We are slowly settling into our new house and new lives, much slower than I'd like in fact. But then I have to remind myself, it's only been 4 months! We arrived in Texas at the end of June, spent two weeks in a hotel, and then 2 more weeks waiting on our shipment of furniture and goods to arrive. So really, the first month hardly counts. And since then we've been in and out of town a lot, visiting family while we can still travel, using our free weekends furniture and baby shopping in order to slowly fill this big new house, and of course, watching football!
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| "Helping" unpack |
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| Splash pad with cousins |
I spent weeks searching for a suitable preschool for JR, only to come up empty handed (every single one around here has a wait list, and he's on them), so we fill our days running errands, exploring playgrounds, and searching for exciting things to keep our social butterfly occupied. He has started swim lessons, and absolutely adores them. He's not very good at most of the training exercises, but he is almost always the happiest baby in the pool. In general, he's too busy smiling and giggling to learn how to blow bubbles or close his mouth under water, but he'll get it eventually. For now, I'm learning lots of tricks for handling babies in pools, and it's a great Monday morning activity for us. As it turns out, anything involving water is a big hit with this boy. If we find ourselves with an empty afternoon, we almost always end up playing in the sprinkler in the backyard:
And seeing as Houston only recently got the memo about fall, this setup easily lasted us through mid-October.
Settling in has been a frustratingly slow process. Moving internationally means changing nearly everything, and all those little details add up. For the first couple of months, we felt buried in paperwork: expense reports, ID cards, utility bills, medical insurance (sore subject for us after experiencing the French system), 401K, vaccination schedules, and many other little things that all seems to take an hour or two each to sort out. Then there's the fact that we went from a small two bedroom apartment, to a big four bedroom house. Not that I'm complaining! Living conditions in France were one of the biggest frustrations we had in our time there. Our apartment was small, and not all that nice. Organizing was impossible, especially once JR joined us and the whole place exploded with baby gear, and it was incredibly frustrating to feel like I couldn't get a grip on things. But it's the price you pay for inner-city living, and we sure did love being able to walk into town every day. Now though, space is easy to come by. Which means I have no excuse for poor housekeeping! So a lot of time has gone into furniture shopping, sorting through boxes of things and getting rid of stuff (this is usually a pre-move activity, but we did it after), and figuring out what to do with all of this space. We've made a lot of progress, but still have a long way to go. In reality though, this house isn't it for us. We are renting right now, while we get to know the area and different neighborhoods, and plan to buy next summer. I already feel like we have one foot out the door, and decorating hardly seems worth it.
It's good to be back. We know that Katy is the right place for us right now, and there is a comforting reassurance that comes with knowing your lives are moving in the right direction. France was good for us for a while, but as our family continues to grow, we need to be back in a place where we feel we can provide the type of life and upbringing that we have in mind for our children. The future still feels very blurry. We aren't sure how long we want to stay here, where we might want to go next, or what might be in store career-wise, but for right now, and most likely the next few years, Katy, Texas will make a great home base for The Huguet House.
Come visit anytime!
The Huguets
5039 Big Meadow Ln.
Katy, TX 77494
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