Texas here we come!

We have actually been in Texas for almost 2 months now. As you can imagine, it has been a very busy time. We had a great drive down here. No major car troubles, no getting lost, no getting stuck in horrific traffic, no kids (or adults) going crazy sitting in the cars for hours upon hours. And no trouble getting to sleep in strange beds at hotels. The kids have never slept anywhere but home. It was indeed a big journey for them. I was very impressed with how well they all handled it. We also had a TON of help from Grandma and Grandpa (Brandon's parents). I don't think the trip would have been possible without them.
We did a lot of driving. The first day we drove from 5:30pm to 11:00pm. About an hour in the portable potty I bought came in handy when Corbin decided he needed to go number 2, and we were in the middle of nowhere Illinois. The best $10 I spent and totally worth it! The next day we headed out at about 9:00am and stopped for the night at about 10:30. We had maybe 2 short stops for food and potty breaks and if I remember a very quick stop just for another potty break. The next and last day we got on the road about 10:30 and got to our new home at 2:00. This day we had one quick stop for gas.
The kids adjusted to new bedrooms and such superbly. They actually slept really well the first week. They were sleeping in until almost 8:00! They are still sleeping fairly well. We are just back to Corbin getting up multiple times a night and being up at the crack of dawn for the day. Lily has officially stopped taking naps as well. Rowen misses going to preschool and playing with friends and I'm not sure what I'm going to do about preschool down here. It is completely different than anywhere I've ever lived. They elementary school in our neighborhood (and all in TX) have qualifications you need to meet in order to go to the preschool. We do not meet them. Its actually rather ridiculous.
In IL you had options on how many days you wanted them to go and whether you wanted a morning or afternoon class. And you paid the monthly fee. Simple. That's all there was to it. Here you need to meet the qualifications which in my option don't make any sense. And even though you are still paying a fee for the school I don't understand why it matters that you meet these "qualifications".

1. Child is homeless....no
2. Child is in foster care....no
3. Are active military....no
4. English is your second language....um no
5. You have to make under a certain salary depending on how many are in your household...we don't meet it.

So I said to the lady " my sons can't go to preschool then?" No ma'am, she replies. You know you aren't required to, she said. Well duh! Its just nice for them to get used to being away from me for a couple hours, to socialize with other kids their age and have some different fun that they wouldn't at home. I was completely baffled all day when I found this out. So now I need to look into private preschools I guess.

Other than the odd school situation, Texas has had its ups and downs. The weather has been pretty nice. Hot, and I know not nearly has hot as its going to be soon. And I have yet to feel the "dry" heat that people talk about, it is SO muggy. Yay for the pool. And the bugs... ughhh, I do not like bugs. And the grass is so icky. Not like in New England where you could run around all day playing in the sprinkler on nice soft grass. The water is very hard here. Now I know why I see so many water stores. Yes, we now go buy water and ice every week. The Brita just wasn't cutting it. I also need to get a filtered shower head. Its pretty gross to comb your hair and then when the combs dries see how white is is from the hard water. Plus my hair and the kids just feels so icky and its hard to comb.

There are many farmers markets I still need to venture out to. In a few weeks the farmers should be ready to sell their delicious veggies. They are about 6 week behind schedule due to weather. And Texas is very into sustainable local organic foods and that is awesome. I'm talking even the "dive" trailer food! I really like how nice everyone is here. And the greenery everywhere is very nice. I even go into downtown Austin by myself with the kids. Its a great city. Not crazy. The kids even know where we are when driving around the city. We passed an awesome donut trailer (Gourdoughs if you ever come to Austin you have to go here!) the other day that we went to with our friend Tony when he was here and the kids said "thats the donut place we went to with Tony". They also knew that the Dino pit (also awesome) at the Zilker Park was just down the road. I'll blog about that soon.

The kids are still trying to get used to Brandon being gone all day since he worked from home before we moved here. He's doesn't get home until about 30 minutes before bed time (unless he hits traffic then he he doesn't see them before bed or if he has to work late). So he's not home for dinner now and the kids always say "we can't eat without daddy". They are still confused. A few days after we got here we took a drive to Twisted Pixel so they could see where he goes to help them understand. They thought he was going back to IL.

My Jedi's in training. Have I mentioned they are obsessed with Star Wars. Corbin's face is awesome.

Rowen building his new Lego Tie Fighter ship. His reward for doing so well on the drive.

Eating cereal on the floor the morning of the big drive to Texas.

Corbin's new digger for doing so well on the drive.

All packed up and ready to become Texans!

I need to post more pics of us actually in Texas. The boys with their rewards was with the first couple days we were here. And the other ones are from in IL just before we left. So these pics are from 2 months ago. I have a lot of catching up to do. I'm blogging from latest to most recent so it will be a couple posts before I'm current. Hopefully in the next couple days I can get more posted.