I wanted to entitle this "The boys are back in town" because that is the song that popped in my head; however we are mostly girls around here. We won't even out until November. So "The boy and girls are back in town!"  We made it to Deering on Tuesday on the afternoon Bering Air flight. We were the first stop. I love it when that happens. There is too much anticipation when we have to go Buckland then Deering. We made it in with our 330 lbs of luggage.
When we rolled up in front of the school yard (also our front yard) there were lots of kids waiting to greet us. I got the house opened up and we were flooded with kids right from the start. It was nice coming home to a clean house; however, it was short lived. Between the kids pulling out every toy of Eloise's and unpacking our 330 lbs of luggage our house looked a fine picture of carnage and disaster.
Luckily we came home on the last night of VBS because there was a hot dog potluck at the church. I didn't have to scrape dinner together the first night. That would have taken some creativity that I just wasn't up for. After traveling for 2 days I wasn't in the mood to jump into my role as chef extraordinaire quite yet. A hot dog and a half, Oreo-laden chocolate pudding, and two Bingo wins later we were ready to head home. We tucked ourselves in bed by 10:30 PM even though it looked like it was 3:00 PM (thank heavens for black out curtains). We slept soundly, but unfortunately Eloise wasn't interested in sleeping in. 7:30 came around and she was urging us to get up.
I spent all day getting ready for Eloise's birthday party. I diligently made jello cups and cupcakes. Overall the party was a success. It was fun to have a house full of people. The herd of kids made their way to the playground...another reason why living next to the school is just so great.
We are glad to be back. It is nice to be back in our house. It was interesting to observe the shift in what feels like home. As much as we love Spokane, it isn't home anymore. All our amenities are here. This is where real life is I guess one could say. Eloise is such a happy kid here. My sister asked me how you  know if a two year old is happy since they can't really verbalize that. The evidence is in her reaction to being here. Yesterday we read lots of books that she remembers enjoying from several months ago. She played with her toys. She just seemed comfortable in a way that being back in Spokane wasn't. Things are much more familiar for her here.

One more thing: amid all the preparation for a birthday party we were able to sneek away to watch some folks water skipping on the creek behind the house. It was a sight to see. Water skipping is driving a snowmachine across water really fast so as not to sink. It was pretty interesting to watch. All the little boys were talking about someday getting jobs and buying snow machines just so that can water skip.

TTFN  (Ta Ta for now)