Sophie's World

3:00 PM CST: One thing we thing we have learned living on the border between two time zones is that we have to specify which time zone we're talking about whenever we make plans to meet with someone around here. We are living in the central time zone, but nearly everything we are doing (eating, shopping, and taking the girls to summer camp) takes place in the mountain time zone. Every day I feel like I've gained an hour. We can get up later, and when we're hungry, the restaurants are empty!

We are so happy here. Everyone around here is so friendly and generous. We've had food delivered for nearly every meal, and our counter is filled with cakes and cookies. We had lots of people here to help unload the truck on Monday, and thanks to Randall's excellent labeling, it wasn't hard to get the right boxes to the right rooms. The garage is still filled with many, many boxes, but the crucial ones are almost all unpacked. The house feels huge to us, and we have really enjoyed figuring out where everything will go. The furniture that belongs to the church goes very nicely with our own, especially in the formal living room (my favorite place to spend time at the moment).

Randall's first worship service was Sunday, and I think it went great. We had to get used to doing Sunday School first (our church in NC had worship first at 9:30 and SS following that). This church has a fellowship time before SS starts (coffee and donuts), and that was a great time to meet people and start memorizing names. The class we attended was lively and fun, and Randall was impressed with how engaged and committed everyone was. The worship service was really nice. Elisabeth sat with her new friend Edie (even though I told both girls they should sit with me at least the first Sunday--they had quite a reputation at our old church for sitting with anyone but me). Sophie was totally shy and stayed by my side as often as possible. She did reluctantly go up for children's time but was happy to come back to me and had no interest in going to the nursery. Randall did a nice job with his sermon (of course, I always think he does a nice job with his sermon), and people seemed really responsive. Sophie endeared herself to the couple sitting behind us, and it looks like she will have several sets of adopted grandparents. The couple across the street from us attends the church, and they have already watched the girls for us (while the truck was being unloaded). I suspect the girls will be seeing a lot of the inside of their house!

Work is going fine for me so far. I didn't have Internet access yesterday and this morning, so I wasn't terribly productive, but it seems to be back now. My goal is to work about half-time this week so that I can stay on top of what's going on but still make some progress unpacking.

Sad news from my mom: her beloved cat--Kitty Supreme--died this morning. He had been having problems with his blood sugar and was more than willing to let my mom give him insulin shots, but his body wasn't responding to even high doses of insulin, and he had a pretty quick decline yesterday and today. My mom and her kitty were very close, so this is hard on her (and us--we loved him too). She thinks she might get another kitty over the weekend, because we think Kitty Supreme wouldn't want her to be lonely. It's harder than ever to be so far away from my mom.