Our time on Dauphin Island drew to a close on July 6, after our stay of one month. It was a time of adjustment and togetherness, and a time of fond memories.
One experience of note was the continuous plague of frogs. Slimy green tree frogs. They are usually pretty small, but sing quite loudly. We had to do frog checks before bed, after a few times of snuggling down under the covers only to find a frog nestled under the edge of the pillow. They were on our beds, on the couch, in the nooks and crannies of the popup, and occasionally I'd find them all dried out and crunchy in the storage places under the couches, or in the corners when we'd sweep up at night.
In retrobution for not giving him the Netflix password one night, Archie short-sheeted my bed. I thought it was weird that the kids and Phillip kept waiting on me to go to bed. That particular night I laid on top of the covers to read for what must have seemed like an eternity to them. When I finally opened the covers to go sleep, I figured out what was going on. You can't short-sheet beds effectively when the person who you are trying to 'get even with' is doing frog checks before getting under the covers! So I outed Archie's failed attempt publicly by saying "Hardy, har, har! Better luck next time" on Facebook.
The June Bugs were pretty active during that summer, and keeping those guys out of the popup and ducking them while just sitting out was sometimes a challenge. Everyone slept with sand in their bed constantly, even after just washing sheets.
Adjusting to a new way of life was full of its challenges and full of excitement. Our family still speaks fondly of our time there and we thought we'd go back in the fall when the rates were a bit cheaper.
I was ready to sleep inside for a week or so before embarking on our next adventure and destination. So we stayed with parents and visited Cincinnati for some house business. Phillip had been back a couple of times by now, but this was my first trip back since we held hands and said our prayer together on that first weekend in June. I cried all the first night when we got there. Our house was so cute and all the things that I had wanted to do for years was done. For someone else. I felt so resentful and angry about that. We worked ourselves to exhaustion to get our house all cute and in good repair for someone else to enjoy instead of me. This is not a realization that will be forgotten anytime
soon. Lessons in stewardship are difficult, as it is only too easy to put off what needs to be taken care of until it is an emergency situation.
The Cincinnati trip was good in the sense that we went without kids and could be alone together. It was unpleasant in the sense that we had house work to do. Phillip did basement work. I refinished floors and cleaned. I don't know how it got so dirty just sitting there with no one living in it. We hadn't any showings then either. The thing that I resented the most was the cleaning. It took ALL DAY LONG to clean the house, and I wouldn't even get to enjoy the result. My camper only took 15 minutes to clean. And in the camper, the biggest cleaning issue wasn't the dirt, it was keeping our things organized and tidy. I was just beginning to realize that perhaps having less stuff and less space might be a positive thing after all. I still wasn't quite recovered from the 7 years worth of home repairs that we did in one month prior to us moving. But having beers outside along the Ohio River was quite nice and sort of made up for the working part of the trip.
It took moving out of the area to finally make it to the Montgomery Inn in Cincinnati along the river. We didn't even eat the ribs for which they are famous. Beers on the porch. This was our view. Even when the visiting girls' basketball team bombarded our little table, it was just fine. We had a great date. In fact, it was fantastic!
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