Get Thee to the Dentist, stat!

Mister Grouse, our four-and-a-half year-old boy, loves a frozen yogurt shop that we've visited once or twice (at least) so far this summer. 

I think this place and its offerings serve as a food coping mechanism for our kids. They can eat their feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, fun, and expectation over being in a new home and neighborhood, with school starting soon, and having left, just a few weeks ago, the only home and neighborhood they had known in their childhoods. 

At times, our transition from what we've known and left behind to what is new and learning-on-the-ground has been as rocky as the candy pieces fake teeth smile our Grouse is sporting here. 

But at many other times, this newness and the benefits of our new home, new friends, new ward, new job, and being near family have been so sweet. 

45th Anniversary: My Dad Begins His Career at Bridgewater State University

45 years ago this morning, my dad began his first day of work at what is now Bridgewater State University. This longtime commuter college is in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, about twenty minutes west of Plymouth and 45 minutes south of Boston.

He had graduated from this college in 1971 and taught English at East Bridgewater High School for 2 years before the lure of his alma mater called him back. He has since never worked anywhere else, and never wanted to. 

Over his career, my dad has worked in every administration building on this beautiful campus, in offices and cubicles and even in cars, drafting letters or making work calls while waiting for the college presidents to end board meetings in Boston or at other college campuses in the Bay State. Yes, one of his administrative duties was to be a de facto chauffeur in the late 1980s through the 1990s and into the early 2000s!

Like the lamppost he's posing next to here, my dad's career has lit my own path, and he has taught me so much. I so wish I were there today with my dad to walk that beautiful campus and reminisce. 

For many years, to mark his work anniversary, my dad would walk to the Clement C. Maxwell Library on the Bridgewater State campus in the morning on his anniversary. He'd stand on the library steps and pause to reflect on his career. 

 

I really hope to celebrate my dad's 50th anniversary at Bridgewater State University with him in 2023! It would be as meaningful to the both of us as the night I spent with him in June 2013 touring East Bridgewater High School before the school building was razed. That night brought back great memories for my dad, and his 50th anniversary at BSU would be even sweeter. 

The Two Maryanne's/Mary Ann's

At the end of July, Grandma and Grandpa returned home to Utah from their second mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They had been serving in the Modesto, California mission. Our family (me, Becky, and our kids) hadn't seen them since the fall of 2016, right before the presidential election. So wonderful to be in Utah now so we could help welcome them home! We missed that opportunity in 2015, when they returned from their first mission to Manchester, England. 

After the obligatory rounds of photos in their backyard, Grandma and Grandpa were preparing to leave home that night for a church meeting, to be released as missionaries. Our Little Mouse had been sitting quietly in a patio chair while her siblings and all of the young cousins ran around the yard. At near the last second, Mouse got out of her chair to ask Mommy a question.

"Can you take a picture with me and Grandma?"

They share a nice bond through names. Grandma's name is Mary Ann, and Mouse's middle name is in honor of her, though spelled slightly different. When Mouse was three and four years old, she would often repeat her full name to us as "Mouse Grandma Maryanne Wilson." That always made us chuckle! 

As I watched these Maryanne's/Mary Ann's pose for pictures, I was reminded of the blessing we have had with each of our four kids. We have two girls and two boys, and starting with our first child, we gave them the first name of a grandparent as our child's middle name. It feels like a nice, loving way to honor their grandparents and remind our kids (and us) of their legacies of love, family bonds, and presence in their lives.   

A New Place to Rest Our Heads and Cheer Our Hearts

Home! We are finally in our new home. 

Thank you to you readers who have occasionally checked in over the last six-plus weeks. 

Blogging went on an unintentional hiatus around June 8th, because that is the evening when Becky and our four kids arrived in Utah. I had already been in the Salt Lake City area since April 27th to start my new job at Intermountain Healthcare. 

This temporary time apart was planned, as we wanted our kids to finish as much of the school year as possible and needed more time to pack up our Boston life. This time apart was also not something we wanted to advertise on social media. We didn't like the notion of people knowing that Becky was back at our home in the Boston suburbs with our kids and otherwise alone each day and night for 42 days. So I went radio-silent on this blog, Facebook, and Insta about this, carefully wording my posts and being even more selective about which pictures I put up on those accounts.

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So, here we are now, in our new home. This Saturday marks our fourth Saturday in the new TimBeck6 casa. It will take a long time to get organized, get new furniture, and truly make this place ours. We gave so much of our belongings to friends, neighbors, and strangers in Boston. The furniture couldn't fit in our POD and most of that stuff was hand-me-downs that we had inherited over the earliest years of our family life, when collecting such free items from other friends and neighbors as they moved out was our M.O.   

But each late afternoon, I love looking at this scene in our back yard, with the setting sun peeking through the copious shade and, further on into the evening, the slats in our wooden fence. Our 4-year-old Grouse loves when I push him on the tri-seat swing set. From the moment we moved in, he claimed the red seat (on the far left) as his own.

I love that this back yard has so much shade. It reminds me of New England back yards. It's not like so many back yards I've seen here in Utah, which are devoid of trees and baking in the afternoon sun. I love that our fence is not a white vinyl fence, which again is a common feature in many Utah yards. This home is in an older neighborhood; by old, it was built in the early 1990s. From the many I've seen and know, I love Utah homes that are around that time-period. You start seeing more of the vinyl fencing and obviously the not-shaded yards with newer builds of the late 1990s to the present. Trees in those lots have not had time to develop. 

The greenery and shade provided by this home's yard were huge selling-points for me. Future posts will showcase this home's other big selling-points for us. It feels wonderful to have our home search over. It is a beautiful home and awesome back yard, left in very good condition by the previous owners. And it's time to make it all ours.