The kiddos and I are at my parents' house for the week.

We had to be out of our old place by Sunday, but the new place still needed some work, so sometime last week we decided it would be best for me to take the kids on a trip to visit the grandparents. Jacob and my brothers could continue work on the remodel without little hands and feet getting into everything.

We moved out of the house on Sunday, and after a morning spent packing and hauling, we drove the four hours to my parents' house. A real Sunday Funday.

The children were pretty great little sports through the process. Jake got some quality time with his dad's drill and Lucy June squawked happily in moving boxes. Before leaving on Sunday, we ate lunch at the new house and simultaneously tried to decide on a layout for the living room furniture.

This was kind of a stupid idea because Jacob and I never agree on these kinds of things. So after a frustrating hour of scooching the couch around, we decided to save our marriage and kick the can on furniture placement.

At naptime o'clock, I packed the kids into the van, and we waved goodbye to their father. I prayed they would sleep for at least the first couple of hours, but 45 minutes and two interrupted catnaps later, things were looking very bleak.

It basically went like this: Jake would whine, Lucy June start wailing, I would vainly scan the horizons for a Starbucks Drive Thru, and then Jake would coo at his crying little sister: "Oh, Lucy Lu, it's OK. It's OK, Lucy Lu. It's OK, Lucy Lucy." And my heart would melt, and for one sacred moment I would dwell on how precious this stage of life is. Then the whole thing would repeat itself.

The kids eventually slept. We stopped in Austin to have dinner with some family friends and Jacob's brother. And I only had to navigate one scuzzy gas station bathroom after dark, so all in all, it went rather well.

The day ended with us at my parents' house: Jake asleep in my sister's old room, Lucy June asleep in a large cardboard box because I'd forgotten the pack'n'play, and me brushing my teeth in my childhood bathroom while on the phone with Jacob as he recounted all the obnoxious miscellaneous details that are the last bits of packing.

He loaded the crap toys from the yard into the neon green kitty pool and then as the buzzy buzzy cherry on top of the moving Sunday, he hauled his beehive (75 pounds of honey. . . and bees) onto the trailer.

The image of him combing the grass for dingy plastic toys and then muscling that beehive across the yard... I just. Well I love him. We disagree about most of life's trivial things, but we can join together in the hope for lots of bees, lots of honey, and lots of babies.

Pics of the new place soon...if the kids and I ever actually move in...which we won't do so long as the couch is sitting squarely in front of the TV with its back to the rest of the room. I'm kidding...but seriously.

Until then I'll be enjoying myself some quiet time in the rural Texas Hill Country.

When Jacob Builds Things

Jacob likes to build things. He'll go weeks or even months sometimes without hacking into wood and will spend leisure time getting lost in other enriching activities like watching Veep or Curb Your Enthusiasm, but then he'll get the itch and won't come inside for days and the children will get lulled to sleep by the sander and the table saw.

One of the itches recently took the form of a bed. We've slept on a rickety bedframe since we were first married, and last year's move from Los Angeles to Houston involved leaving behind our boxspring since the trailer was too full. This meant that our mattress was unsupported at the foot of the bed and drooped down a little. Not the biggest deal really...until you sat on the edge of the bed and your pretty bum slid off and plopped unceremoniously on the floor.

So Jacob wanted to make a bed for our fifth anniversary. I was a little ambivalent because hopefully we'll be upgrading to a California King one of these years, and if Jacob's going to throw down on some lumber and spend lots of time on a bed I'd rather it be THE bed instead of a bed we're going to graduate out of as soon as we get a few extra square feet in our bedroom. He convinced me he needed to practice by making this queen first, however, and went out and bought some cheap rough cut hardwood.

Jacob is pretty adorable when he builds things. I know he measures things, but he I'm pretty sure he just goes with his gut when the measurements don't need to be standard. He's also tall with (freakishly) long arms, so sometimes what "feels right" to him is woefully out of proportion with the rest of the world.

This is the mirror on the wall by our front door...and me on my tiptoes.
Despite my failed efforts at conveying a sense of scale in this (and the following) photo. Just trust me. It's a Case. And. Point.

So when this tall man with freakishly long arms sets about making a bed for himself, in one of the early versions the mattress might, just might, end up four and half feet off the ground.

Jake I think put it most adeptly: "Papa made a bed for a giant!!!"

But it's OK. Nothing that he couldn't fix with a saw, and soon enough we had this:

Our room is small, so this is as far away from the bed as I could get for a photo.

I told Jacob I wanted it really simple, so we could showcase the grain of the cypress. He polished it with this beeswax and orange oil wood finish which he uses on lots of projects. He may take a few inches off the headboard, but we're not sure.

So, now that we've been married for five years we finally have a real bed for the children to take over.

Thank you, husband mine. I love it. It's beautiful.

Maybe for our sixth anniversary we can get a duvet cover.