Moving to a new city can be overwhelming. Thankfully, being a member of our church usually brings the benefit of having a built-in social network. We have already been invited to several other members’ homes since relocating here. Tonight was an invitation for dessert at the Smiths’ home. The kids played wonderfully together while the adults were able to chat and get acquainted. After dessert it seemed like the right time to let the kids play outside on the elaborate swing set in their backyard. There were several close calls with the kids walking by the moving swings. Mike had the very important discussion with both girls about keeping the distance between themselves and the swings. Despite this long warning Mimi still got knocked clean to her back and was left with a huge, swollen eye. It looks much worse than it really is–just a lot of packs of frozen peas on the forehead all night. Hopefully, this will be a lesson to her to always watch herself around swings from now on. Somehow with Mimi I don’t think she lets these traumatic events stop her gruffness.

How about close up.

Wisconsin is now officially our home (at least for the girls and me). We arrived June 12th but not without a lot of drama and major delays. However, the travels brought us here safely, and we are now in our new house. The movers arrived with our household goods on Wednesday which means we were in this place for almost a week without any furniture. It was okay though because it gave me the opportunity to get the painting done on the entire first floor. After working around the clock the house is now unpacked. Obviously, being here alone with the girls made the task much longer and stressful, but I persevered and got most stuff put into place.

Mike was here from June 12th until June 15th but had to head back to MD to finish up at school. He’s set to return on July 1st or 2nd. While here he was able to get a few projects done such as helping me paint the kitchen and install the dog’s invisible fence for the yard. We also spent some time around the area and discovered that this is actually a cute town. They have their own trolley cars that run on tracks/wires, and the cost of riding is only $.25/person. Of course, there is a hot dog joint called Trolley Dogs just across the street from the tracks. Every Saturday from May until October the Harbor Market takes place downtown. There are several local growers, restaurants, and artisans that come each week to sell their goods and services. The downtown area has a few quaint shops and restaurants. Annie and Mimi were ecstatic to discover the Downtown Toy Store. It’s a huge toy store in a renovated orpheum theatre. Since the town is situated along the shore of Lake Michigan there are several beaches to visit. While on our short tour I also found several fun and unique spots for future photo shoots. On Father’s Day we drove Mike to the Milwaukee airport which is only about a 35-minute drive. The girls and I were sad to see him go.

The wonderful news about living in this house is that there are little girls Annie and Mimi’s ages on either side of us. Of course, the girls are constantly asking to have play dates with them especially since one of the girls has her own “convertible” and the other girl has a bouncy house and both girls have nice, wooden playgrounds in their backyards. It’s all pure heaven for them! The parents of these girls have been great, too. When the movers were here both moms took turns taking the girls.

I have taken a few pictures since we’ve been here but have not had the chance or energy to upload them to the computer. I will do that soon. Having the house unpacked means that I also have the guest room set up. Please feel free to visit:)

Seeing as we’re heading into summer, I thought it would be appropriate to have the site reflect those changes in weather. I also have to admit that I was never truly in love with the previous design and wanted to start fresh with a whole new color scheme. As you can see, however, the changes have a caused a few glitches in the system. Please be patient as I work those out. I really only see one major boo boo, and that’s the post paragraphs running to the right too far. Please let me know if you notice anything else. In fact, feel free to give me some suggestions. Thanks!!

I changed out the picture of the girls to the left for a higher quality one. When I was originally making the site the better picture was on my laptop. I was too lazy to get it, so I settled for the low quality one. Please take a few seconds to notice it. Thank you very much!

As I suspected, the feeds for my old format are not automatically working for the new design. So I had to make a brand new feed which is located here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/hawleyfocus. By clicking the link it will take you to a new page that gives you the option to choose your reader (Google Reader is one of the choices). If you’re using Google Reader, then you can just put www.hawleyfocus.com as the subscription address. I tried it, and it does work. Sorry to those who have to do this a second time, but I know no other way. I’ll also try to figure out how to put a link on the left so that people can subscribe directly from there in order to avoid future confusion.

In the meantime, check out my kiddos all decked out in snow gear. I have a video to post of Annie searching for eggs. Sara, Dylan, and Lucy, play small roles, I hope they don’t mind.