Settled

And that was it. We unpacked, the kids started school and began to make friends, we learned the routines of another new place, began to place ourselves in the new spaces.

Children 2 and 3 took up soccer over the summer (Child 1 was too old for the fledgling program) and launched yet another family interest.

We tried to remember that we were here for a longer time - that this was meant to be home for a while. It wasn't easy; the nomad mentality was part of us, and we weren't used to viewing any place as permanent. The house itself didn't feel like it - all 1970's dark wood panelling, 1980's dusty rose paint in the master bath, 19 whoever-thought-this-was-a-good-idea aging elephant grey carpet. But the beach was two blocks away, and every night we could walk down and watch the tide come in. On the rare clear evenings we could even see the milky way, and we would take the binoculars down to show the kids the fuzzy blob of Saturn, and the small cluster that made up the Pleiades. That was home. That and the warmth of the people we met.

So we took up the pattern - work, school, play.

It was Autumn, 2001.