April Recap

It's been a VERY eventful month.  Hmmm, let's see....

• We went on a spring vacation to South Carolina, where we met the husband's parents and uncle at Edisto Beach.  It was cold and dark here and warm and bright there, and we had a blast!  We swam in the pool, collected shells on the beach, ate home-cooked meals courtesy of Grandma, played tourist, hunted for (but never found) shark teeth, and visited the always delightful Serpentarium, ate barbeque, and generally had the most fun we've all had in a long time.  The boys were well behaved and relaxed; we had our own condo with a palatial bathroom; and we all got to revel in nostalgia and salt air.
• I turned, ahem, 40!  I got to celebrate in style: first, my parents sent me a package including 40 items that either had the number 40 on them or had 40 parts (and sometimes both).  It was great fun to open and watch the boys get more and more confused as I pulled out 40 feet of tin foil and 40 black and white marbles and 40 black balloons with the number 40 on them!  Next, we took some of the 40 paraphernalia to the beach with us and used it to have a family party on my actual birthday, at which we also had white cake with key lime icing (have you tried this??  You should! It is so tasty E hid himself in the bathroom to lick the container clean!).  And THEN, we had a big party with all our friends from Charleston, thrown by my most fabulous friend Becca.  There was another cake, with 40 fake candles (paper candles instead with little things about me written on them), lots of barbeque pork, and mango Rita's water ice... all my favorites with all my favorite South Carolina people.  I even got gifts!  Such a lucky girl!  (Are you still a girl at 40??)
• We moved!  Just around the corner, but it was still a big move.  We are now, finally, out of our two bedroom apartment and into an actual house: four bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, a basement, a sun room, a garage, a yard, the works, including a third floor, a million windows, and french doors.  It is by far the nicest house I have ever lived in, married or single.  We are still living out of boxes and slowly pulling ourselves together, but we are already completely happy with the neighborhood, which puts us 1 1/2 blocks away from preschool, two blocks away from the elementary school, 2 blocks away from a grocery store and the public library and a dollar store and a pizza place, across the street from a friend from preschool, and on the same street as our home teacher!  Amazing!  The basement is unfinished but in really good shape, and I'm going to spend the summer turning it into a super playroom to get us through next winter.  I am also going to spend some quality time with all my books and bookcases, newly liberated from the storage unit after more than a year and only a little worse for wear (cursed water damage!), setting up our joint office/multipurpose studio.  It's gonna be so much fun to live here!
• I had a colonoscopy and an endoscopy because of lingering, ongoing health issues and a family history of not so good GI health.  The experience was, in a word, dreadful.  But the doctor ended up removing a polyp and biopsying a bunch of "inflamed" areas, so it was probably necessary, but oh. my. goodness.  SUCH a distasteful endeavor all around.
• We went to Ikea TWICE in April, once in North Carolina on the way back from vacation and once in Pittsburgh this weekend after we'd been in the house a while and knew more about what we needed.  The first trip we got accessories and the second we got furniture, including an outdoor table and new dressers and a kitchen cart (my one and only tiny issue with our new house is the lack of counter space in the otherwise beautiful kitchen--real granite counter tops, ya'll!).  
•  The boys have been adjusting to their new digs well.  The first full day we were here, I think they spent about 6 hours straight outside in the yard while I started to set up the kitchen.  They would ride their scooters and tricycles and bicycles up and down our driveway every day if they could.  E has been having nightmares and waking up in an unfamiliar bedroom has been a challenge for him, but I think he will settle down soon.  J loves living near a friend and closer to school and having so much space to run around in.  Their room is enormous, so even without a play room yet they have been having fun indoors as well.  Taking apart and putting their bunk bed back together caused the husband a few fits but now they are back in their beds and feeling more and more at home every day.

Whew!  That's enough for one month, I think.  More details and more pictures soon, but we've only had the internet for a few days now and there is so much to catch up on in both the real and the virtual worlds!