Our newest new house

Here's a fun fact for you. In the past 5 years I have lived in 5 states.  And actually I've lived in 4 states in the last year alone.

Last year at this time we were in Alabama.  We moved to Utah in November, We moved to Wyoming in May, and finally we made it to Idaho in August.  

After all that moving I'm looking forward to staying put for the next two years.  So when we looked for our rental house here in Pocatello we wanted to find a place that would work for us for two years.  The last thing I wanted to do was have to move again after only a year.  

I'm incredibly happy with the house that we found. And I want to tell you a little about how we found it.  At the end of July we came down from Yellowstone to go house hunting.  I'd put together a spreadsheet listing the details about 10 rental houses that fit our budget.  We were looking for a house rather than a town house or apartment.  With 4 kids we didn't want to have to share walls with any neighbors.  

After living in an RV for 3 months having a house with space was very important to us. Squishing into a tiny home is okay for a while. But I wanted a place where we could spread out.  I was especially concerned about having a house that wouldn't feel crowded in the winter.  

The first rental house we looked at was a three bedroom house with a living room and kitchen/dining room.  Technically there was nothing wrong with the house, but it just felt small.  I wasn't looking forward to spending winter in that house. 

The second house we looked at was quirky to say the least.  It had a few odd looking rooms and the basement had tile in the bedrooms. This was the least expensive house on our list and so I was willing to consider living there.  However, the house was on a corner and the yard didn't have a fence.  Plus there was no off street parking.  I told Brandon, "I'm fine with quirky, but I would rather live in the middle of a block."

Brandon and I looked at our list and he saw a house that was the same price as the first house, but had four bedrooms.  "Let's go look at this house. It has more space, but costs about the same."  This was the last house on our list and for some reason I hadn't written many notes about it.  I couldn't remember anything specific about it. 

We found the address and went to take a look at the house. It was and older home, and it was located in the middle of the block and had off street parking so I was willing to consider living there. The rental company used an app that would text you a code to the lock box on the house.  So while Brandon got the code I went up to the house and took a peek in through the front windows.  The very first thing I saw was an entry way and then a second door with windows.  I saw those windows and I was sold. I WANTED to live in this house.

We got the code and opened the front door and explored the house.  This one was pretty quirky too, but in a good way. It had many details that made me fall even more in love with it. And it was HUGE.  I was pretty certain that we could park the RV in the living room. Brandon and I both had a feeling that this was our house.  So we applied, were approved, and moved in.  We've spent the last several weeks unpacking and making it feel like home.  

And now I'm ready to give you the tour.  We are about 95% done unpacking, and we cleaned the house yesterday so I figured this was the best time to take pictures.  

The first room you enter when you come in the front door is a little foyer area.  When this house was first built, this was a porch, but later was converted into a room. 

I love having a dedicated place where we can put our coats, backpacks and shoes.  This makes the morning rush out to the bus stop so much less chaotic.

 Here's the other side of the entry way.  I think there might be more floor space in this single room than we had in the whole RV.

After you go through the second door you come into the living room.  I'm so happy to have all my furniture back.  

 This is the view of the living room from the other direction.  Look at how pretty those windows look.  I love how much light they provide.

 The room next to the living room is a large bedroom.  Brandon and I claimed this one as our own.

I was happy that our King size bed fits in the room without feeling like it takes over the space. 

 Part of our room is the other half of the old porch area.  We use it as an office.

 This reminds me of a room that was in my Great-Grandparents house.  That house also had a porch that had been converted to a room. My Grandma Edra used that room as an office and I vividly remember sitting in that room and watching her write checks to pay bills.  I was about 5 years old and I was so impressed by watching her manage her finances.  I think about that memory when I pay my own bills. So it makes me happy to have my desk in a similar room

 All the rooms in the upstairs part of the house are connected.  There is a bathroom off of our room.  The dining room is on the other side of the bathroom.

 The bathroom is small so this was about the best picture I could get of it.

 Here's the dining room.  It's technically the fourth bedroom, but I liked having a formal dining room in Alabama and wanted to have one again.

 Here it is from another angle.  It's so nice to have our big table again.

 Our kitchen is shaped really weird.  It's kind of an L shape.  I think this part of the kitchen is usually the dining room area.  But we are using it as a pantry.

Here's the rest of the kitchen. There is so much space in here!  It's really nice. 

 And here is what the kitchen looks like from the living room.  I'm especially in love with the floor.  It was another detail that sold me on the house.

 And yet, another angle of the kitchen.  Like I said, it's really spacious.  I love making dinner in here because it doesn't ever feel crowded.

 The doorway to the staircase down to the basement is off of the kitchen.  The triangle stairs remind me of the ones we had in our second apartment.

 The door on the landing of the staircase takes you out to the back yard.  And what a back yard it is!  Look at all this space and potential!  I'm still fighting a war with the weeds, but it's a war I will win.  I have plans for a garden.  And we've already used that fire pit once.

 We even have a garage!

Normally we like to park one of our cars in the garage, but this one is a little too small to comfortably use for a car.  So we've filled it up with tools, camping stuff, bikes, and other garage stuff. Brandon's pretty excited to have a place to work on all his little projects. 

 And it's a nice place to store all the empty boxes we have right now.

 One thing I was a little worried about was living in a house in surrounded by other houses.  For almost 5 years we've lived in communities where there was a lot of space between houses.  In Texas we didn't even have houses behind us.  In Alabama we had a big green space behind our house.  At my in-laws house in Utah we were living in the country on a couple acres of land.  And in Yellowstone we were on the edge of the woods. I wasn't looking forward to being back in a city with houses on all sides of us.  So I was very happy when I saw that we have an alley and a river behind us.  Yeah, you can't see it, but the Portnef River flows through a cement channel behind our house.  It's surrounding by a high chain link fence so I don't have to worry about the kids falling in.

 Okay, lets go back into the house.  If you keep going down the stairs you come into the basement.  And here is our family room.  My biggest complaint about the houses we lived in while Brandon was in the Army was that they didn't have Family Rooms.  I always wished we could have a living room that we could keep nice and then have a family room where the kids could play and we could lounge.  Well I finally have a family room and it's everything I hoped it would be.

 We love spending time down here.

 Derrick's room is right off of the family room. This is the first time in his life that he's had his own room. When we looked this house he kept coming in this room.  I asked him if he wanted to sleep in here and he said yes.

 Here's the view back into the family room from Derrick's room.

 Here's the doorway into the rest of the basement. You can see the second bathroom in the background.

 There is also a large laundry room down in the basement.  The house came with a washer and dryer.  We wanted to put ours down here too, but we aren't sure how to get them into this room. (The doorway is too small) So for now they are in the garage. Here's the side with the washer.

 And here is the side with the dryer.

 Over here we have Family Room Part Two. One day I hope to have a nice organized area for storing toys, but for now they are in boxes and there is an old dresser down here two.  We'll get it figured out.

 And the final room is the girls' room.

 Charlotte and Lydia are happy to have their bunk bed back.

 And Veronica is happy to have her big girl bed back.  (Derrick wanted to be in the picture.)  All the girls are happy to have their own beds again.  They spent almost 10 months sharing a big bed so they are happy to have their own space.

There is a door in the girls' room that leads to a little cellar type room that is under the old porch area.  We haven't ever seen much in this room because the light is burned out.  It smells damp and is pretty creepy.  Mostly we try to pretend it isn't there. 

 Here's the view looking out from the girls' room.

 There is another strange room located on the other side of the laundry room.  This one at least has light.  This room makes me appreciate the drywall and carpet that is in the rest of the basement.

 Okay let's go back up stairs.  Here's what the kitchen looks like from the top of the staircase.

  So that's the house.  I don't know if I'd be willing to buy this house.  But I'm definitely happy that we get to live here for two years.

While we were unpacking I found a list of the things we were looking for in a future house.  We made this list sometime last year when we thought that we'd buy a house after Brandon got a civilian job. I smiled when I realized that our current house has just about everything on this list.

This is the 9th home we've lived in during the 10 years that Brandon and I have been married.  I'm excited to fill it up with memories.

School Has Started

Four out of the six of us started school the week after the eclipse.  Brandon started his aircraft maintenance program at Idaho State University, Charlotte and Lydia started 1st Grade, and Derrick started Kindergarten.  I made this little picture to commemorate everything.  

If you are a long time reader of this blog, you may think that picture looks vaguely familiar. That's because the same thing happened two years ago.  Charlotte, Lydia, and Derrick all started Pre-K and Brandon started flight school.

Let's take a minute and talk about how each first day of school went.

Starting with Brandon.

Back in February Brandon and I decided that his best career option would be to go back to school and get his A&P Certificate.  He'd been looking for aviation related jobs for several months without any luck.  Every time we searched for aviation jobs there would be tons of results for aviation mechanic jobs. Those jobs required an A&P (Airframe and Powerplant) Certificate. And that meant going back to school.  The Post 9-11 GI Bill would take care of tuition and housing costs. So going back to school made a lot of sense.

Idaho State has a really great A&P Program.  The students meet at the Pocatello Airport from 8:00 to 3:00 every day. They work through different courses all semester long for 5 semesters (Fall, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Spring.) I really like that we don't have to worry about changing class schedules each semester.  And this is nothing like the unpredictable, ever-changing schedule Brandon had to deal with in flight school.

By the end of Spring semester in 2019 Brandon will have earned an Associates degree and can take the A&P test to get his certificate.  And then he should be able to get a good paying job right away.  There is a mechanic shortage right now so the post graduation job market is awesome.  I'm incredibly excited about the future.

The first course they are working through is a course on welding.  Brandon has always wanted to learn to weld so this is super fun for him.  They are also working on soldering.  Brandon told me, "I've been soldering for years, but today I finally learned how to do it correctly."

His class has about 15 other students in it, and they are all really great students.  Several of them are also former military members.  Brandon is probably the oldest student in the class, but that just means he has more experience to draw from. His teacher is really great and is committed to helping the students become professional mechanics.  I really can't say enough positive things about this program.

So in short, Brandon is LOVING school, and coming to ISU is definitely a great decision.

Now let's talk about the kids.

Charlotte and Lydia started 1st grade.  Oddly enough, this is their third school. They went to Pre-K and part of Kindergarten in Alabama, the other half of Kindergarten in Utah, and now 1st grade in Idaho.  They had full day Kindergarten in Alabama so going all day in 1st Grade is nothing new. They are in separate classes like they have always been.

Lydia earned the Cougar of the Week award for the first week of school.  (I have no idea what the criteria is for the award, but she got a certificate and a candy bar so I guess it's a big deal.)  She is really enjoying school and loves her teacher.

Charlotte is liking school as well.  Her teacher is reading James and the Giant Peach to the class and Charlotte loves to tell me about it each day.

In Alabama the girls brought lunches from home, but this year they eat school lunch.  (Our socioeconomic status changed a bit in the last year so we qualify for free lunch these days.) For some reason they were really nervous about eating school lunch, but then they found out they get chocolate milk every day and so they love school lunch now.

The school is pretty far away so they ride the bus to school, and I'm so happy about that.  They rode the bus in Alabama and I did not appreciate that enough.  Six months of driving them to school in Utah was not fun.  We live across the street from the bus stop and I'm so grateful I don't have to deal with the drop off/pickup line at the school.

So yes, Charlotte and Lydia are liking school.

And finally Derrick had his first day of Kindergarten.  And I do mean FINALLY.

Derrick's been going to school since he was three years old so both he and I were ready for him to start school on the first day with Charlotte and Lydia.  But instead we had to ease into it.  Pocatello doesn't have an across the board Pre-K program like we had on Fort Rucker.  Instead Kindergarten is the first time most kids go to school.  And that means that it's more emotional for everyone.  So what would have been the first day of school was really just an hour long orientation where Derrick and I (and Veronica) explored his classroom and met his teacher. It was good but I was like, "Can't I just leave him here already? He's so bored at home."

At first I thought Derrick would go to school at another location.  The district has extended resource classrooms for autistic kids at several locations throughout the city.  I made sure the school had a copy of Derrick's IEP and I figured that they would want to send him to one of the extended resource programs.  But instead they put him into a completely normal classroom at the same school as Charlotte and Lydia.

This worried me because while Derrick is high functioning, he is still autistic.  I didn't want him getting lost in a crowd of students. At the very least he would need an instructional aid to help him out, and since we were new it would take a while for him to get an aid.

But I quickly realized that being in a "normal class" is a good thing.  He's been going to school for two years.  This is old hat for him.  He would probably be the most calm student on the first day. My sister Lindsey who is a first grade teacher also assured me by telling me that there are so many diagnosed autistic kids in Kindergarten that his teacher would know how to help Derrick.  And the final thing that made me feel better was that the Special Ed teacher for the school approached me at the orientation and made sure I knew that she knew about Derrick's needs.  The school isn't ignoring him, they just have a lot of paperwork to do before he can have all the resources he needs.

So I was feeling just fine about sending Derrick to school until I realized that I had no idea how he would find his classroom on the first day.  I knew he wanted to ride the bus and would be devastated if I drove him to school.  But I couldn't figure out how he'd find his way from the bus to his classroom. I e-mailed the school about it and the special ed teacher called me and assured me that she would meet Derrick at the bus and help him find his classroom.  Problem solved.

So on the morning of his first day of school Derrick happily climbed aboard the bus and sat with Charlotte and Lydia.  They were so sweet and made sure he had the window seat so he could see the trains when they drove by the train yard.

I had my phone by me all day waiting for a call telling me that Derrick wan't doing well.  The school did call me, but not because Derrick needed me.  They called because I'd never filled out a kindergarten bus transportation form and without one Derrick couldn't ride the bus home.  (In my defense I'm pretty certain no one ever told me I had to do that form.)  So I drove over to the school, filled out the form, and picked Derrick up.  His teacher assured me that he'd done just fine.  That was quite a relief.

There's only one downside to this whole Kindergarten thing.  It's only every other day!  Derrick goes to full day Kindergarten, but only on Tuesdays and Thursdays and every other Monday.  That means he's home all day on Wednesdays, Fridays, and every other Monday.  I'm not sure what to make of it.  In Alabama he went to Pre-K 5 days a week.  Then we moved to Utah and the program there was only 4 days a week.  And now it's 2 to 3 days a week.  Isn't he supposed to go to more days of school as time goes on?

Se la vie I guess.

So what about Veronica? Is she going to school?

Well little Miss September birthday doesn't start Kindergarten for two more years!  Two loooonnnngggg years.  There is a head start program here that she can go to.  I was hoping to have her registered for that right away, but we didn't have an address in time to get her signed up.  So instead we are on the waiting list.  Hopefully we can move up that list pretty fast because she's already been the only kid at home for two years and I don't think she or I can handle another year.

In the meantime we are filling the days with trips to the library and watching the Lego Movie once a day.  Oh and Derrick is home every other day so that keeps us busy. Veronica and Derrick are best buddy's and love to play and rough house together. They both love trains and cars.  A few days ago they discovered baby dolls and had fun putting them to sleep and covering them with blankets. It's cute to watch them play together.

When/if Veronica goes to head start she'll go 4 days a week for half a day.  Which means there will be some times that Derrick is the only one home.  That will be a new experience for us.

And what about me?  What am I going to do while most of my kids are in school?

At first I thought I'd work.  Brandon gets out of school around the same time as the elementary school so in theory it would be easy to have him pick up the kids. But as I learned more about the bonkers Kindergarten schedule and started to work through the logistics of when Veronica would need to be picked up from Head start I realized that things weren't so simple.

If I had a great paying job we could probably afford to have the kids go to the childcare place at ISU.  They have a little pre-school program that Veronica could do, they have a class for kindergarten kids that Derrick could go to on his off days, and they even have a bus that picks kids up after school and takes them to ISU.  But that's a pricey program when everything is multiplied by 4 kids.

The more I thought about it the more I realized that it would make more sense if I stayed home during the day.  I didn't want to work just to have my money go to childcare.  And I didn't know what we would do for childcare if the kids got sick or just had a random day off of school.

But I still wanted to work.  We need money for food and those pesky student loans.  And emotionally I really can't handle being home all day.  (Props to you ladies who thrive as stay at home mom's, but I can't do it anymore.)

After exploring my options I decided the best career move would be to be a night auditor at a hotel. I applied for a few positions and was hired by a hotel last week. It's not the most amazing job, but it will work for now.  I'm still in the travel-leisure industry. I'm still sort of working in accounting. And I'm able to be home for my kids during the day.  Plus there is a ton of downtime on the job so I can get a lot of writing done.

And as for sleep, well most of the kids are in school most of the time so I should be able to get some sleep during the day.  And there's also time to get a few hours in between the kids' bedtime and when I need to leave for work.   And right now I'd rather be tired from work than emotionally worn out from being home all day without an outlet.

Honestly, the thing I'm the most excited about is stability. This is my third job in less than a year.  I'm really happy that this isn't a seasonal position. I'm looking forward to staying here for a while.

I think we are all happy about stability.  The kids will go to their school for the next two years.  Charlotte and Lydia were so surprised when I told them they would go to all of 1st AND all of  2nd grade at this school.  Brandon's program will be the same for almost two years as well.  That's pretty long when you consider the fact that we were in Alabama for only 18 months, Utah for 6 months, and Yellowstone for 3 months.

Back in March we found out the date that Brandon would start school in the Fall.  I couldn't get over the fact that we knew the exact date that he would do something in August. We hadn't had that level of stability in our lives in almost 4 1/2 years.  

So here's to the start of a nice, stable school year.

The eclipse that was almost eclipsed by our move

Hey look, I'm posting on illguthlife again. My internet connection was so limited this summer that I couldn't maintain two blogs. I chose to update my travel blog as if it was my personal blog. I hope that you were able to find your way over to www.51centadventures.com and follow our epic summer over there. If you weren't, then you can go check it out now.

Now that the summer is over, and I've somewhat rejoined reality, I can go back to maintaining two blogs. 51centadventures will continue to be my travel blog where I post about the inexpensive places we have discovered. Expect A LOT of posts containing Yellowstone Travel tips to show up there in the next few months. Its a public blog and so I don't use my kids names and I'm a little bit more careful about what I say. Illguthlife on the other hand is my personal blog that doesn't show up on search engines and anything goes over here.

And so now that I'm able to be honest and unguarded I can tell you the truth about our summer in Yellowstone. And the truth is that it really was as amazing and fulfilling and wonderful as I made it sound.

From the very first day I had a feeling of contentment inside my heart. I loved the feeling of being so close to my family and living a simpler life. And after I was promoted to Assistant Controller of Roosevelt Lodge I had an incredible feeling of fulfillment. I LOVED my job.

But we always knew it was temporary and sadly our epic summer had to end.  In some ways it was time.  The RV felt pretty small after we found our 4 bedroom rental house in Pocatello.  

Moving was definitely on my mind.  Partly because we were ready for a bigger space and partly because it required a lot of planning to figure out how to move three vehicles with only two drivers.  

Have you ever heard the story problem with the farmer, the grain, the goose, and the fox? Here's a version from Wikipedia:

Once upon a time a farmer went to a market and purchased a fox, a goose, and a bag of beans. On his way home, the farmer came to the bank of a river and rented a boat. But in crossing the river by boat, the farmer could carry only himself and a single one of his purchases: the fox, the goose, or the bag of beans.

If left unattended together, the fox would eat the goose, or the goose would eat the beans.

The farmer's challenge was to carry himself and his purchases to the far bank of the river, leaving each purchase intact. How did he do it?

Every time I tried to figure out how we were going to get all three vehicle out of Yellowstone I kept thinking of this problem. We had three vehicles, but only two drivers, and we had four kids that couldn't be left alone.  Additionally we had only one vehicle that could safely hold all four kids.  We also had to figure out how to transport our stuff from storage in Eden to Pocatello. Oh and there would be a once in a lifetime eclipse happening the day after my last day of work and we'd be travelling through the totality zone so we might as well work that into the plan. 

It took quite a lot of brain power to figure out the order of operations to get everything to Pocatello.  Here's the run down of how we did that and our experience seeing the eclipse. 

We started the process of moving on Sunday August 13th.  Brandon and the kids drove down to Utah to get our stuff out of storage.  My in-laws were kind enough to let us store our stuff in their garage since we arrived in November.  So Brandon went down there to pick up the moving van and load all our stuff.  On Monday my father-in-law Steve and my brother in law Justin helped load the stuff into the truck while my sister in law Melanie helped with the kids.  Brandon and the kids slept over in Eden that night and then my mother in law Jacque watched the kids on Tuesday while Brandon and Steve drove the van to Pocatello.

I'd stayed behind in the RV because I still had work.  But on Tuesday I had my one day off.  I drove down to Pocatello and put our water/sewer/trash bills into our name and then picked up the house keys from our leasing office.  Then I went to the house and started cleaning.  It sat vacant for about 4 months so there was quite a lot of dust and spider webs to clean up.   Brandon and Steve arrived a little bit after I got there and they started unloading the truck.  The missionaries came over and helped unload the big stuff.  

I was pretty excited to see our stuff come off the truck.  Remember, we packed up at the end of October/beginning of November last year so it's been almost 10 months since I've seen some of this stuff.  I kept saying things like, "My PIANO! My green table! My dresser!" But the thing I was most excited about was my KING SIZE PILLOWTOP BED!  I have missed that!  I made sure that was set up that day.  When I laid down on it I was really tempted to break my contract with Xanterra and just stay there with that bed.  

But I couldn't find the sheets so I decided I might as well go back to Yellowstone for the last 5 days of my contract.

We bought pizza for the missionaries and later Brandon, Steve, and I went out for lunch at Wendy's after everything was unloaded.  Then Brandon and Steve went back to Eden and I went back to Yellowstone.  I got home around 11:00 and I was so tired.  Driving 8 hours in one day and cleaning is not something I recommend.  

Brandon stayed overnight in Eden and then drove up to Pocatello with the kids.  They spent the next several days getting furniture set up and starting to unpack.  They also went school shopping and met their teachers at back to school night. 

On Saturday night I drove down to Idaho Falls and met Brandon and the kids at the Fred Meyer.  We left the jeep there and drove back up to Yellowstone. We had one last squishy night in the RV.  On Sunday I went to my last day of work while Brandon got the RV ready to move.  He'd been starting it regularly throughout the summer, but it hadn't driven anywhere since we arrived at the end of May.  

We said one last goodbye to some of our dear neighbors and then I drove the Honda and Brandon drove the RV out of the park. 

 The RV runs well, but it has no guts on hills so I knew I would end up ahead of Brandon.  So I stopped at the park in West Yellowstone so the kids could play for a while.  By the time we got going Brandon was actually ahead of us.  He drove to Idaho Falls and parked the RV at the home of our Texas Military Relations Missionary friends the Bob and Vonnie Coombs.  Then he went back to the Jeep and started driving that north.

That's because we weren't going to our home in Pocatello that night.  We were meeting up with my in-laws at Justin's father's cabin in a tiny tiny town called Gilmore. This was about 30 minutes north of the totalitly zone for the eclipse.  Justin's father was super nice to let us all invade his cabin.

Meanwhile I was still driving with the kids in the Honda.  We reached Rexburg and started heading west.  But we ran into a road block and were told there was a fire near the highway.  The firefighter told me the detour route, but it was almost dinner time and so I decided a better plan would be to head back to Rexburg for some food.  So we went back there and found a McDonalds.  The kids enjoyed dinner and then had a blast on the play place.

 After about an hour we tried our luck with the highway again.  The fire was put out and we were able to get through.  As we drove we saw signs advertising overnight camping for $100.  We also passed many RV's, vans, and cars parked on pullouts on the side of the highway.  It was like everyone suddenly thought it was cool to be homeless.

After what seemed like forever we finally reached the cabin.  I was completely exhausted.  I'd worked almost 9 days straight (my only day off had been the day I drove to Rexburg and back), and I'd driven so much in the past week that I was pretty certain I should be in Texas instead of Eastern Idaho.  The cabin was great, but I had no energy left to really enjoy it.

After a good nights sleep I was doing better.  We had breakfast and then packed everything up and drove about 30 minutes to an area where people in RV's had slept overnight.

 We set up our own little area and started waiting for the eclipse to start.

 The kids wanted to go exploring so we went on a little walk.  My camera decided that this was a good time to die. So from here on out all the pictures are from mine and Brandon's phones.

Okay, so obviously you can tell that this eclipse thing was not our number one priority this month.  We'd been so preoccupied with the move, and getting ready for school that we hadn't put much thought into prepping for the eclipse. Thank goodness Justin and Melanie let us tag along with their plans because I don't know where we would have ended up.  In some ways this was like the final day of a road trip.  We were tired, stuff was spilling out of the car, I'd left all my clothes in the RV, we had random food in our cooler, and mostly I just wanted to get home.

But as the moon started moving across the sun we started to get really excited about what we were going to witness.  Charlotte was probably the most excited.  I'd told her what to expect and all morning she'd been hurrying us along.  She'd say things like, "This is my first eclipse, I don't want to miss it."  

 The other kids thought it was cool too.  We'd help Derrick look at the sun and he would say, "It's the moon" because it was crescent shaped.

 Here I am checking out the sun.  (And wearing the same clothes as the day before.) I vividly remember watching a partial eclipse though a pin hole on the playground at school when I was about 6 or 7.  I was really happy to be introducing this to my kids at the same age.

 Periodically Brandon would get his binoculars out and we could see the progress of the moon across the sun that way.

 Here's Charlotte and Lydia watching the eclipse in style.  If I remember right it started around 10:15 and totality was expected at 11:33.  So we had a while to wait while the moon moved across the sun.

 Justin had an app that was counting down to the eclipse and giving us information about what to expect.  We noticed birds flying around as if it was evening.  The light got dimmer.  The air got chillier.  If I'd known where my jacket was I would have put it on.

Soon we were within 30 seconds of totality.  Derrick and Veronica really didn't have any idea what was going on, but they were getting really anxious. They both wanted to sit in the car so we let them do that.  The rest of us put on our glasses and watched as the last bit of the sun disappeared behind the moon.  This was when it was safe to look at the sun without out glasses on.  I was excited to see the sun's corona.  I took off my glasses and was shocked to see that it was NIGHT!  What had been 11:00 am just a few minutes before had turned into twilight.  We were even able to see three stars in the sky.

 There was an amazing 360 degree sunset surrounding us.  Everyone oohed and awed at the amazing changes that had taken place. Derrick and Veronica were completely amazed by what had happened.  I wonder what they must have thought as the sky got darker around them. Charlotte and Lydia jumped up and down with excitement.

I knew my camera wouldn't take good pictures of the eclipse so I hadn't planned on taking any pictures.  I figured there would be plenty of good pictures on line. But I couldn't resist taking a few pictures.  And at the very end of the 100 seconds of totality I decided to take a video.  I'm so glad I did that.  I didn't capture any amazing images of the sun and moon, but I did get the excited reactions of my kids.  My favorite part of the video is when Veronica says, "do it again mom."




I immediately started making plans to see the next eclipse in 7 years on April 8, 2024.  I think that would be an excellent way to celebrate Derrick's birthday.  It's going to have a different path than this one did, but it's still going to cross a large section of the US.  Who knows, we may end up living in a state in the totality zone.

We had a quick lunch while the moon moved across the sun.  We bit our cookies into crescent shapes.

After a hanging around for a little while we decided it was time to get going.  We knew traffic would be bad, but I was not interested in staying away from my new home for another night.  Besides Brandon had his first day of class the next day so we needed to get home.

We were able to travel at normal speeds for about 45 minutes.  But outside of Idaho Falls we hit the bad stand still traffic.

 9 out of 10 cars had Utah license plates.  I knew we were in for a LONG drive home.

 Even the side roads were congested.

 After spending almost 4 hours in traffic we finally crawled into the rest stop north of Blackfoot Idaho.  Normally there are about 4 cars and 3 semi trucks parked here.  But on this day it was jam packed full of cars.  We had to wait in a line out the door just to use the restroom.

 We stayed here for a while.  We ate dinner, hiked on the trails through ancient lava flows, and of course played on the hills. We'd done this at the beginning of the summer and I felt like this was an appropriate way to end our summer.

 Here's another view of the packed parking lot.

The freeway didn't really clear up, but we decided we might as well keep going.  It took us almost 2 hours to make it the 20 or so miles from Blackfoot to Pocatello. I was pretty happy that we lived in Pocatello. I have no idea how long it took all those Utah people to make it home that night.

Brandon had his first day of class on Tuesday (more on that in another post) and then we drove back to Idaho Falls to get the RV.  It took less than an hour to drive the same distance that had taken us over 8 hours the day before.

We picked up the RV and drove back home.  On the way I promised the kids that we wouldn't drive anywhere outside of Pocatello for a month.  After all the time we'd spent on the road I was feeling like we should be in Florida.

So there you have it.  We finally made it to our new home and we witnessed the Great American Eclipse in the process.  Seeing a total eclipse seems like a pretty great way to start this next phase of our lives.

As always I'll keep you updated on all the little twists and turns of this crazy life of mine.