Real Ninja Training

I have just got back from Tai Kwon Do.  Levi is finally becoming the ninja he has wanted to be.  I am finding that we are 'living' at the YMCA.  Levi has After School Care there, I work out there and he now has Tai Kwon Do there as well.  It has been fabulous.  Roseburg has a great Y, because the Ford Foundation has put a lot of money into it as a way of giving back to the community.  We will be spending some time yet there I think.

 

Next week, I start work and it will all get fairly regimented, but at the moment there is some freedom.  The house inspection went really well on Monday and there are only cosmetic and little things that need to be done.  Hopefully we can get it all done and we can move in when planned.  We have picked out a puppy and she will be ready to be picked up in early December.  Things are starting to fall into place and I am thinking that in a few months it will feel all very normal and all very settled. 

 

Levi is hanging out for Halloween.  I still have thoughts about Frankie at this time of year.  This was his favorite holiday and he pushed himself beyond all endurance to go out on his last one.  He loved the prep and he loved the night.  I am seeing that reflected in Levi and it is a joy to watch.  There is no real Halloween in Australia, so this will be Levi's first real, night.  He has been very involved in the planning.  He has been very involved in all of it.  He talks about the planning and the night.  I only hope that with the huge buildup in his mind, that the night lives up to his expectations.

 

The US gets set to vote in the next few weeks, and it shows on the TV.  There are a thousand advertisements about Proposition this and Proposal that but as I have already voted (Oregon votes by mail), it is all lost on me. 

House

Levi is loving school and it makes me really happy to drop him off.  He has another week while I am still off work and we are going to practice After School Care starting Wednesday.  After School Care here they get to go swimming Mon, Wed and Friday, so he will have a bunch of time playing in the pool.  If he really loves that, I can get swimming lessons on Tuesday and Thursday, so he swims everyday.  We are now staying in a small one bedroom apartment in one of the hotels.  We only have to stay here for a little while, because we now have a house that is waiting for us!  It is a great house!  I am hoping to be in here in about three weeks but it will depend on inspections and things.  The house has a great view and fantastic gardens.  The best part is it is walking distance to his school and fully fenced, so Ash the puppy isn't too far off now, and that will signal more than anything that we have settled in.

 

We had a weekend in Medford and went to a pumpkin patch.  Levi was in heaven and loved it all!  He picked out a pumpkin and he led us through the corn maze.  He played on the haystack forever.  That was just a start.  Then we went home and carved the pumpkins and made Ninjabread cookies.  Levi's smile just never stopped and he absorbed every minute of it.  He is already thriving.

 

 

Changing!

Sorry I have been so pathetic and haven't even cracked open the computer to write on here.  It still won't let me upload anything and I think that soon I am just going to dump blogger and find another option.  I love having the ability to write some things down, that will stay fresh for me and Levi as he gets older and I forget things, but I also really love the whole photo aspect of it, so it's worth it to find something that works.  These are all bold words for someone who hasn't even managed to crack the laptop open in the last two weeks!

 

In the last eight days, we have changed continents and hemispheres.  We have changed seasons (drastically) and time zones.  I bought a new phone, that I am still mystified as to it's full functioning.  The first time a friend called, I tried everything I could think of to answer the damn thing and failed, resorting instead to calling her back immediately afterwards to confess my inability to function in the technological age!  I have since discovered you have to take the green circle and sweep it across to the red circle or it won't answer.  No amount of poking at the the green circle will work, and you can take it from me, no amount of swearing at the phone while watching it ring works either!  At least the phone has coverage, which is a step up from my phone in Australia, that needed to be answered either up at the goose yard or out the back on the cubby.

 

I bought a new car.  OK, new to me.  It is a 2007 Honda Pilot and has a;ready been great.  I went into it all just needing AWD. cruise control and enough power to tow small things and came out of it with heated leather seats, a navigation system and a moonroof.  The thing that sold it to Levi was the charger for the back seat, so that when he was playing on the iPad back there, it wouldn't run out of battery.  I liked that it has separate heating/cooling controls for the back seat.  It all sounds fancy and would be a lot more impressive if the navigation system didn't keep trying to send me to Florida and the weather necessitated heated seats.  Still it will do what I need it to and will travel the Roseburg-Medford trip easily.

 

Yesterday, Robert and Ken came up to Roseurg to check out a house, that I subsequently put an offer in for that afternoon.  It is within a five minute walk from school, so close enough, Levi can walk home and get things he has forgotten during the day.  It is fenced enough for a dog without any work and is an easy house to just move straight into.  I went to the bank today and got confirmation this afternoon that I was preapproved, so all we are really waiting on now is to see if the offer is accepted.  In the meantime, Levi and I are staying in a hotel for the five days and will travel back to Medford after school Friday.  Hopefully I can find us somewhere to settle, because the transition has been hard on us all, but most of all on Levi.

 

Today was his first day at his new school and I got some great photos of him standing in front all proud.  He made it until lunch and then I got called to get him because his 'heart was heating up from the inside'.  It is as good a description of nervous indigestion as I have heard.  I sat with him at lunch to see if I could get him to stay, but he was too tired and too overwhelmed.  I think likely he is still pretty lagged, as I know I am. 

 

It has been a frantic frenetic week.  I hope it settles soon!