Once again it has been too long since I updated everyone on
the Percell Family Adventures…..
Our last few weeks in Singapore were just a whir of
activity! Boy Scout campouts and
committee business, and Girl Scout Camp (I was the camp fire person) took a
fair bit of time. We were also
trying to finish up our school year before we left Singapore so we didn’t have
to take books with us. A lot of the school books went in the air shipment anyway because we were in Singapore almost 3 years, so the books H. was using when we arrived will be used by AS this year, and the ones he was using will be used by O this year. We had to sort things into “give away”, “air shipment”, “boat shipment” and
“suitcase”. (Even the little kids understand. “Oh, I can’t find my xyz. It must be on the boat. Or maybe in Texas.”) I tried to leave everything organized for Erin.
It was so hard to say goodbye to all our friends in
Singapore!! It’s not like we can
just hop in the car and drive a couple of hours and see them again. :-( Saying ‘goodbye’ to
Singapore wasn’t much easier. It’s
hard to explain. It’s not home and
it never will be (probably because I don’t like seafood!), and yet, I liked it
a lot. It’s clean and crime free
and has great public transportation.
The different ethnic groups live in much more harmony that the U.S. can
even begin to imagine. So I wanted
to come back and I wanted to stay there.
I miss it already.
On the other hand…..
It was good to get back to the U.S. I really missed having a car during the day! And Chick-fil-A! Of course, now I don’t walk anywhere
and I eat fast food all the time.
Not. Good. Now I’m looking
forward to getting settled in and not eating so much fast food!
The weirdest part about the U.S. was coming back to all the consumerism. Walking in the local Kroger in
Rosenberg was like an out of body experience. There was soooo much food! Most of it terrible for you. Lots and Lots and LOTS of stuff in there that no one in
their right mind NEEDS. Clearly we
have too much discretionary spending money in this country! Infomercials!! We all make fun of them, and yet they
must be successful. Consume! Consume! Consume!!!
Weird. Trade in your car
and KEEP THE SAME CAR PAYEMENT!!
Come on people. Think.
Let me just say this:
NO ONE could keep up with our calendar. Thankfully, there’s an app for that. I’ll try to simplify for you so you get
an idea of what it was like:
-May 11 Erin leaves Singapore for Europe. He would spend a week there, and then a
week in Virginia before meeting us in Texas.
-May 20 The
kids and I leave for Texas. (We
had to arrive before May 30 because that’s when the little kids’ visas
expired. Otherwise, we would've stayed in Singapore 'till July 31 and this whole
summer would’ve been a LOT easier to deal with, but ah well. It’s worth it!) In case you’re wondering, the little
kids did GREAT on the plane. On
the leg from Tokyo to Houston, I offered the big kids money if I could get at
least 8 hours of sleep. Then I
gave the little kids some “cough medicine” (I promise, I don’t normally do
that!!!), and they and I slept very well, thank you very much! Upon touch down in Houston, we were
escorted to immigration where the little kids officially became US citizens! YEA!!
-May 21 Erin joined us for 16 days – 3 of which he spent in
Baton Rouge (work) and 2 of which I spent in Baton Rouge (getting the truck to
bring back for our mechanic to look at and fix up). So really it was like 11 days except that for the first 10 I
was jet lagged, so I slept through a lot of it. I remember we bought a van on the other side of Houston and
had to drive back and forth from there a lot. In fact, we drove home the wrong van. The night we bought it the saleslady
said, “There’s a problem because the odometer has fewer miles on it than the
paperwork indicates. So we will
have someone double check it”.
Also, I was trying to figure out how it was “blue” when it looked
silver/gray to me. But you know
how car manufacturers are with color names. I was thinking, “Maybe it’s ‘Early Dawn Hint of Blue’
Blue”. Anyway, we
drove home the silver van when we’d really bought the blue van. That was a funny phone call the next
morning! LOL Anyway, we got it worked out and
had to drive back over (twice) the next week for the installation of the DVD
system and back up camera.
June 6 – Erin flew back to Singapore to work until the end
of July. So he was all alone in
the big apartment in Singapore, and we were all jammed up in the tiny apartment
in Texas. He had the fun of supervising
the movers as they packed up the apartment and the cleaning and all the fun
stuff involved in moving out.
(I’ll get my turn in September in Texas…)
June 9 – 15 the oldest 3 kids went to camp. They were all so excited about going
and had a great time. The littlest
2 stayed with me and we tried to stay busy going to library story time and to
the movie theater’s ‘summer camp’.
We did o.k., but I sure did miss those big kids and all the help they
give with the little ones. Not
just babysitting when needed, but they’re awesome about playing with the little
ones.
After camp, we had one week in the little apartment before
leaving on our long road trip to Tennessee. Let me just say that trying to keep 6 people in a 2 bedroom
apartment with very little to do can be frustrating. When I walk through and see kids looking like ‘screen zombies’ normally I make them turn the screens off. But this summer I just think, “Well,
they’re not taking up much space and they’re being quiet. I think I’ll leave it alone.” It’s not like I could tell them
to go play in the street or something.
We have spent quite a lot of time this summer being extremely
bored. Maybe that’s all my fault
for not having the energy to create more interesting things to do. The little kids have done a good job of
inventing things to do for themselves.
But the big kids are just screen zombies. :-P Also, I’ve had to rely on them much
more than normal for babysitting.
Car buying, re-adoption lawyer appointments, and errand running are not the most fun places to take 4
year olds. But we did take them
along sometimes just to reduce the number of people in the apartment.
I admit I did
spend a fortune in babysitting one day just to go shopping for fun. I went to the Homeschool Store in
Houston. It is the most awesome
homeschool store that I know of. I
spent 3 or 4 hours in there. :-) And no, I didn't NEED any of it. Welcome back! Then I got myself some lunch and came
back.
We did do a few fun things like going to ‘homeschool day’ at
a local waterpark (west of Houston).
Our month-long road trip to Tennessee went well. It was a lot of driving (we put over
3,000 miles on the new van just on that trip), but we had a great time visiting
relatives and meeting grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins for the
first (or hundredth) time.
Highlights include helping in the garden and playing kickball.
Two days after we got back to Houston our cat, Q,
arrived. Poor thing. She was absolutely exhausted! It took her 3 days before she even
wanted to get up and walk around the apartment. But I’m pretty sure she was glad to have most of her family
back even if she’s still pretty suspicious of the 4 year old boy (with good
reason). She also had the
fun of riding in the van to Baton Rouge.
She gets to make that trip at least twice more. But I think after the plane ride, the
van ride was nothing. She barely
made a sound.
A week later on August 3, it was time to go to Baton
Rouge to house hunt. Erin arrived in
Baton Rouge on July 31, but we stayed in Houston a couple of extra days so that
I could go to the singing at Keinwood church of Christ. It was worth it. Such an uplifting experience. H. went with me and we talked about how we could come next year
and stay in a hotel….. (Not sure
that will happen.) After the
singing, I treated her to ice cream, and then we started for home (aka the
apartment). It took more than
twice as long as it should’ve because the entire Beltway 8 was shut
down!!! Still don’t know why it
was closed. It was after midnight when we got to the apartment. By the time I finished packing and went
to bed it was 2:15. Then I got up
at 5 and drove to Baton Rouge.
Ugh. But it was worth it to
FINALLY see my husband after so many months apart! (Yes, military families, I know I’m a wimp, but it seemed
like forever to me!)
The following Monday, we left the kids in the hotel room and
started looking for our new little farm. We looked all over the
'tri-state area' (Phineas and Ferb reference) for horse property. We had a list of 12 properties. Some
of them sold before we got to them, one sold to someone else after we put in an
offer, a couple were pulled off the market, some of them needed way too much
work, some of them were tens of thousands of dollars over-priced, and some were
too small and/or too far from work. So we ended up with a subdivision
house. Those of you who know me,
know that I am NOT a subdivision person! Ah well. Apparently God is trying to teach me
something, or else He has a great sense of humor. The house is extremely nice. (I’d LOVE to have this house on about 8
acres somewhere.) It’s not hard to
like it. #1, it’s huge and has
plenty of space for the kids. #2 –
it is by far the nicest house I’ve ever lived in, and on par with the appartment
we had in Singapore, but more updated.
#3 – We did NOT pay $48,000 per acre, so we could afford to spend all of
our money on house instead of ½ on house and ½ on land. The best part about it is that it is .3
miles from my horse.
Still, if someone says, “200 x 80” (that’s the size of the
lot - in FEET!!!) just hand me a paper bag so I can
breathe into it. It’s going to take
a while to get used to that!
So for the next few days, the kids and I are hanging out in
the hotel in Baton Rouge while Erin goes to work. We couldn’t decide which was more boring – hotel room or
little apartment. But the hotel
has maid service, food delivery, and free breakfast, and most importantly –
DAD/HUSBAND! So we’re
staying! :-D
We’ve been trying to homeschool while on the road. I truly have no idea how long it will
take us to get “caught up” but at least some stuff is getting done. (O. only brought his math on this trip
to Baton Rouge, so he’ll be 2 weeks behind in everything else. Sigh.) H. got her learner’s permit before we left Texas, but we haven’t
worked on it after that at all.
I’m not sure where there’s a good practice parking lot around here. The little kids have been
fabulous. They play with
anything. Give them a plastic bag
and they load up some of their clothes in it and pretend to go on a trip. They take random books and pretend to
have Bible class. They play in Erin’s
air shipment box, or watch Netflix so I can get a shower. I wish their lives had more
dependable routines, but right now that just isn’t possible. In a few weeks we’ll be able to start
back up with homeschool group activities, cub scouts, boy scouts, girl scouts,
etc. One good thing about being in
so many different locations is that they are kinda used to going new places. I think I can take them into any church
and tell them I’ll be back after the 2nd bell and they’ll be
fine. (We’ve been in a different
church almost every Sunday since May.)
Saturday we’ll return to the little apartment for 3 weeks
until time to close on the house.
In all likelihood, the furniture from the little apartment will arrive
in Baton Rouge several weeks before the sea shipment of all our stuff from
Singapore. So we’ll be in this gigantic house with only the stuff we didn’t
take to Singapore. LOL. I sure hope no one comes over to
“welcome us to the neighborhood”.
Won’t they get a laugh?
Maybe I’ll offer
them an overturned feed bucket to sit on!
