Our House in the Middle of Our Street

view from Peace Arch park On Monday, we will be entering our 6th week of our move, outside of Lincoln and settling in Blaine, Washington, directly south of the Canadian border. Stefan and I can still hardly believe this, since it has gone so fast, and have said on more than one occasion, to more than one person who asks how we're doing, " It feels like we're still on vacation, with our kids here and stuff in the closets. " This, in my opinion, is a pretty great way to feel about a new town that is 1,600 miles away from one's hometown.  When we first started to look outside our apartment, to find things to do in the area, I knew I needed to be connected to a homeschool group like I was back in Lincoln. In fact, before we even moved I had emailed the head of the Whatcom County Homeschooler's Association , just to find out if I could be sent a newsletter to check it out from afar. I'm so glad I decided to (wo)man up and go to the local homeschool...

photocredit For the first time in years... years ....I'm going to be participating in a sewing week in April. I've wanted to join this very same seasonal group of sewers for a long time, but things would come up, I'd be too committed, or my kids were just too little and I was simply too tired.  This time around, I've got no excuse. I'm going to be brave and start sewing again. I'm going to spend the next month picking out patterns, choosing fabrics from my stash, and cutting them all out. If I take the time to create the scenario (cutting is my defeatist step), I will enjoy spending an hour or two sewing everything up during nap times, photographing everything, and posting it here on the blog and within the group online.  I have tons of ideas already from my pinterest boards , and I even bought a few patterns months ago in anticipation of when I'd start sewing again. Now...to make sure that darned machine is up to snuff... * Will...

This top picture is a view from Semiahmoo strip, where, at the end of this (behind me) is a little ferry that travels during the summer months from Marine Park pier to this dock. Off to the side is a quaint little beach, another dock, and beyond that, another little beach for digging and sea-shell collecting. This was a really fun spot we found, with a beautiful drive to get there, and the perfect little spot for our Saturday lunch. We'll definitely go back in the summer, when the ferry is running everyday.  The clear days in our pictures are deceiving. It's still winter, which although that doesn't mean dumps of snow--what I'm used to-- but just gloomy day after gloomy day, morning til' night dreary gray, and rain, rain, rain. When the sun appears (especially on the weekend) you grab your shoes and get outside. You don't know when it will be back.  Living in Blaine, and in the Pacific Northwest in general, still feels a little unreal, even thou...

To even begin this post, seems overwhelming to me. I don't even know where to begin without making this a novel, and inevitably, never hitting publish. I'll try to summarize as best I can the actual moving week, and hurry along to the more exciting part of it--where we've settled. *** On February 19th, we hit the road for a long drive with a fully packed Penske truck at roughly 8:30 in the morning.  We drove through 4 hours of the hardest wind I've even driven through, and then it was flat and stark Nebraska horizons until we hit Denver, for a late dinner with my grandmother who lives there. We were able to stop and visit with her for a couple hours before going onward to Laramie, WY, where we'd hunker down and fall asleep, exhausted, within minutes of checking into our hotel.  Driving; morning, noon and night with only stops for bathroom breaks, and gas-refills, with one long hour stop allotment for dinner, until we arrived in Bellingham, Washington, l...