Catching up

My last post was in March . . .it's time to catch up a little.
Todd was home about 2 months when we were told that we would be moving this summer in stead of next summer like we thought. So with 2 months notice, we got things ready to move. Todd's mom had already decided to stay in Rome, so she moved out in May.
We were told that Todd would be working in Roslyn (sp?) in the DC area, but that eventually he'd be moving to Andrews AFB. Then we found out that, although the main headquarters is in Roslyn and he'd have to go there sometimes, he would actually be working at Bolling AFB. Needless to say, we were a little stumped as to where to look for housing. Todd asked some people from the base and they told us to look in the Waldorf area of Maryland. We looked on militarybyowner.com to check out houses. I found a couple that looked good. When Todd came home, I started showing him the houses. I showed Todd the first place that I had up on the screen still. It looked nice, had at least the 4 bedrooms that we needed, and it was in a good school district. After showing Todd the house, I went to show him the next one and he said no. This was the house he wanted. The house was available exactly when we needed it to be, and with a short notice move, that was a blessing. It turned out that they were an LDS family and some people in their ward had joked with them saying that they could only rent to an LDS family.
Our move was not the smoothest move we've had. We almost didn't get our shipment of stuff, they messed up the leg on my piano, they dropped some of our stuff while loading and unloading, etc. Before we left, we gave Jenny our bookshelves and desk planning on making new ones once we moved. So while we were unpacking, we also had to start making bookshelves. (The bookshelves are not finished, so we still have boxes of books out in the garage, but their almost done.)
Todd took leave for the first two weeks we were here, which was nice. But with his current job, he'll be gone a lot. He is part of an Accident Investigation Board (AIB) so anytime there is an accident, he has to leave to investigate it. He left in the beginning of August and is still gone. He's estimating that he'll be home the beginning of September.
After moving here, we got the kids started up with piano lessons again. Abigail and Andrew were already taking lessons, but we were also able to get Nathaniel into lessons as well. Nathaniel will still be playing the clarinet this year in band, and William will be picking an instrument on Tuesday to start playing. Abigail wants to play the viola since I already have one here, and we're hoping that we can get her into some lessons for that soon. There is a Mormon Orchestra here in the area that I was planning on auditioning for (although I was fairly nervous since it's been 14 years since I've played the viola), but I don't think I'm going to try for that anymore. (I may still do the Stake Orchestra, but I'll have to wait and see.)
The biggest change, besides Todd's schedule, is that I've decided to go back to school this semester. SCARY!! I've been wanting to go back to school for awhile now, but it's never been the right time. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I started looking into it again. The more I looked into it, the more it just felt right to start. I'm kind of surprised that I'm supposed to start now, because with Todd's schedule, I can't rely on him to watch the kids regularly, because he'll be gone for weeks at a time. I know that I'm supposed to do this now, although my head says that being home by myself with 7 children doesn't seem like the right time. But I'm going to make this work. I'm trying to find the best schedule I can. A combination of an evening class (so I can hopefully just find a babysitter for the weeks Todd's gone) and a day class where I can hopefully swap babysitting. My plan is to take 2 courses/semester.
So, our time here in Maryland will be kind of crazy, but hopefully we'll have good things and many blessings come out of our time here.