our first church service a week and a half ago. (Note the two guys on the ladders fixing the ceiling tiles... and Ben on his phone. :))
Beth and Abby working on puzzles:
We have a lot of kids in our church. :)
Pretty little girl:
I was trying to get a shot of Abby in an outfit a friend passed on to us. She wasn't too happy that I was taking a picture of her. :)
Children's Ministry at the Vineyard... (just kidding; we were trying to keep them occupied as the hours wore on while we set up for church. How many kids can you fit around a tiny DVD player?)
First church service - October 19, 2014:
Even superheroes need to express themselves artistically. (I wish I would have gotten a shot of her from the side - her long eyelashes stuck out through the eyeholes of the batman mask):
As part of their memory work this year, Caleb and Micah are learning some irregular verb conjugations. Each one has a little song and we made up hand motions that help them remember what "verb principle part" it is (infinitive/ present/ past/ present participle/ past participle). Not that they - or I - understand what that means yet, but someday we will! Caleb LOVES the "to rise/ to raise" song because of the motion at the end... we put out our thumbs and do a little dance. Several times we tried to get a picture of Caleb doing the dance with his crooked little thumb sticking out. This is as close as we got:
Side note: Caleb's favorite part of school is learning the states and capitals. He's become a little obsessed. He does USA puzzle maps over and over and sings his states and capitals song from the moment he wakes up and outlines his map with dry-erase markers multiple times a day. We've learned 40 of them so far, and Caleb just desperately wants to get to "Juneau, Alaska" which is the last state/capital in his song. Alaska is now his favorite state. :) He has a hard time understanding the difference between a city and a state (which I remember Micah being the same way), so he just always merges the capital with the state. So now he says we live in "Rock Hill, Columbia South Carolina". Grandma Bender lives in "Annapolis Maryland." I think Caleb may be to geography what Micah is to science.
Everyone's favorite spot in the house. Our back yard has trees all around it, and there's a little "Florida room" that looks out to the backyard. It's very deceiving because it's just a line of trees, and there are houses right behind them, but you would think there was a whole little woods back there. :)
While Wes and Joyce were visiting, we decided to have an impromptu birthday party for Micah. Ben and I moved everything from the apartment and cleaned all day, got home at 5:30, and then tried to get the party ready. I noticed the church near us was having a "trunk or treat", so I texted everyone and all the kids put on costumes and went to collect candy. That bought me a little more time. :)
Abby once again was trying to escape the picture:
We went to a Civil War battle reenactment at Brattonsville this past Sunday. It wasn't that great because evidently no one knew how to act. They just kept shooting off very loud cannons and after half an hour ONE person pretended to get shot. Carrie leaned over to me and said, "No wonder the war took four years." :) One interesting thing about watching this in the south: the moderator was definitely very in favor of the confederacy, and blames the reconstruction for everything wrong in the south. My kids kept referring to the Union as the good guys and asking "When are we going to win?" I tried to keep them quiet. :)
Brother against brother:
On Micah's birthday (Monday), we were going to take a field trip to the Charlotte Nature Museum, but it was unfortunately closed on Mondays, so we went to Discovery Place instead. Came home, ate at Texas Roadhouse (per his request), and ate cake.
Watching a demonstration at Discovery Place:
Caleb talked this guy's ear off at the aquarium "petting table":
Ben got a new job on Monday too! We're so excited. The job at the airport was getting pretty frustrating for Ben. They had offered him a supervisor position but it would have required him to work evenings and other odd hours, so he had turned it down. But he was one of the few guys who would work hard and treat people well, so they gave him the hardest job that no one else wanted (on the curb, taking tickets from the customers instead of driving cars) and he often got left there alone even though you need three people to do the job. There was a lot of disorganization that drove Ben nuts too. We've wanted him to get a job in Rock Hill, and Ben said Wednesday morning he prayed the whole way to work that God would give him another job, and then again the whole way home. Wednesday evening we went to small group and right away Mike Zieber says, "Would you be interested in working at Fast Signs?" YES! So Mike talked to his boss, who interviewed Ben, and he got the job. They are transitioning Mike into more of an installation role, and Ben will be taking over Mike's job. The owner was willing to let Ben work 30 hours instead of 40, and the job is literally less than 5 minutes from our house. Ben could ride his bike if he wants. No more getting up at 4 am and driving 45 minutes to work! The pay is comparable to what he was making at the airport ($12/hr to start out, which is just slightly less than what he's been making lately with tips), and even though he'll be working a few hours more at Fast Signs, he'll be gone less when you figure in the commute. (And keeping more pay when you factor in gas!) Next week will be his last week at the airport. Yay!
