Living in Alabama

Here are some thoughts after two months of living in Alabama.

The down side:
The bugs are as awful as you may have heard, guessed, or known.  We've battled fire ants in the yard, and Bryan has had some pretty big welts from their bites.  Mosquitoes hide under every leaf, just waiting for us to walk outside.  Calvin has already been stung by a wasp, which wasn't entirely the wasp's fault (Calvin said a few days later "wasps don't like being picked up").  The roaches (palmetto bugs) are as big as they were in Florida.  And thousands of tiny white bugs are now floating around like fluffy seeds, creating white clouds that cover the fence and everything and everyone in the backyard.  Bugs are so bad that the residents don't even bother with trash cans - everyone piles their trash bags on the curb.  It took us a while to understand that, and I don't think anyone likes it, but it makes sense (I guess).  The spiders are cool, though. 

(I wanted to add a spider picture here, but had Bryan not been frozen in fear and disgust when I showed him the picture I'm sure he would have threatened to never look at this blog again.)

Bryan and Calvin immediately start sweating the moment they walk outside. Temperatures have been in the 90's and humidity stays brutally high.  The mornings are starting to cool off a little, though, which makes me very excited about the fall.

Cooling off in the shade of the neighborhood park (which is woefully lacking a playground).

Hot day + shade and water + camera = funny faces

Now we're feeling better!

Fortunately our town has a splash pad with lots of fountains and sprinklers and overflowing buckets.   Here, Calvin is drying off in the sun after playing at the splash pad.

Attitudes about food are disappointing.  Restaurants more often than not have kids menus full of french fries and potato chips (no veggies or fruit or even semi-healthful options) and soda-lemonade (what happened to milk?).  Farmers markets are maybe one or two little tents, not the parking lot-full with a dozen or more options we were used to in Virginia and Colorado.  It is definitely not what I had expected/hoped to find in Alabama, given the longer growing season in the South.  Maybe it is worse because we are in a smaller town; maybe it is better in Montgomery.

The up side:
It is beautiful here.  This is a green world with blue sky and fresh breezes.  The crickets and cicadas fill the evening with their song.  Lightning and thunder crash through many of our afternoons and sunsets turn our sky every shade of orange and red.

Everything about Prattville feels small-town, which I love.  The packed YMCA yoga class is filled with locals of every age, from 12 to over 70, both male and female, who all know each other and are friendly (if not a little shy) with me.  The old folks sitting in the car service waiting room are chatty and share their stories (about their day or their lives) as easily as if we were sitting in their living rooms.  Same with the vet technicians giving Deuce his pain-management laser therapy treatments.  And the pest control guy who came out to spray for bugs, whose bug-spraying company has been in his family for 3 generations.  Everyone is friendly and talkative; they feel open and welcoming.

The local Labor Day festival had pony rides.  Calvin got to be a cowboy.  So cute!

Montgomery has a really nice art museum (Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts) that shares an expansive, beautiful setting with the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.  The art museum has an excellent children's ArtWorks exhibit with hands-on art and science-related activities and demos, all free.  Calvin and I have been there several times and we both love it.

Calvin is making his own art on the museum touchscreen computers.

Mixed Emotions:
We like our new house - it is smaller than our last, but doesn't feel cramped or crowded.  There are no stairs, which is nice for our very old dogs.  Our backyard is much bigger than many of our past homes, and has some shade from the one big tree at the far end.  Ceiling fans and lights are in every room - woo hoo!  But the neighborhood feels like a ghost town.  We can see cars parked in the driveway, but rarely do we see anyone outside.  We're hopeful that we'll see more of our neighbors this fall.  But it is possible they just don't bother getting to know the people who move in for only a year.  We've made some friends through Calvin's swim classes at the local YMCA, and we have friends who are here that we know from previous assignments, so we're staying fairly busy.

Calvin and Brendon hit it off really well from the first time they met.  Brendon is the younger son of Tim and Tara, friends of ours from Colorado Springs.  Here we are walking in downtown Montgomery to the local brewery.

(left to right) Lexi, Calvin, Sam, and Addison are walking together after a happy lunch at a sandwich shop, rounding out a successful park playdate with new friends a few weeks ago. 

We're definitely in football country.  Bryan and I don't watch or care at all about football, so we're kind of ambivalent about everyone's obsession on Saturdays and Sundays and we feel a little on the outside.  Houses and cars and neighborhood golf carts are all adorned with flags of either the University of Alabama or Auburn University.  One unexpected benefit to all of this weirdness is that the roads are practically empty during games.  We went up to Birmingham on a Saturday a few weekends ago and felt like we had the town to ourselves - occasionally another car would appear driving the other direction or turning onto another road far off in the distance, but for the most part we were the only oddballs not watching football. Fine with me - I plan to take advantage of the empty zoo, museums, and other activities on the weekends.

Overall, we're doing okay with this move.  The relaxed work schedule far out-weighs any negative aspect from bugs or heat or food.  And we're adapting - we eat in a lot more, play outside in the mornings and evenings, and have a good supply of citronella candles and bug-repellent.  

The small kiddie pool has been a lifesaver on many hot afternoons.

Moving to Alabama

When it came time in late July to pack up our things and move to Alabama, we had some mixed emotions.  We weren't excited to be headed into the notorious heat and humidity of the South (I like humidity, but Alabama's is a bit extreme), nor were we ready to leave the friends and neighbors we had gotten to know and love in Virginia.  But we were tired of the D.C. traffic (even way out where we lived), endless construction, and Bryan's stressful job and long hours.  So we were looking forward to the change of pace that this assignment would bring.  Because this assignment is different.  Here in Montgomery, Alabama, Bryan is going to school - Air Command and Staff College - for 10 months.  He will be attending lectures, doing homework, taking exams.  His "work day" is now shorter than at any other assignment, partly because he can do some of his work at home, and partly because it is just not as stressful and busy as a normal job.  Calvin and I are enjoying having him around a lot more, and Bryan is taking time to take better care of himself - sleeping more, running a lot, not stressing about work, etc.

Bryan was able to join us on Calvin's first day of preschool, something that he most likely would not have had time for at a normal assignment.

But let me back up to the move and catch you all up to where we are now:

Fortunately, we were able to schedule packers and movers (not everyone leaving Virginia this summer was so lucky), and they showed up pretty much when we planned for them to - the week of July 22.  But we didn't know that we would have packers and movers, or when they would actually show up, until about the week before.

When the packers arrived, Calvin decided (much to our amusement) to lead the tour of the house to show them what we had and where it was.  Our 3.5 year old son led the three packers from room to room, saying "this is my room, I have a bed and a rocking chair and a book shelf.  This is grandma's room..." (the guest room, but Grandma Janice had just been visiting so at that moment it was hers in his mind).  "There is a bed and a dresser and a light..."  It was adorable, and the packers humored him well.  They were done packing in one day; I'm pretty sure it would have taken us a week.

Our house, full of boxes full of our stuff.

Then the big moving truck arrived.  This was a HUGE truck, and could have fit a lot more than just our stuff.  It was so big, in fact, that there was no where to turn around on our street so they had to back out at the end of the first loading day (they took 1.5 days) and back into it on the 2nd day.  But Calvin loved the truck, counted all the wheels (18), admired the ramps and dolly's, oo'd and ah'd at the cabin and various truck parts.  (He's a big fan of the TV show Mighty Machines, which highlights trucks on several episodes, all of which he has seen over and over many times.  So at this point, he's practically an expert on trucks.)  

Our moving truck.

Calvin admires the moving truck equipment early on moving day (he's still in his pj's).

After everything was packed up and loaded onto the truck; after the truck had pulled away and started its trip to Alabama; after we had said goodbye (sometimes multiple times) to all of our friends, co-workers, neighbors, and cousins; after we had loaded both of our cars with our bags, dogs, and selves, we looked one last time at our house for the past two (only two?) years, mentally gathering all of the memories and accomplishments and milestones... and drove away.

Calvin and friends Ryan and Connor were yelling at monsters or crocodiles or something in the storm drain in the common area behind our friend's house during our going away s'mores night with friends and neighbors.

It is always hard leaving.

Places become such important parts of our lives - they are the stage, the scenery, and props that help to tell our stories.  Not only the physical structure, but the sounds and smells inside the home and out in the yard, the temperatures and weather that accompany our daily experiences, the presence of people that we know and love moving about in their yards, homes, cars, work buildings, that all create the "place" that we eventually have to leave.  It is exciting living in new places, exploring other parts of our country for more than a vacation's worth.  But it is also difficult leaving behind the connections to people and places that we make.  Every friend from every place - you are all important pieces of our lives and we appreciate having you in them, no matter how long or short! 

Thank you, Julie, for hosting the s'mores night, hosting us during our last night in Virginia, and for being such a great friend and neighbor.

We drove to Tennessee on that Friday, where we visited with some old friends, Joshua and Jaclyn, from many moves before.  The truck wasn't going to arrive at our new home in Alabama until Monday, so we spent Saturday there as well.  We played at the park, ate fondu, lost at some board games, caught up on each others' lives, and relaxed with two people that are as comfortable to be with now as they were 6 or 8  or 10 years ago.  Then we journeyed on south on Sunday, stopping for lunch with Matt and Jessica and their newborn twins in Huntsville, and finally on to our new home that evening in Prattville, just outside of Montgomery, Alabama.  We were so relieved to be "home" that we immediately unpacked our cars and set up our air mattress and cot and dog beds before we realized that we forgot to weigh our cars (important for reimbursement by the Air Force).  Oh well!  We were home.

Our new home in Alabama.

The next day the moving truck arrived and everything was delivered.  This was one of the smoothest moves we've ever had.  Very little was broken or damaged, nothing was lost, everything happened easily (after the uncertainty in the beginning of whether or not we'd even have movers).  We were unpacked within a few weeks (functionally within one week, but closets and hobby supplies took longer). 

And so begins our year in Alabama.