Day 1 = Success

Well we survived Day One!  Actually we did more than survive, we had a great time.  Our boys are cool kids, I'm not going to lie.

This is our week with four boys grades 8-12.  I made some poppy seed chicken (minus poppy seeds since they didn't have any in the food area) and corn/green bean casserole.  The boys made all the appropriate "oohs and ahhs" and made me feel like I had cooked them a gourmet meal!

We're all hanging out in the living room watching some TV.  Everyone's smiling and we're having a good time!  Loving my life tonight.

New Car Smell

This post is all about keeping it real.  The new car smell has worn off a little, everything's not covered in rainbows and no one's ridden up on their unicorn lately.  I'm feeling disconnected from my old home and not fully connected to my new one yet.  I'm living in a little limbo right now.

Truly, I think I'm ready to get this show on the road.  Let's have some big loud boys in our house!  We have this nice big house and it's very very quiet.  Well, as quiet as it can be with a 3 year old that never (seriously, NEVER) stops talking.  We drove to Austin today, we walked around Ikea for awhile, then we went to HEB to get coffee and then we came home and played outside for awhile.

As I sat reflecting on our day...unintentional reflection....our Hulu wouldn't connect to the internet so we had to wait for Grey's Anatomy....yes, my first world problems! :-)  Anyway, reflection, I began thinking about how its going to take some readjustment to be content in the quietness.  We lived a very filled (not full) life.  There was something going on pretty much every night of the week. I was craving quiet, peace, change.  It's here.  Now, remembering to pay attention to these blessings is on my to do list.

Smart As Allison

Since I haven't always posted my blog on Facebook and now there are people reading it who didn't read it before, I thought a little explanation was in order.

I started this blog when I found out I was pregnant with Bruce....allllll the way back in 2007.  At that time, creating blogs was all the rage.  I have used this blog (intermittently at times) to document our lives.  Currently it's documenting/explaining what our new roles here in Cherokee look like.

When all my friends created their blogs they had cutesy titles and such...there's not a whole lot of cutesy that goes well with our last name...not to mention the fact that in your top 100 words used to describe me, cutesy would likely not make the cut.  So, Smart As Allison was born.  Because 1) I am a know it all (you know, that whole oldest child problem), and 2) well, to be frank (or Allison...hardy har) I also have some Smart As* tendencies! :-)

Small towns...

Raise your hand if you've ever lived in a small Texas town.  I thought I had...I mean, I lived in Abilene for five years...that's a small Texas town, right?  Um, it's not.  If your town has a fast food restaurant in it, you are not a small Texas town.

Want to know what we have here in Cherokee?  Let me tell you.  We have: 3 churches, 1 school campus (elementary, middle, and high school), a feed store, a very old gas station (um, no pay at the pump here!), a post office, a roadside BBQ "restaurant" (and by restaurant I mean two picnic tables outside a tiny building...), Sue's General Store that also serves lunch (and is VERY good!), and the creme de la creme...a single flashing yellow light.

It's cute. It's quaint.  And if you need something you can drive 15 miles and hit up the big city of Llano or San Saba (population of about 3,000).  I'm not going to lie...we have already driven to Llano for Chicken Express (multiple times).

To describe it as Greg described it: "I have more Facebook friends than there are people who live in Cherokee, TX."

First day...ish...

Bet you're all wondering how our first day with kids went...well it didn't. :-)  We still had some de-escalation training to finish up and had to have our TB test finished so they postponed our first day with kids until next week.

So in place of the "first day of school" post, I'll try to give you a better understanding of what life is/will be like here.  We have a big house.  It has 3 rooms and 2 bathrooms for us. We have chosen to put both kids in the same room so we can use the 3rd bedroom as a personal living room/craft room for us.  The rooms are actually quite big so it's not a problem.  When we finish getting everything unpacked, I'll post pictures.  We have a communal living room, kitchen, dining room, and office area.  Finally, there are three boy's bedrooms all with their own bathrooms.  "Our" rooms are all separate from the rest of the house and can be locked to keep our section private.  We have a private entrance through our room as well.

There are a total of six cottages all next door to each other.  Three boys cottages and 3 girls cottages.  We live in Cottage 2.  We will only be houseparenting boys.  We are the "relief parents."  All houseparents work three weeks on, one week off.  When the houseparents from Cottage 1 have their off week, their boys come live in our house. The next week, when the houseparents from Cottage 3 have their off week, their boys come live with us.  The 3rd week, we work as backup parents...basically help with doctor's appointments, help shuttle kids around, etc.  And then, we are off for the fourth week.

At capacity, each cottage can have up to 8 kids.  Currently, one cottage has 6 boys and one has 4.  The boys range in age from 3-19.  Once they graduate high school, the kids are assisted in finding a college to attend or another place to live.  All the kids go to school "in town" (2 miles down the road).  They get breakfast and lunch at school.  As housemom, I'm responsible for feeding them afternoon snacks, dinner, and an evening snack...and all meals on the weekends.  We treat them as part of our family.  If we run errands, they run errands.  When we go to church, they go to church.  We all eat dinner around a large table (think Duggar's). 

We are really happy here.  I'm not so naive as to think that life with lots of boys of varied pasts won't be difficult at times.  Still, we are thankful for this opportunity.  We have peace about our decision to be here and truly feel God's presence in this decision.

P.S.  Any questions that you all have?  Anything you're curious about?  If you know me at all, you know nothing's off limits!  Ask away!

The country

The picture doesn't do it justice...the air is clear, the grass is green, the sky is blue, it smells like the perfect mixture of dirt and grass, there are stars at night, big hills, beautiful sunsets, God bless Texas! :-)

It's really happening

The house is all moved...all that's left in our house now are things that are staying for the new tenants. Our new house is all set up minus a few odds and ends. Looks like we're really doing this.

Today was our last Sunday at Northside as members. Not forever, we will be back...just felt weird. I felt sad today as we got rid of the rest of our things and our house was completely empty. we brought both kids home from the hospital to that house...it's been very good to us. But, in the end, it is just a house.

We head out to Cherokee bright and early tomorrow morning. We have boys in our home starting Wednesday. Again, we are really doing this. Catch you all on the flip side!