For anyone reading this who does not already know, we finally have a house! It's a townhouse, which wasn't really what we were looking for, and it's a rental (also not exactly what we had planned), but it is ours and it has all our stuff in it. After the almost-three-months of being what is classified as "warm" homeless, it is wonderful to come home to the same place every day and not feel like we're living out of suitcases.
The reality took a while to settle in: four or five days after we'd taken delivery of way too many moving boxes, I noticed my phone charger plugged into a not-very-obvious outlet and thought, "Oh! I'd better move that now so we don't forget and leave it here." And then I realized that we're not leaving! Whew!
I have a blog post planned about my recent reading. Between the book collections at the two vacation rentals we dallied in and my Christmas Kindle, I've made some progress on the infamous list of 100 books. It's all very exciting, but I'll wait to tell you about that sometime in the next few days. Tonight, I'll just present some pictures of Darcy and how she has entertained herself and us over the past few months:
During one of our stays at a comfy Staybridge Suites (we stayed at this particular hotel three different times, once for about a week and a half), we got some real snow. Darcy and I made a snowman. Really, I made it, because Darcy wouldn't wear gloves or mittens and so her hands were too cold to handle the snow. It was, according to Darcy, just about "Theo sized". It hung around for several days, even after the snow around it had mostly melted away. This photo was taken almost a week after we made it, when it had devolved into a snow cat. The next day, Darcy declared it was a snow turtle.
Sticking with our theme of winter fun, we had overnight park service friends as guests while at our first vacation rental. There was a large puddle/small pond that we had to drive through to get to the pedestrian bridge that led to the house. For several of the days we were there, it froze over with about 3/4 inch thick ice every night. Four adults and a six year old spent about 20-25 minutes breaking and playing with the ice. Because we really know how to show our guests a good time. Here are J, S, and Darcy with ice balanced on their heads, walking back to the bridge and house.
This has nothing to do with winter fun. We made a day trip to an aquarium to give our ocean-addicted child a fix in mid-November. Here, Darcy and Michael are in a bubble in a reef tank. The ocean addiction, by the way, having lasted longer than her usual obsessions, is waning. It's replacement: the Beatles!
There were weird trees in the community that held our second vacation rental. This one is growing over and around this leaning rock. Others grew straight out of seemingly solid rock. And at the entrance, two trees were hugging each other. One had grown completely twisted around the other over the years -- and they were not small trees!
That vacation rental happened to supply Darcy-sized snow shoes and we had PLENTY of snow, so she took a couple tries at that.
And then last weekend, Michael and Darcy went to see the New York Philharmonic for one of their Young People's Concerts. It was my brilliant mother's idea for Michael's Christmas present. I walked up Broadway from Lincoln Center almost back up to Columbia, window shopping, and actually shopping at Zabar's and a couple other foodie destinations while they were concerting. Darcy got to compose a short melody during the pre-concert Kids Zone time, and a violinist came by and played it for her when it was finished! We ate bagels and rode the subway (a lot). Other than the joy of being with family and friends for the holidays, this was the first weekend that reminded me why we wanted to live on the east coast for a while. After the concert, the music-lovers detoured over to Central Park to indulge Darcy's newest obsession:
