Observations from Small City Michigan

Well, we've been here a year now. The adjustment has been pretty rocky, but God is good. This was super evident Sunday when one of our youth leaders from Rochester showed up at church. Nathan and I had just been talking about her and her husband the past week, as at Nathan's Elders meeting the question of who has been most influential in your walk with Christ had come up and they were some of the people he listed. I had also been talking about how there was no way living where we are now someone random would show up at church who we knew. God showed me how wrong I was and how much bigger He is than what I can imagine.
Anyway, here are some observations from the past year. When I got to New Milford I had major small town culture shock. Now we live in a small city, 10,000 small with NO city bigger within 100 miles of us. But, for a small city, we have a lot. Museums, theater, music, art, biking, fishing, parks and more! There are more fast food restaurants than one would think is needed, three McDonalds, three Subways, two DQs, a Wendy's, Taco Bell, Burger King, Big Boy, KFC, Arby's, Culver's and 7-Eleven. But there is no Starbucks.  There is a mall.....it's small, very small.
One thing I have observed is that their are a whole bunch of Chrysler and Dodge mini-vans and not so many Honda or Toyota as I was used to seeing, and where are the Subarus? Where we were in Connecticut had so many Subarus. It might have had to do with the hills and snow, here we get snow (although this winter was pretty wimpy) but there aren't so many hills, which is great for those of us that get car sick. :-)  I commented on the lack of imports to Nathan shortly after moving here while we were out driving and then I realized we're in MICHIGAN! This is where cars are made....you can't drive an "import" here! Then I had a second thought, where is the closest Honda or Toyota dealer anyway?! The closest Honda dealer is 130 miles away, that might also contribute to the lack of Hondas on the road.
Doctors and such take forever to get into...and/or you have to drive forever to get to them. This was evident early on when I was supposed to have a follow up for my kidney stone  2-3 weeks after the incident and the soonest they could get me in was four weeks. Nathan's specialist was booking appointments 6 months out.
But on the flip side of having to drive to get places like doctors I realized in February that there are no traffic reports on the radio. I've never lived somewhere with no traffic! Which means it's all back country roads. The kids were excited on our most recent orthodontist appointment that I passed five cars (going over the dashed lines to get around them) on the flip side I was driving the girls an hour away on Saturday and we got passed three times. But there really aren't four lane roads around here, it's all two lane, one in each direction.
The most recent adjustment to small town living that we're facing is the lack of available housing. We are currently renting and looking to buy, but larger houses in the area of few and far between. We've looked at all the houses currently on the market with most of what we're looking for and haven't found one. Now it's been two weeks since we last looked at a house and no new houses have come on the market.
I'm so very thankful for my time in small town Connecticut as God prepared me for small city Michigan living.

Horses, tadpoles and salamanders!

We had the opportunity a couple weeks ago to hang out at a friends house. They have two horses, a couple dogs and a wonderful pond for tadpoles and salamanders.

Nathan holding a couple of the tadpoles

Hanging out at the pond

Hannah with a giant salamander

Kaleb brushing the horse

Damen and Kaleb ready for a ride

Big smiles!

Evie having a turn

Hannah on the horse. All the kids got two turns and just loved riding the horse

Nathan had fun feeding the other horse while the one was being ridden. The first time he gave the horse an apple he was too close to the electric fence and shocked himself and the horse. The horse wasn't too happy about that and was hesitant the following time to take an apple. 

Fun with animation

The other day my kids grabbed the camera and were playing with it taking pictures in set positions and then looking at them on the camera scrolling through fast to see themselves move. Here are some of their pictures animated with googles help.

Beach!!!

Today we had a freak 80 degree day, so we took advantage of it and went to the beach! The girls swam for a lot longer than I thought they would. The boys didn't go as deep or for as long, but also had fun at the park. I had a good time chatting with another mom who was there who just moved here in November. Less you be confused and think this might be a sign of Spring, tomorrow night the low is supposed to be in the mid 30s and the high on Friday is supposed to be in the low 50s.

Oh moma, it's cold! 

Standing around in the sunshine!

Smiles!

Ready?

Jump!!

More jumping!

A little wading....

Getting the face wet.....

The boys had fun running up and down the beach :-)

And be sure there was actual swimming happening as well!

I hope you had a wonderful warm day and were able to cool off somewhere fun!

Today

Today we did school, started a science experiment, went to an orthodontist appointment an hour and 40 minutes away, came home only having to stop the car once to stop the boys from fighting, finished the science experiment, made dinner, ate dinner, realized that Nathan had all the deacons coming to his Elder's meeting tonight so I should have made something for that with only 20 minutes until he had to be out the door, made scotcharoos, let the kids play outside for an hour and then cleaned up four muddy kids, got them all showered and ready for bed and in bed. Oh yeah, I did a couple loads of laundry and ran the dishwasher twice in there too....Sometimes I need to realize I actually did accomplish something even though so often it feels like nothing got done.  Here are some pictures from the day.

I think they might have had a little fun, what do you think? They were all hosed down and striped before coming in the house and then showered. They ended the day surprisingly clean. :-)