Scenes from Spring Soccer

Love this sport. Love these boys.

A big long post, horribly out of order

Blogger's new stuff is blowing my mind a little, and not in a good way.  I can only handle so much change at a time!

Here are a hundred random things that have been happening to the Ratchford clan.  We went to Ogden for the Wolfgram's Earth Day Birthday Party and it was awesome, as is everything the Wolfgrams do. (We really love those people.) They had a sweet band come to play and Garreth and Liam got to drum with them.  It might have been one of the best moments of Liam's young life. 

I got to chaperone Grace's field trip to the Resource Rendezvous, where the students learned about all kinds of local fields of work.  My goal in life these days is to not embarrass my only daughter but I couldn't resist sneaking a picture with the baby lambs. 

Again, out of order, but here is Liam performing at the school talent show.  Ratchford genes are apparently dominant.  This would have sent me into cardiac arrest as a fourth grader.

Here's Declan decked out for Frontier Days in a picture that belongs way down in this post. 

Declan's sweet little preschool class got to visit the dinosaurs at the college.

With the warm weather came Ratchford boys in their knickers.

When our piano teacher quit to have a baby and I could only find one open spot with another teacher, I very wisely offered Grace $5 a lesson to teach her brothers. This could have been disastrous, but all involved parties really enjoy it.

We have been working way harder than people should work on a house that they won't be living in much longer.  I'll post the "after" pictures soon, but the other day I started touching up the paint down the stairs and had to laugh at all the spackling I had to do to fill in all the knicks.  We may have some tendencies to chuck toys down the stairs. 

Our beautiful girl had her very first piano recital.  In the five years she's taken lessons, we've never had a teacher that did recitals, so we were very excited.  She worked really hard on her piece and did a fabulous job. 

And back to the school talent show.  Sam showed off his mad baking skills with a cake that was the envy of every kid there.

And Liam couldn't pass up the chance to share a little MJ love. 

It was a fun night and we were so proud of our boys!

This is for those family members that may be under the false impression that Sam lives purely on high fructose corn syrup.  This was his plate at leftover night a while back.  Sam is by far my favorite person to feed.  Except for pasta (weird), the kid will eat and loves almost anything. And if a serious passion for tofu, spinach, and avocados is accompanied by a sweet tooth, who am I to judge? We share some vices, Sam and I. 

The kids have been on a puzzle kick lately.  The card table is always covered with a 500-1000 piece jigsaw waiting for little hands to stop and work on it. 

Nacho is still working on choosing highly inconvenient places to lay.

I had a terrific Mothers Day and forced everyone into a picture to commemorate it.  

And in very old news, check out the Easter table that Grace set for us.

 Girl has the knack.

Declan and I got to go with Liam and the fourth grade to Frontier Days.  Like any pioneer mother would, I bribed him with his DS to be quiet in some of the presentations.

 Panning for gold.

 Liam and his BFF, Jayson. It's so nice when your kids choose really good kids for friends.

 Should we be worried about how excited Liam looks while square dancing to "Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny Oh?" 

 Trading in our gold for cash to spend at the saloon.

 Declan enjoying a nice cold sarsparilla.

 The fur station: not my favorite. Skinning a deer that has been sitting out all day with flies swarming around it seemed to gross Liam out, too. But Declan was scrubbing that hide with the best of them!

I was really impressed and glad I went on this field trip.  Very fun day with my boy.

Ch-ch-changes

Garreth and I have been married 14 years, and in those 14 years we have moved 12 times. Some were moves to cheap or free housing in college, some were big moves to different states. After graduating from USU, we averaged about two years in one place before packing up and leaving it behind. When this is your lifestyle for 14 years, you start getting a little antsy staying in one place too long.

With the exception of Washington (where I would have been content to live out the rest of my days), after about 18 months in one place, I start fantasizing about possibilities.

There's always the overseas fantasies, the country I'm dreaming about usually being the last one featured on House Hunters International.

But there are other dreams.

The one where we sell everything we own, find Garreth a job doing something on a computer that can be done from anywhere, buy an RV, and travel the globe... while I patiently homeschool the children.

The one where we learn to sail and live on a boat, having adventures while traveling the globe... and patiently homeschooling the children.

The one where we move to a cabin on a river high in the mountains, miles from civilization, and grow our own food and live off the land... still patiently homeschooling the children, but sacrificing global travel (and my vegetarian lifestyle) for the sake of living purely and simply.

These are the fantasies that generally run through my mind every few years.

But something has happened to my gypsy desires. (Advancing age?) Now my dreams are of settling down. Of being in one place forever. Of buying a house and putting hours of work and thousands of dollars into it and actually sticking around to enjoy it, instead of selling to someone else. Of having my kids be able to say they are "from" somewhere.

My dreams now are of putting down roots.

Before moving to Wyoming almost two years ago, we knew that it was not our final destination, but merely a means of leaving a bad job and getting a foot in the door of a really great company, one where Garreth could advance in his career, appreciated and well-taken care of. We also knew that two hours of commuting daily were not what we wanted for our family. We have enjoyed our time here, have loved seeing our kids grow with good friends, good schools, and good sports programs. I have loved being so much closer to my family, and loved the friends we've made here in Rock Springs.

Like every single move we've made, we have not regretted our decision to come here. Everywhere we've lived has shaped our family in some way. But years ago, we set a deadline for ourselves, that by the time Grace started junior high, we would give up our nomadic ways. We needed to find somewhere with enough oil and gas jobs that Garreth could still work towards his career goals without the family needing to move. We always thought that Houston would be the place, although I never felt true peace about it. A particularly hot and muggy day last summer confirmed that we are just not nice people in the heat, and a trip back to the Washington coast confirmed to us that we are indeed Northern people.

And so last fall, we decided on another place, one that fit our family perfectly, and one that filled us with peace just thinking about it. And so it is with great excitement that we announce:

We are trading antelope for moose...
and moving to Anchorage, Alaska!