Skip to main content

The Pride and Joy of Illinois

Transitioning from Hawaii to Illinois has been one of the most difficult things I've ever done.  Hawaii is just so beautiful and the weather is always wonderful.  It's a culture shock to move to a place where there really isn't much to do aside from shiver and watch the corn grow.

But I've been telling the kids for years, every move is about attitude.  You can move to a new state and tell yourself you don't want to be there and hate it every minute.  

You are still going to be living there and hating it won't make the time go any faster.

  When we lived in Alaska, I knew people that loathed it.  They couldn't wait to get orders to go somewhere else.  Meanwhile, we took our family to dog sled rides, ice carving festivals, outhouse races, salmon bakes, sledding, a riverboat cruise, train rides, a day cruise to a glacier where we saw killer whales jump out of the water and we watched the Northern Lights every time they were visible.

When we lived in Hawaii, I knew people that had island fever and they couldn't wait to leave and get back to the mainland.  Meanwhile we took the kids skiing, scuba diving, surfing, hiking, boating, climbing, camping, watched sperm whales jump out of the ocean, met Johnny Depp, met Duff Goldman, and saw a rainbow almost every day.

When we lived in Kansas.....well, we went to the mall a lot.  Kansas wasn't my favorite place. But we made good friends.  And it was a really nice mall.

When we got orders to move to North Carolina, I was really unhappy about it.  I didn't want to move there.  It was at the very very very bottom of my list of places I wanted to go.  But I ended up loving it.  I met my best friends there and the kids were involved in martial arts, swimming, and horseback riding.  I was sad when we left.

So  we are now trying to find the joy in Illinois.  We found the City Museum, but that was in Missouri.

But now, we can leave Hawaii behind with happy hearts.  So long beaches!  So long mountains!  So long beautiful weather, amazing sunsets, and daily rainbows!


Illinois has the world's largest bottle of ketchup!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ben's Feet

Ben went camping with his youth group this weekend. He said it was the best weekend he's had since we've been in Hawaii, and possibly in his entire life. The one negative part was that he stepped on some coral out in the water and cut his feet up pretty good. He swears it was all dead coral - you shouldn't touch live coral, much less walk on it because it damages the coral. No one ever mentions that it also damages your feet. They just tell you not to damage the coral. Also, coral is a living organism . If you step on live coral and a tiny piece breaks off in the cut, it will continue to grow. Did you see the movie Alien ? If some creature incubates in Ben's feet, then breaks out and eats us all one night, I'm going to be quite miffed. (Make sure you read the inscription on his tee shirt in this picture. It's quite appropriate.)

Mammogram

I'm having my annual mammogram today. I always hear about how painful they are, but honestly, I've never thought they are that bad. Not the most comfortable, but not painful either. Every time I have a mammogram, I'm reminded of this story. It won the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition and I still get a kick out of it every time I read it. So I'm posting it here today for your reading pleasure: Erma Bombeck Writing Competition 1st place in Humor Category Winner Leigh Anne Jasheway of Eugene, Oregon "The First Time's Always the Worst" The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside o

A Week After Surgery

Katie went back to the surgeon yesterday to have her foot checked.  It was the first time we saw the stitches.  When we saw her after surgery, her foot was already wrapped up in three inches of gauze and it's been wrapped like that ever since. The doctor decided that the sutures were not quite ready to be removed. There are stitches in the side of her foot where they inserted one of the screws.  The surgeon told us that she has to be very, very, very careful not to put her foot on the ground.  Any pressure at all could cause the screws to shift or break and that would be very, very, very bad. They knew we were going out of town for the wedding this weekend.  In order to protect her foot as much as possible, she was put in a hard cast.  It will come back off on Monday so they can check the sutures again.  This cast has a very limited time to be signed! Katie may not get to have a lot of people sign her cast  but she currently still has the initials of the sur