A whole lotta nothing turns into something!

Do you know what happens when you are job hunting for quite a long time with no definite end date and lots of potential stress waiting around every corner?  Well, if you're me, what happens is you vow not to worry unnecessarily about the future, because what good will that do you besides tying your stomach into knots, and instead you throw yourself vigorously into the most programmed, detailed, it-will-be-fun-if-it-kills-us-all summer EVER!  So that is what I have been doing for the past two months, since school got out and my children flipped out and I tuned out my deep, deep anxieties about the future.  We have seen movies, gone swimming, participated in reading programs, attended an urban gym/parkour class, enrolled in library craft classes, visited museums, raced go-karts, and played endlessly with any available cousins.  And it has been very fun, if a bit exhausting (my boys have started to rebel at the constancy of it all, actually, so it's good summer is winding down), and it has successfully kept my mind off the future and made me a busy little bee, which was part of the purpose of my whole elaborate plan in the first place!

But now, finally, we can all take a break, breathe a sign of relief...and let the real stress begin!  Because we have at long last decided where we are going: New Hampshire!  The husband has been hired as the Director of Pharmacy for the Telemedicine group at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.  Hooray!  And now we can stress about real and immediate issues, like packing up what we no longer need, finding a place to live without visiting, hiring movers, buying a new car (or two), getting the children enrolled in school, and last but certainly not least, making sure we are all appropriately prepared for a New England winter after our sojourn in the desert!  (What do you call these things?  Boots?  What now?)  In addition, we are going to fit in two family reunions and a cross-country drive before we reach New Hampshire, so there's all that to factor into the plan!  More posts to come chronicling our progress as we inch toward Lebanon (NH)!

But first, to catch up and for posterity, a few shots from our summer revels, in no particular order because that takes too much brain power for me to manage just now!

A cousin's 2nd birthday to start things off right, with cake and ice cream!

Pleasant View founders' day parade, complete with loads of candy and
popsicles thrown to the crowd!

Standing at attention and clapping at the parade.

A visit with high school friends of the husband's.  We also attended
the husband's 20th high school reunion, but managed to
 leave without taking any photos!

Baseball with the Ogden Raptors and more cousins!

Haircuts at an old-fashioned barber shop.

Learning to change the oil with Uncle J.

Wheeler Farms outing with Auntie L. and Baby E. 

Ogden's awesome Arts in the Parks program!

And the sister Science in the Parks program as well.

Giant bubbles with more cousins.

And climbing trees!

We love our lazy rivers!

Walking home (early) from the oppressively hot 4th of July parade
with our California cousins.

We made and decorated cookies after the parade... 

And launched a few early fireworks (getting all 4
to smile at the same time proved too much for us... 

...time and time again)!

Inside a giant globe at the Ogden Tree House museum, where we went often...

to play chess...

and dress up with our Ogden cousins who were our constant
companions this summer...

...for lots of silliness and fun!