Riley and Avery

So cute!  Angela just sent me a picture of Lola as a pup, which is great timing since the girls have been begging to see a dachshund puppy so they wold know what one looks like!  How stinkin' cute is she?

So, we got a cat.  First, because we have mice.  Second, because we simply wanted one!

We went to the Animal Refuge League.  They have a very thorough way of evaluating cats based on their personalities.  Then, the families fill out a survey and are matched with a category of cats that would best suit the household.

Stupid thing like back-to-school night make me giddy.  I'm weird.  I think things like that make me feel like a grown up :)   At the age of 34, I still don't feel like an adult!

All I can say about Dyer School is WOW!  Love it!  Miss Foster has been teaching for 25 years, and over the years she has amassed an amazing quantity of books.  Holy cow, every wall is filled with organized little bins of books.  Literally, no exaggeration, she has a couple thousand at least.  Just totally awesome.

We managed to get a short trip to the beach in before sending Riley off too school.  However, we did NOT pick a very warm day!  Had we waited a week, the weather would have been a lot better.  From what I gather, the shore in Maine is usually rocky.  Sandy beaches have to be sought out.  The thing I do like is that we can go to the beach to go to the beach, and don't have to worry about the vendors, rides, food, etc.  It's just the beach.  If we want touristy beach, we can make the quick drive to Old Orchard Beach (about 12 miles away).  Don't get me wrong, I love touristy beaches, but not every single weekend.  That would absolutely kill our budget.  The beach we went to was Willard Beach, only about a mile long.  It has barrier islands that act as breakwaters, so the surf is really gentle (more like the surf on the bayside of Ocean City).  Avery was comfortable enough to actually wade a bit inot the water.  We were the only ones crazy enough to be there on a windy and cool day.  The water was a tad chilly, but warmer than I expected it to be.  Kind of like Ocean City in June.

Riley was up-and-at-'em on her first day, so excited to start school.  We arrived early so that we could meet her teacher.  Miss Foster seems like she'll be a great teacher for Riley.  There are only two first grade classes at Dyer Elementary, so the school's not HUGE, but definitely larger than Golden Mountain.  After meeting Miss Foster, she took her out onto the playground (there is playground supervision starting at 8:30 until 8:45 when school starts) and she found a girl named Elise who helped Riley find where to line up when the bell rang, and helped her with the morning routines.  After that, Riley just ran onto the playground with Elise and didn't even hug me or say good-bye!

We are finally making progress! We go here late, thanks to a nasty and ill-explained detour. It's 11:30 pm and Rudi took Riley and Avery to Denny's for a bite to eat while I chill in the hotel with Lola. I tell you, in unfamiliar places (hotels), Lola DOES NOT like anyone to be missing, particularly Rudi. She is whining all over the place and scratching at the door. It's driving me crazy. Even if I can get her into bed with me, she keeps an eye on the door. She is really bonding with Rudi, since she is riding with him. The moving truck has a huge space between the front seats and Rudi put way too much thought into how to make it comfy for Lola. Once Lola learned that neither running under Rudi's feet or chasing a fly in the truck are desirable activities on the road, she's been doing well. The girls are hanging in there, considering that this is our 5th night in a hotel.

Sitting here in a hotel room for the second night and I even update the blog!  About time, right?

We picked up the truck today and loaded it all up.  It's weird to look at a 15 foot truck, knowing that all of your worldly possessions are in it!  The movers loaded it really well and worked magic getting it all on.  We did get rid of a lot of stuff, but nothing really that we hadn't planned on ridding ourselves of.  Now the task of cleaning the apartment.  Fun times.  Tomorrow will be full of cleaning and then we leave on Saturday morning for Maine!  Oh, yeah!

Rudi got rid of his books.  I can't say he got rid of them all, but after packing a couple boxes of them, he got tired of it and took them to the library instead.  Honestly, I never understood the act of keeping things just to have them.  I mean, I can understand collecting, in moderation, but a stamp collection or coin collection, or baseball card collection, doesn't take up much space.  At least for normal people they don't.  But collecting books (and bookcases to hold them) when you never look at them again is just ridiculous to me.  Is it just so that you can say that you have a "library?" Is that a status symbol I'm not aware of?  I mean, sure, having a library 300 years ago was a status symbol, but today we have these buildings that are actually called libraries, where you go to borrow books for free.

Sorry, no pictures!  We haven't really been doing anything picture-worthy, just packing.  Lots and lots of packing.  We've thrown out far more than we've packed, which is a good sign so far.  Much much much more than we've packed.  By "thrown out" I mean donated, trashed, or otherwise disposed of.  We're trying to make do with a 17' moving truck, which will save us a considerable amount of money and I have a feeling that the new house is smaller than this one, with less storage.  So, we are purging very aggressively!  Even Rudi is, and we all know what a pack-rat he is!

We finally made it to the last day of this year's RenFest, and our last in Colorado!  The weather was a little warm at first, but it cooled off significantly as it threatened to rain after a while, but didn't actually rain until we got to our car several hours later.  Phew.

We've already looked into Renaissance Festivals in Maine, and they do have one for one weekend only in May.  I think Portland weather in May is definitely long-sleeved weather, which makes costuming easier.  Rudi says that he wants me to make him a kilt and a shirt.