Anyone Still There?

So after a bit of blog neglect I figured I ought to at least give you all a heads up to my whereabouts. We took off for a couple weeks at Christmas to go to Utah and see family for the holidays. The drive out there was harrowing, to say the least. Lots of snow and lots of mountain passes. Yikes. It was not fun. Once we got to Utah everyone took turns being sick or hurt. Ella got an ear infection so bad that there was goop oozing out of her ear. The day after Christmas I finally took her to the doctor because she had been crying all morning. A few antibiotics cleared that right up. Lots of fun. Anton pulled his back. Alex got sick after Ella. And I was just stuffed up and miserable from the dry Utah air. Needless to say, as fun as it was to see our family, I was wanting to go home not too long after we got there.

The trip back home wasn't near as exciting as the trip there. We drove through Portland to avoid the worst of the mountain passes. And now that I'm home I'm determined to be a homebody for a month minimum. I don't want to have to go anywhere or do anything. The other day Anton tried to get me to go out with him and the kids to the mall with the argument that I hadn't left the house in three days. I told him that was the point. I didn't want to leave the house. Since we moved here in September I had yet to unpack my toiletries because we just kept packing up again and going someplace. So the minute we got home from this trip I marched straight into my bathroom, unpacked my toiletries, and declared my intent to not leave for weeks and weeks. It's been nice.

I'm slowly working on getting all the Christmas decorations taken down. I'll do a thing or two then move on to other things. Work has been slow, which has been alright with me. It was nice to have a break from that too. It gets wearing to be the full-time mom and income earner for the family. I'm looking forward to the day when Anton gets a job again.

Anton started school this week. This quarter he is actually going to class on campus. While it was nice having him home, it'll be nice to have a bit more of a regular schedule now. We had gotten to the point where we weren't getting up each morning until after 9. The kids would just get up and watch TV until we felt the need to stumble out of bed. It made us feel like losers, but we couldn't think of anything better to do. So now that Anton actually has to be in classes in the morning, we're all getting a much better start to our day.

And that, my dear blog friends, is what we've been up to. Today we decided to be very adventurous and went to the local dollar theater. We saw Beverly Hills Chihuahua. The kids sat and watched the whole thing so it must have been good. We also went through two large buckets of popcorn. Ella was eating it like she hadn't eaten in days. Then we went to Panera for dinner, which was slightly disappointing, where Ella ate even more. She must be getting ready to grow.

We had some indecision recently about where we wanted to end up living once Anton starts working. With the FAA you can choose any state and then they tell you what city you get to work in. We made a big long list of all the places we thought it would be cool to live. We debated and compared and just couldn't make up our minds. Then one night I decided that since we can't pick one place, we might as well stay here. It will be the cheapest move, and the place he'll end up working is 10 minutes from here. So we've been looking at homes for sale, but not planning on buying just yet. We need to save up some money and make sure Anton makes it through training first. I would hate to buy a house only to find out we weren't staying here.

So, yeah. That's enough rambling from me for now. I'll have to rifle through my pictures soon and get some of our vacation ones on here. But this'll do for now.