There's no place like home!

We're heading out on Tuesday night (May 1st). Currently it is rather chaotic over here, with a sleep deprived sad 3 year old, boxes and things all over the place, and 3 adults in this tiny apartment! (Our friend Terry is along for the ride home. He helped move us down here - I really should post that story someday - and he's getting us home again!)

Rachel has been very sad about leaving friends, teachers, Beth Shalom, the zoo... you name it, she's going to miss it. She is excited about seeing her friends in London, but change isn't always easy.

Ben and I have surprisingly mixed feelings about leaving Kansas. It's been rather fun being able to "start over" in the sense that no-one really knew us when we came down here... but Canada is and always will be our home.

A Rachel funny as we discussed how there are different restaurants in Canada:

"Tim Horton's isn't a restaurant. It has timbits!"

Sooner or later I will get around to e-mailing people our new address and phone numbers. Yes, numbers. In order to get both of our last names listed in the phone book we need to have 2 lines. This will actually work out really well. Each number will have a different ring tone, so we'll know if it's a business call. We'll see how well that works in practice.

In the words of Cantor Rob, Funky Mama, Miss Linda & Miss Judy at the Beth Shalom pre-school... "Shalom chaverim, shalom chaverim, shalom... shalom. L'hitraot, l'hitraot. Shalom... Shalom." Goodbye my friends, goodbye my friends. Goodbye... Goodbye. Till we meet again, till we meet again... Goodbye... Goodbye.

*click* *click* *click* (10 points to anyone who understands that reference)

And we're off!

Rachel plays doctor

Poor Ben. As I type, he is Dr. Rachel's obedient patient. So far he has had his heartbeat checked (he has one!), a bandaid has been put on his wrist, and Dr. Rachel is about to extract a cavity.

"Dad, I'm getting my special rock scarf to take the cavity out of your mouth!"

"Dad, I have to take the cavity out of your mouth. I'm just going to put the scarf in. Dad, open up wide!"

Hmm... maybe I should go rescue Daddy from a rather interesting trip to the dentist/doctor.
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A few minutes ago, I told Rachel that she and Daddy needed to go to the grocery store for bread and cheese so that we could have grilled cheese and chocolate milk for lunch. She told me that "Grilled cheese and chocolate milk are at Panera. We tell the girl and she makes them for us." Hehe. She's in for a shock once we get home to London and we're not eating out so much!

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And for her parting comment, "Ok, I'm going to give you a monkey for dessert."

Rachel-isms

Heard at an elephant tea party:

"Mom, I'm going to deserve you some dessert now."

When requesting a book:

"Mom, let's read some more POMS!" (She means poems. It does not matter how many times we say, "Oh, you want to read some poems?" She just replies, "Yes. POMS!")

Walking to get the mail:

"Don't worry Mom, I'm right behind you!" (She wasn't. She was ahead of me.)

Rachel's birthday is finally over.

Although Rachel's birthday was last Sunday (April 8th!), she celebrated at pre-school yesterday since that was the first day back after Passover. I think that Rachel was a little bit confused by the various celebrations.

On Sunday, we had a family "party" with Grandma Karen & John. I have decided that non-dairy, non-wheat, non-soy cakes are just gross. Hehe. The main ingredient in Rachel's kosher-for-Passover chocolate birthday cake was potato flour. That stuff just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. She seemed to like it ok though!

We didn't really do anything special on her birthday since it was a cool, windy day. Rachel enjoyed opening lots of presents and being the centre of attention though!

Yesterday we brought treats (little muffins) to pre-school for Rachel's class. Her teachers had a paper birthday crown for her, and she also got to go up to the front with 2 other kids during Shabbat singing so that everyone could sing Happy Birthday to her! She thought that this was great, although she did insist that I go up with her. For the rest of the day, Rachel wanted to wear her birthday crown. Since we went to Crown Center (haha) with my mother & John later that day, we did have to take off her crown because it had her name on it and I didn't really want strangers calling her by name!

Today Rachel kept asking me if her birthday was over. I think that she's a little sad that it's all done. She's also a bit sad about being a big girl, and she's showing me this by having potty accidents all over the place. Bah. Of course, I'm sure that being off of her routine due to travel, visitors and the impending move likely has more to do with it than turning 3.

We leave here in 18 days. The movers come in 14 days. Wow. As I sit here typing, I'm looking at a big mess all around me. To those of you that know me well, that won't change when we move back to London, will it!?!? It seems weird to think that we're almost done our time down here. (Hmm. I should possibly re-word that. "Done our time" sounds rather prison-like.)

In other news, it SNOWED today in Overland Park!!!!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I might be the only one who is happy about this though. ;) Ben and I are accepting full responsibility for the weather since we left our winter gear back in Canada two weeks ago.

A true "duh" moment by Jane & Ben

We've been working hard at getting Rachel to take off her own running shoes. She undoes the velcro, then whines & pushes/pulls at the heels of the shoes. Tonight I made an amazing discovery. Perhaps most of you already know what I am about to tell you. Ben and I are only finding this out now, in our 31st and 32nd years of life. You know those loops on the back of your running shoes? They actually have a purpose. If you put your finger or thumb in the loop, it really helps you to take your shoe off easily.

Like I said, probably everybody else in the world (well, the people who wear shoes) already knew this. But we thought we'd share, just in case someone else was in need of this crucially helpful information.

The moment you have all been waiting for....

PICTURES OF THE NEW HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!