November-Already?!

Not only is it November--we are a full week into it! Is it just me, or does the time between Halloween and Christmas just go by faster every year? I feel like we miss enjoying the build-up time to Christmas...I know in college I really enjoyed December because it was always a big de-stress time for me. I would go.go.go.go every minute up until final exams...then just pass out of exhaustion...and could thouroughly enjoy the 3-weeks of nothingness until Christmas.

When I last looked at my calendar it hit me that the boys and I will be leaving FL in about 18 days...and we have a small trip planned where we will be gone six days of that which = 12 days before moving! What?! We have so much to do before now and then that I don't even want to think about it.

Since Geoff and I got married in 2000 we have moved six times; five of those moves were over the holidays. We arrived to Japan at the end of November and spent Christmas with my new squadron commander's family. We moved three years later and flew through Hawaii and spent Christmas exploring Hawaii and taking a submarine ride on our way to Alabama for 6 weeks before moving to Idaho. We spent a year and a half at Idaho and moved during the summer to Vegas until Christmas (our only summertime move)....where we stopped at Texas to spend Christmas with family before driving to Florida the week after Christmas. Then we moved from our house in Florida to our current house immediately after Christmas and moved into our new home on 2 January. So moving during the holidays definitely adds to the busyiness. And makes it seem faster than ever. There are lots of benefits to this though. Everything we own is packed up and it is just us to worry about. Geoff has signed out of a squadron and in a sense can fully relax without worrying about work. So we are about to begin our next adventure in just 12 days...driving across the country and stopping to spend Thanksgiving in Texas, to visit Aunt JJ in OK, to visit friends in NM, and to celebrate with Matt and Amy in Las Vegas, and then continue on to our new home. We should arrive to OR mid-December and we may actually see snow! It will be a shock for sure. We have lived in a sub-tropical climate for 7 of the last 9 years! I may have blue lips and fingernails for awhile. We are so excited to move back to the northwest.

I think it is even harder to believe it is November when it is supposed to be almost 80 degrees today. We took advantage of the warm weather at a birthday party yesterday at a park by the water. Here are some pictures:

Happy November!