Ten Years

Today's an emotional day for us. We're moving out of the house we've lived in for ten years, four and a half months. It's the longest period of time in my life that I've ever lived in one place.

Mikey was only ten months old when we moved into this house in East Tulsa in February of 2001. Cathy had wanted to live in this area since she was a little girl and much of it was brand new; 30 years later it wasn't quite as new and sparkly, but we loved it anyway. We've celebrated many important events in this house: we made a baby and celebrated a birth. We've celebrated many birthdays, including the first birthdays of both of our children. Ten Christmases and ten Easters. Ten anniversaries. Four full-time jobs for myself, not counting the flurry of short consulting gigs during the second year we lived here, when I had been laid off by an ailing company right after the dot-com bust + the WTC attacks. Four deaths of people we were very close to happened while we lived in this house, and two more of relatives who were much-loved but a little more distant. Lots of potty training. Five years of Cub Scouts. Three years of Christian School in two different schools, two years of home schooling and one year of public school. Several seasons of soccer. Brutal heat and crazy amounts of snow. Out of electricity once (or was it twice?) for a week or two at a time because of ice. Two different churches. Two different dogs and two pet frogs. Three different cars. Lots of movies and music. Lots of laughing, lots of crying. Lots of friends.

It's been a good run. I'm looking forward to the next ten years in Bixby!

2 Crazy Months

Wow! I took a look at the contents of our camera today, and was amazed at all the pictures I needed to upload! If you like looking at my family pictures, set aside some time to check them out!

If you've been reading this blog, you already know we've lost a lot of loved ones recently. We lost two grandpas and one aunt/sis-in-law. In the middle of all of that, we managed to have a nice Mother's Day. But wait... there's more!

When we were in Shreveport for Grandpa Mickey's funeral, Hannah got her first haircut:



Cathy had a birthday, and so did Michael:


Bonus picture of Hannah eating a piece of my birthday cake:



At The Bridge Church, we had our first-ever church picnic, which Hannah and Mikey LOVED:

   

The next Sunday as we were leaving church, Hannah said, "I want to go to the picnic!" I guess she had had fun!! We had to break it to her that the picnic only happens once a year or so, not every week. :)

Today was the "Taste of Summer" event at the Blue Bell ice cream plant in Broken Arrow. You plunk down five dollars a person, and you get to eat all the ice cream you can handle! There are also games and inflatables for the kids (Mikey and Hannah tried out almost all of them), self-guided tours of that plant (which Hannah and Mikey LOVED), fire trucks, a "fire safety house", a trailer with information about recycling, and even some live music. Cathy was planning on entering the ice cream eating contest, but she didn't get in on that this year. :) We had a blast! Don't believe me? Here are all the pictures, or take a gander at these samples:

     

Yesterday evening we were in Bixby to eat dinner, and we ran across the coolest playground ever! It's at the Bentley Sports Complex. I couldn't BELIEVE how tall one of their slides is. It must be at least three stories high! Here's the picture from their site (I didn't have the camera or I would have taken one myself):