Settling In

Here are a few pics from our new life in Oklahoma.We found a house, and hopefully it will be ours next week. Crazy. I don't feel old enough to be buying a house and making all the grown-up decisions related to home buying. It will be fun to have our own place, a back yard and trees, and a big project to work on. It was built in 1979, and no one seems to have done any updates, except for granite counter tops in the kitchen, which Alvin the rock man thinks are ugly.

Aside from the counters, Alvin is very pleased with the house. I think he liked it from the get-go because 1) the dining/living room reminds him of his family cabin, and 2) it backs up to some of the only wooded open space in residential Oklahoma City. He has big plans to build a trail from our back yard to the park just beyond the woods.

Here's Miles riding a rhino at the zoo. The zoo is lovely, but of course it is outdoors and Oklahoma had a record-breaking heat streak this summer (temperatures over 110 degrees every day from June to September). We wanted to go to the zoo, so we went a Saturday morning as soon as it opened. It was still pretty hot. The shade and occasional air-conditioned buildings helped.

Miles took this picture of his trains. I think the composition and lighting show promise! Yes, he still loves trains. Visitors to our apartment always remark on the plethora of train illustrations taped to the wall. Miles loves to direct Alvin and me in drawing trains, especially green steam engines. He won't let us stop until we've drawn the cowcatcher, tracks and smoke.

I don't have a great picture of me yet, but for an update, I cut my hair, which apparently was a good move, because lots of Oklahoma women have short hair. (Poor Alvin really prefers long hair, but I feel so liberated that I don't have plans to grow it out in the near future.) I'm buying maternity clothes again to accommodate my six-month belly. I really love our new ward - the moms have done a stellar job at inviting me to events and including me and Miles in play groups. I think a lot of people here don't have many relatives close by, so the ward really becomes your family. We've had dinners and watched football games with new friends here.

Hopefully Alvin will give y'all an update on his new job (which included a Blackberry and many opportunities to use it during the night and on weekends).