Wisconsin

We are out of Florida and very happy! John graduated from C school last Thursday morning. On Wednesday we went to have our breaks serviced at the Subaru Dealership and they told us that our head gaskets were leaking and when we told them that were going to drive to California they were concerned that we might be stranded in the middle of the desert. After telling us that it would $3,000+ for the repair we left the dealership pretty disheartened. John called his Dad to get his opinion and his Dad offered his help fixing it if we drove up to Wisconsin. And so even though we had entirely planned our trip already we decided to say to heck with all of it and drive to Wisconsin. We decided to drive to John's parents' house around 4:00pm on Saturday and managed to clean and throw everything left that we own in the Subaru and leave by 7:30pm. We made it to Nashville that night and to Hubertus by 10:00pm on Friday night. It was crazy but I think it was a really great experience for us as a family.

On our way through Illinois we needed to stop to get food and nurse Nora and for some reason thought it would be a good idea to stop in Chicago. Since the movers came earlier that week, we thought we were still just driving straight to San Diego, so I only packed flip flops and a light sweater and Nora didn't have clothes that were any warmer. (We were both freezing and my joints had been aching for hours and hours). So when we got to Chicago it was snowing and we couldn't find any parking. After finding a street with restaurants we circled around a few times until we finally found a spot and I ran inside the restaurant with Nora in a blanket while John paid the box for parking. He was taking a while so I ran back out to find John speaking to a police officer. Apparently we had parked next to a fire hydrant even though the sign next to our car said that it was a parking spot. He was about to write us a $150 citation before I gave him our sob story about how we were trying to get food on our way to Wisconsin and couldn't find any parking and had never been to Chicago before. Lucky for us he was a VERY nice guy and told us to just find some other place to park. We tried getting back on the highway and got lost more than a few times before finally getting back on track. Traffic was ridiculous! And Chicago drivers were terrifying. No signals, no spacial awareness, and no manners. We almost died a few times. When we finally got out of Chicago we needed to get to Milwaukee and accidentally drove onto a Tollway. We had no cash and the teller gave us some serious sass when we told her this. Luckily you can pay it online. We took the first exit, found some cute little villages in Illinois and stopped at the first mcdonalds we could find. This whole frustrating last leg of our journey was made much better by a mcdonalds strawberry cream pie.

Lately I have been making an effort to change how I treat Nora and John when I am under stress. I notice I have a little more bite when I am stressed out and I think that  it is pretty typical for married couples to bicker when both of them are stressed. But this experience was a good way to practice being there for John instead of blaming him when neither of us really had any control over a bad situation. In the drive-thru of the McDonalds after feeling really stressed and cold and hungry and tired, we talked about how nice it was going to be getting to sleep in a warm bed and eat some of his mom's delicious food and then we hugged and kissed and everything was all better.

Being in Wisconsin is just what our family needed. Nora has so many cousins to play with and I have never seen her so happy. John has been enjoying working on the car with his Dad - something he finds challenging and exciting. By the way our entire engine is now sitting next to our Subaru :o And I'm loving getting time to do things like - eat breakfast uninterrupted and take a shower without worrying if Nora is screaming her head off.  Also there have been no disgusting bugs the size of my hand, no screaming neighbors, no swampy smelly air, no rain, and no Florida! I do feel bad for disappointing my family and friends who thought we would be driving through Texas and Arizona this week, but I still think we made the right decision. I never thought in my life I would ever say I'm in love with rural Wisconsin but... I'm in love with rural Wisconsin.

New Pictures

Nora had a photo shoot this week with our friend Jessica from Church. It's hard to get a smile out of her but we got a more than a few great shots of her. Here's a link to the album: 

Nora's Album

And here's a preview: 

But this one is my favorite...

because of how much it reminds me of this picture...

Moving

Nora is becoming a pro at crawling. For some reason she only uses her left leg to crawl and her right leg is dragged along like she has a crawling limp that she got in the war. But she is also cruising now which is exciting too. I still have to be near her in case she falls back but she has the general idea.

It's strange to think that a few months ago she couldn't even roll over on her own. And it's really neat when we work on something and I finally watch her master it - clapping, crawling, walking, our names, etc. Well, so she hasn't actually mastered walking yet or our names but she's awesome at cruising and saying mama and nana. We're working on Dada. Anyway she's doing great and I'm very grateful to Heavenly Father for a healthy and sweet baby.