Brent's Photos

Hello--

This is my nephew, on his mission in Oregon!

Toads, Traffic, Trains

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Frank returned from Germany last night -- he spent the week in conferences in Berlin. Very nice to have everybody back together again.

The kids start school this coming Tuesday. Teresa had a 6th grade orientation at the Middle School last week, and Kara went to her school to find her classroom and talk to her teacher.

There is a grassy field in back of these apartments, and Kara and Teresa found a little frog. They created a habitat for him and I took photos.

Let's see, more about the area that I have noticed:

POLICE. There are so many police officers here, I think 1/2 of the population of Massachusetts must attend the police academy after high school. Construction going on? The police will be there. Big public event? Lots of police. Speed Traps? Definitely! Most roads here (obviously not the freeways) are 25, 30, and 35 miles an hour, and these officers park themselves JUST before the sign to change speeds, or JUST after, so if you aren't alert, they will nab you. So far I have stayed on top of my speed changes. (I haven't met any officers up close.)
POLITE DRIVERS. This is a major change, from all the honking and road rage in California. When you are trying to turn left through an endless line of traffic here, they (gasp) LET YOU IN. No, I'm not kidding! The first few times someone blinked their lights at me, or waved to let me in, I just sat there. "Why are they doing that??" Then I realized they were being POLITE! Is that cool, or what!! So now I try to do it for people whenever I can, too. It keeps traffic moving.

DUNKIN DONUTS. These are everywhere. Which is good for me, because I do love Dunkin' Donuts! Our running joke now in the car is that we know we're in Massachusetts because there is a Dunkin Donuts every 5 blocks. (I don't know if there is a direct correlation between that and the number of police officers...? I really don't know.)

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. My grand accomplishment for the week: we can use the "T"! Public transportation here is awesome. Mostly it's for commuters, but it also works VERY well for tourists! We can drive 5 miles to the Parking Lot for the train. $3.75 to park all day. Hop on, it takes you right downtown, to museums, historic sites, even the airport, and it's only $1.70 for adults, kids under 12 are free. Fantastic! They call your card a "Charlie Card."

So, that is another plug for you to come visit us! Lots to see, and you DON'T have to fight downtown traffic and pay exorbitant parking fees.

Have a great Labor Day, love, Kari

Miscellaneous and Churches

Hola!

My brain bounces around with many different topics, but that just comes with moving, I guess! I feel like we've been here 6 months already, with all the pieces I try to take care of each day. But it's only been a couple of weeks.

We did find a house, so that is a big deal. Various details slow the process, however, so we will be in this apartment for another 6 weeks or so. With a legally binding "purchase and sale agreement," the school district did allow me to enroll the kids in school, so they can start next week (the day after Labor Day) as if we were living in the house.

We would like to have a few things done to the house, so those are other projects we are considering, with the thousands of details that come with that! Remodeling the kitchen and two bathrooms, plus a list about 3 pages long of "little" details that will make the house updated a bit (it was built in 1950) and "ours."

Meanwhile, we can't really work on those many projects until the owners move out in 3 weeks! So I'll blog about the area.

One fun thing I don't think I will ever tire of here, is driving from town to town and driving by all the old, beautiful churches on the corners. There are a lot of churches here! They don't tear down old buildings. They fix them up and keep the "old" flavor. It's awesome. Here are three I took photos of--I purposely put the camera in the car so I could stop and take a photo on the way to one of the kids' schools or the grocery store. (My kids think I'm completely crazy: "Why are we stopping?" "I'm taking a picture of this church...")







Oh, and one last thing: I took the camera with us on the way to church, just to get a shot of this great "tree-archway-driving-through-the-woods" feeling each time we go to church! It's so pretty.



Again--my family thinks I'm losing it (why does she randomly stop the car to take pictures??!), but in actuality, this is my therapeutic way to NOT lose it, during this move. Have a great week! Love, Kari

This Week at the Whitesells

Hello!

We are still plugging along, all 5 of us in our one-bedroom+den/one bathroom apartment. In a week we'll move 2 buildings down, into a two-bedroom/two bathroom apartment!

I was all ready to apologize to the kids that we still aren't in a house. I told David (12) that next week, we'd move into the 2 Bedroom/2 Bath place. As soon as the words "2 Baths" was out of my mouth, he pulled his fist down in the air and hissed, "YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!"

Funny what you find yourself appreciating when you go without for a few weeks!

We are taking in some Olympic events this week...the kids are enthralled with the synchronized diving, men's gymnastics, and of course Michael Phelps with his many many swimming golds. These photos, by Jeff Gross& Adam Pretty/Getty Images, make me wish I had been there for the opening ceremonies.





Maybe they'll show a "highlights reel" sometime. Sorry, but 4 hours is too long for almost any show!

We've had a lot of rain since we've been here. Like, enough to say, "Have we moved to Seattle instead of Massachusetts?" I love rain. People say this much rain is unusual for August here.

We had one very sunny day, beautiful, last Saturday. We went to Plymouth, where I took a bunch of photos. This laptop, however, is not recognizing my camera so I can't retrieve any pics until next week! ugh. But next week, SOME of our stuff comes, including the computer -- yippee! I'll blog Plymouth later.

More later, love, Kari

Northeast Corner of the Country

Friday, August 01, 2008

Hola, from Massachusetts! We arrived late Monday night. We’ve just been on a big slumber party of a vacation -- we packed all our belongings and watched them drive away in a big semi truck a week ago Thursday. We stayed in a local CA motel for a few nights, cleaned up the empty rented house, and “passed” our walk-through to get back our security deposit.

Currently we are in Frank’s apartment in Waltham. It’s one bedroom, and it has a den, so there is space to set up air mattresses for the kids. Thankfully, it has a pool, so we have gone swimming every day.

Massachusetts is very different from southern California. Here are a few things I have noticed right away.

1 – I feel like I have moved to the mountains! Green, green, green, and more trees than I have seen in a long time. And these are HUGE trees, not little scrawny ones. Just beautiful.

2 –Roads. California has 8-lane freeways and the “Rush Hour” actually lasts for 3 hours. Here, they have curvy, narrow, two-lane roads that wind around through the woods, at 25 and 30 miles an hour. And I hear that “Rush Hour” is just that: one hour.

3 – Moisture in the air. In California, our wetsuits will dry outside overnight. Here, towels hang out 2 days and they STILL are not dry!

4 – Hair. My hair does not quite know how to act in this humidity. ( OK, it was not exactly magazine-worthy in CA, either…but here, it does some funny things.)

5 – Insects. I didn’t really notice a lot of bugs in CA. There are plenty of critters to watch and/or avoid, here. Ants everywhere. Wasps, mosquitoes, dragonflies, katydids, butterflies, ladybugs. (You name it, and Teresa will try to catch it!)

6 -- Gas prices. The lowest I have seen so far is $3.84 per gallon. Wow! Awesome--by simply taking a flight east, we dropped 60 cents a gallon!

More to come, love, Kari