The First Week

We've been on the road for almost a week now.  It's amazing how much life can change in a week!  I remember being so nervous about leaving one week ago.  I'm terrible at change.  Are you good with change?  I'm so much happier this week, now that we're settling into a routine and a new normal.  Sometimes, change just needs to happen.  Anticipating it is really hard!  But, this week has been a good adventure, and has been good settling into new routines!

Here are some highlights since my last blog.  We explored the city of Savannah on New Year's Day.  I tend to like parks and the beauty of nature a lot more than I like cities, but Savannah was really nice!  There's so much history to see, with statues, monuments, parks, the river walk, cobblestone streets, and lots of plaques to read all about everything.

Of course, with four boys in my family, for some reason they always get excited by big guns.  Weird.

It was pretty rainy on New Year's here, and in fact, it rained for 48 hours straight.  But, given that I'm writing mostly to people in Ohio, I'm not going to complain at all about the weather!  Brrr - stay warm!!  We needed to find indoor things to do this week, so we enjoyed petting an alligator!

The kids also liked the skeleton of the Skidaway sloth.  Because we Utters have crazy family traditions, whenever taking photos near a statue, it is absolutely necessary to pose the same way as the statue.  One of these days, the kids are going to become teenagers and probably hate me for this!

In the rain, our kids worked on the activities to become junior rangers in Georgia.  As homeschoolers, we call this "science class," and it's actually very educational.  Here are the boys showing off their newly earned badges:

This was a great week!  So much change, but I'm so glad we took the leap.  It reminds me of what my great friend, Kristy, wrote to me while I was busy fretting over the upcoming change before we left:
"Just remember, the first leap is the hardest...  it gets easier each time you jump."
Why was I so worried about doing something abnormal?  God created us all differently, so we probably shouldn't all be living life exactly the same way.  Why do I sometimes think I need to be like everyone else?  I suppose it's a good New Year's kind of thing to think about.  God made us all differently, and we shouldn't feel like we need to live exactly the same way everyone around us does.  Sometimes, He wants us to take a leap.  Does anyone else need a push to leap, the way I did?  Live the way God made you to live.  I loved this week.

Love to all and a blessed 2014 to you, from the Utter Family!