I believe everyone knows we made it to Bama safely. It was smooth sailing for the 5 of us throughout the whole trip. The worst thing I had to contend with was a sort-of-low tire on the motorcycle trailer as we got ready to leave the hotel on Saturday morning. When you're traveling with 3 boys and that's the worst thing that happened, that's saying A LOT!!! Speaking of the boys, they were great. Dana and I were in separate cars so they pretty much rotated between us every time we stopped. Cade took that pretty seriously too. When traffic came to a stop on the highway through Dallas, Cade got mad at Dana when she wouldn't let him get in the car with me.

Speaking of traveling, if you don't have a portable GPS unit (or one in your car) I highly recommend getting one before you go on your next vacation. Those things are worth their weight in gold when you're trying to get through a strange city. And if your spouse is following in another car, make sure she stays behind you so when you switch lanes to turn toward Alabama she doesn't end up in South Carolina. Just saying.

Unfortunately, I didn't know the camera was on the floorboard next to me for the entire trip (and Dana forgot to mention it) so we didn't get any pictures on the way out. Oh well, I showed the interesting stuff to you, sans kiddos, when I moved in November.

Once we got here, we had to live with very little furniture, silverware, etc., until our stuff arrived the following Wednesday. The house was very noisy with nothing in it but the kids had a blast running full speed down the hall and sliding across the living room floor. Finally, the day came for our stuff to arrive. I played hooky to help get things organized. The movers brought our boxes in and in and in and in some more. The house was FULL of boxes. Now, 4 days later, it's only Full of boxes. We're making progress, but losing a few rooms and 1/3 the size of the house (and 2/3 the garage - I'm going to faint) makes it really tough to get moved in. Where are all the built-in shelves? Where are all the extra cabinets and closets?



This is one of the views we were facing after the packers left. As Cade would say, "Oh snap!"

To make matters worse, the packers packed EVERYTHING by double or quintuple wrapping it with paper. We have tons and tons of paper now. For example, our toilet bowl brush is a normal brush with a plastic vase type container. I opened a box to find the brush removed and paper stuffed inside the container! That's gross. I didn't want to handle that paper. Plastic trucks that were in the backyard were carefully wrapped in paper before boxing. Stuff like that. To be fair, the packers did a good job but what do we do with all this packing material? I won't even mention what the garage looks like. It will be months before I get that sorted out. The Camaro Project is officially on hold for the foreseeable future.

No joke. Dana was unwrapping our dishes and was only about 1/2 way through the box when I took this picture of the paper she had removed. The box wasn't all that big.

Cade was so excited to get his toys back. When he saw the truck pull up to our house he started singing and dancing because his toys were finally here. In an effort to keep him from destroying his room, Dana told him he could get some toys out of this box but everything had to stay on the bed. When I walked in, he had a pretty good pile going but he was being very careful not to let anything get on the floor. When he dropped a piece of tape from the box he asked me to pick it up right away.

You know what they say about kids and boxes. The boys are having a blast playing in them. They especially like the wardrobe boxes. As usual, I can't really comment on Cameron's expression.

Quality GameBoy time together.

The boys also started school this week. Kevin was pretty nervous and I was nervous for them. I remember how much I hated moving to a new school and I didn't want these boys to go through that. Fortunately, Kevin's school assigned a buddy to him and that worked really well. He had an instant friend and didn't have to wander around trying to find everything on his own so he actually enjoyed his first day. He even had some boys tell him that a couple of girls like him. On his first day! The part I think he's most proud of though, was the fact that his freakshow arm twisting thing had several kids walk up to him and ask him if he would do that thing with his arms. I'll get a video to show you but he holds his hands behind his back and pulls them over his head without breaking his grip.

Cameron's day was fine as well. The teacher had told Cam there was another Cameron in his class so my Cam was really excited to meet him. (Did that make sense? It was hard to type.) Turns out, the other Cameron is a bit of a trouble maker so our Cameron decided to steer clear of that boy. But he did make a friend and had a lot of good things to say about school that evening. All told, I would call it a successful and fairly uneventful transition for both of them.

Dana is still retired for the time being. She spends her days eating bon bons and telling me how hard she's working on unpacking. I know better though.

I spent the last week feeling under-dressed at work with my jeans and running shoes. When I went home to NM, I wore my nice work shoes but I forgot to set them aside when the packers came. I figured my Dockers would look pretty stupid with gray tennis shoes so I went for the "Relaxed Friday" look all week. But that was the least of my worries. Follow along as I tell you a tale of "The Haircutting Incident". As you will see, this is all Dana's fault. You see, I had Dana cut my hair on the 28th. Normally, she cuts everything one length then puts a shorter comb on the clippers and cuts the back and sides again. When she's done, I pick up the clippers, switch combs back to the longer one and buzz a few places that she always misses. Well this time she thought she would play some kind of mean prank on me and only cut my hair one length. When she was done she removed the comb (keywords here) and walked out. This one length thing totally threw off my mojo but I hadn't realized it yet. I picked up the clippers and thought to myself that there was no need to change anything because it's all the same length. I then proceeded to buzz the side of my head where there were several extra long strands. See? She set me up! The worst part was that moment of realization as the clippers made that grinding sound like they're really cutting through something instead of the quick buzz-buzz they normally make when you're trimming a few hairs. Needless to say, I looked like a complete moron with 1 week until I had to be back at work. The good news, and I never thought I'd say this, is that because of my gray hair on the other (still hairy) side of my head, it wasn't too terribly noticeable, especially from a distance. Still, I wore a hat everywhere for the next week.

See that big bald spot above my ear that gives me a horizontal sideburn thing? Totally Dana's fault!

And finally, a couple of random pictures from before our move. Photo credit goes to Mom.

Proof that the kids got their good looks from Dana. This was pre-"haircut incident".

Picture of Pa and his littlest buddy.