What's New in Reno?

Some family members have been asking what we've been up to up here. I guess our lives have changed drastically since we moved, but it doesn't feel that way to me. It is not a big adjustment to go from working full time and being stressed out and overwhelmed on a regular basis to staying home again. It just feels like this is how things should have been all along. No adjustment period. Well I guess the big adjustment is being on one income again and working within the constraints of that, but it's kind of a fun challenge to make it all work. I've been cooking again, something Eddie had been doing when we were both working since he was home earlier than me. I don't mind cooking, but I'm not as good at it as Eddie.

I've spent a lot of the last few weeks unpacking and getting the house in order. Today we plan on tackling the last few things so the boxes will be gone. We've been finding creative solutions to deal with the lack of storage space that we have been accustomed to in our last 2 houses. We have no pantry here, no linen closet and a smaller garage. We bought an inexpensive cabinet to use as a pantry after having no luck on Craigslist. We managed to get both cars into the garage just before our 1st mini-snow. It's nice not to have to scrape ice off the windows. We are making things work. It's all about being creative and thinking outside the box to find solutions to make everything fit. I'm sure there is still more stuff we could purge to free up some space. I'll have to work on that after the holidays are over.

Eddie has been at his job for 3 weeks. He's catching on fast and his 1st evaluation went well. He went to his work Christmas party last night, and says his coworkers are very nice. The work keeps him busy all day long, but he seems to like it.

I joined a mommy meetup group in town and took Nate down to a place with the blow up bounce houses last week. He loved it! I met some other moms, but Nate wasn't too interested in the kids in such a big place. We planned to go to a story time with Santa with the meet up group this past week, but Nate has had a little cold and has been super cranky off an on. That was a cranky day so we didn't make it. So there is plenty to do with other moms and kids if we choose. We haven't met anyone in our neighborhood yet, but it hasn't exactly been nice weather for playing outside very much.

Two weeks ago I started the beginnings of potty training with Nate. I found a train sticker chart that we taped up in his bathroom. It started with getting a sticker if he would just sit on the potty. So we did that for a few days and then one night he peed on the potty for the first time. Two stickers for that. He could get a piece of candy or some treat if he got 6 stickers. He filled his first chart in 5 days. We started another chart, but he wasn't very interested in the potty at all this week since he's been sick. He's doing a little better, and a few times he's told me he needs to go potty, but usually I have to catch him after he wakes up. He's making progress, but there is no instant potty training here. And that's just fine. We will go at his pace.

 

 

We've been doing a few art projects this week. We had to invest in some glue (if you call $1 for 4 bottles and investment), but everything else if just misc. craft stuff I've acquired.

 

 

We had our first snow that stuck since being in Reno. It's wasn't much, but still fun to look at from the warmth of the house. Our temperatures have been pretty cold. Lows in the teens or 20s and highs in the 30s or 40s. Not too bad, but definitely colder than we are used to in Vegas.

Nate is obsessed with trains. He has been for a while. He's watched Dinosaur train and Chuggington and has some of the toys. He likes Thomas the Train toys, but has never seen the show. We don't mind because it just seems weird. With so many trains in Reno and the Polar Express, Nate has become a train nut. We took him to Carson City (about 40 minutes away on the 395 S) to ride the Santa Train and the train museum. They do the Santa train 2 weeks each year so it was pretty busy. We had to stand in line outside for a while and it was cold, but we were bundled so no one froze. Nate was very impatient to get on the train, but while we were waiting we got to see the train come around a few times. It had a very loud whistle and Nate would cover his ears and at one point his eyes. He's so funny. He wanted to ride in the caboose so luckily we got to pick the car we sat in. The train went around the track twice. Santa came in to give out candy canes but Nate didn't care too much about Santa. I thought the train was really neat. Especially seeing it up close. There are more trains parked outside of the train museum and some things inside that we didn't stay to see since it was getting to be nap time. We'll have to take a trip back there to see the rest.

It is so nice to have the weekends to do things together as a family. The rest of this week with be much like our regular week, running errands and playing, but we'll work in the Christmas things too like making cookies, mailing Christmas cards and gifts. Our 8th anniversary is on Tuesday so we'll probably do a family date of some sort for now. Mom and Dad arrive Friday morning and will stay through Christmas Day. Fun, but busy times ahead.