They moved to Virginia

I am always looking for a good excuse to visit my children, especially the littles.....

actually, it doesn't even have to be a good excuse....

last Tuesday I went to Virginia to help Marlena move into their house, because J.Paul was on about a 2 and half week "underway" or as Amzie called it, an "under wave"and could not be there when their household goods were scheduled to arrive ...

about 8:30 Wednesday morning,  this big truck and another truck, with 5 movers, 2 of which were useless and we don't have the best of feelings towards, showed up to unloaded their things

this is Delvin.  we like Delvin.  Evan thought his name was Ben and followed him around most of the day....    I suppose it is true, kids are like dogs...  they usually know when someone is okay

Bam Bam Beeler....  she got out there in her pink PJ's and told those men where to put her things

Mar was in position - ready to get this going after nearly a month living in a hotel, or someone else's house, and eventually in this house without J.Paul, with little more than a package of diapers and this table and a couple of camping chairs...  I think she can probably handle anything now.

everything in the truck is numbered and correlates with sheets like this

it took 4 or 5 hours for them to off load the truck and have it matched up to these sheets

Evan hanging with "Ben" a.k.a. Delvin

he aspired to be a mini-mover that day.... 

then we were faced with this.... in every room... all. over. the. house.

At times it felt like we were two damsels in distress ....  but, we worked hard everyday and made a lot of progress setting up their new nest ... the little kids were so excited and helpful ...  they live in a cove with what appears to be wonderful neighbors 

Evan had a snow storm with the packing paper for a couple of days ...

sometimes, any idea is a good idea .... he worked so hard on his snow storm...

 not sure what the neighbors thought, nor did we care ...

they have a fish pond ... it had one gold fish that Evan named, Evan ...

  a few days later Mrs Pat, the Landlady brought each kid a fish ...

they named their new fish,  Jo, Pat Camryn, Evan 1 and Evan 2

we found time to play "pretend", eat ice cream, take walks around the neighborhood and one night we played Monopoly

until Evan got mad because we told him he couldn't cheat..

so he worked a puzzle by himself

until Marlena made us two big bowls of her ranch style famous popcorn -- yum yum

we antiqued one afternoon and Mar scored two retro pieces of furniture .... 

 we thrifted one morning and had success that day too...

the night before I left, we went to the beach.... a 10 minute trip from their new home

the plan was to only walk on the beach... 

no one was to get in the water....  

we didn't even take a beach towel ...

Evan is not really in the water.....

he said, "I am just sitting down"

Norfolk is not Chicago, but I think they will have a great experience here

Mar, thanks for letting me come and help you

I loved being there.

Glenda

 ps...  I felt the earthquake in the airport ....  it was exciting