One Year Later...

This time last year we had a truck of stuff packed up and made the move to Rushville... well, the kids & I did.  DJ would be staying behind in our house that we had barely put on the market and work at Willie's.  The kids & I moved in with Mammo & Papa.  I was jobless and the kids were starting school so it was going to be a LONG few months while I waited for Willie's to open.  I applied at a few places but felt it necessary to let everyone know that I would be working full time at Willie's once we opened, needless to say, I didn't get a job.  THREE MONTHS of boredom.  We made quite a few trips back to Manhattan to hang out with daddy and friends and DJ made trips to Atchison once a week, but then it happened, we opened Willie's and all that boredom I was hating was LONG gone.  We opened the day after Christmas for Friends & Family and for the next month I was working more than I had worked in years at Willie's.  We had multiple current & former employees from the other two places come to help, and it was nice to see familiar faces.  When we moved to Atchison a year ago I only knew a couple people that weren't related to us.  I'm happy to say that a year later I have finally made some friends ;)  Thank you Jodi & Steph for working beside me almost everyday and then choosing to also hang out with me after hours... love you girls!!  Boston didn't take long to make friends or adjust to the new living situation.  Madi on the other hand wanted to move back to Manhattan IMMEDIATELY.  She had a hard time at school, even though she had made friends, but she didn't want me to leave her there.  It was awful.  Gone are those days! She has made a lot of friends and she really took to a couple girls, thank you Blair & Katy for being such good friends to my little girl, I really think the two of you made her a lot happier here in Atchison!!  I am so grateful!

1st day of school 2010

the three amigo's

Blair, Katy, and Madi

the usual suspects

Jodi, Me, Jana, and Steph

After the newness of Willie's was gone, I was able to go back to working just days and hangin with the midgets at night.  I am able to drop them off & pick them up from school, go on field trips, and be a room mother, I love having that opportunity!  I still need to be there on occasion at night, but I'm not working near the hours I was when we first opened.

Willie's Atchison

When we started looking at houses in Atchison, we fell in love with an older home (built in 1885).  It had been renovated with a new kitchen, all new windows, new furnace & a/c units, and it had an amazing price tag!  One small problem, we looked at the house for the first time in November, our house in Manhattan was not sold yet!  We didn't end up closing on our house until March!  But, the house we wanted was still for sale, the bank had signed a contract with us and the selling realtor pretty much took it off the market long before we sold our house!  Love small towns, that would have never flied in Manhattan!  We moved in on March 4th and we love our new house, Madi still wanted to go back to Manhattan, but LOVED her new HUGE room!  Boston was thrilled with his new room as well and I love that the laundry room is upstairs - in my closet - BONUS!  There are still some things that need to be done, but slowly we will get to them... like that room that is completely bare!  If I wait til Christmas at least there will be a tree, HA!

our new crib

Summer came and went very quickly!  The kids played softball & t-ball.  We had big plans of going to Mammo & Papa's pool on a very regular basis, but that STUPID FLOOD thought differently.  What was once a 15 minute drive MAX now became an hour & having a pool to ourselves just wasn't worth an hour drive :(  The flood also brought house guests.  Sheila and Kelsey have been with us since the end of June when the flood hit.  Sheila works a couple blocks from our house and goes home to see Rick on the weekends and Kelsey works for us.  Kelsey will be moving out in the next week or so when she can get into her apartment.  The kids are REALLY going to miss their Kwelsey, especially Boston because he can usually sweet talk her into playing Wii while the rest of us are not so interested.

I think we're all happy to have made the move and it is really nice to be closer to all of our families.  The kids love being able to have JoJo aka Georgey aka Jordan watch them.  They love being able to run across the street from Willie's just to say "Hi" to DooDoo and they love being able to get to Mammo's and Sheddy's in 15 minutes (sometime this will be true again) and they love only driving 45min-an hour to get to Grandma's.  We still miss our friends in Manhattan, but truth be told, I think we just miss the idea of what we had while we were there.  Most of my friends have left the Manhattan area and Madi's bestie from Manhattan has moved as well, but for some reason, I think we think that if we were there it would be the same as before, and it just wouldn't.

Here's to many more happy years in Atchison and lots of reunions in Manhattan ;)