White moon

Round 33: October 2038 (Spring)

last update + wedding update/next update

Charlie Benton is 26, Camilla is 25 and Grace and Everett are 8.
(Tate is 68, Zelda is 63, Jack and Audrey are 26, Marcus is 9 and Jacinta is 8)

Narrated by Charlie Benton

Life didn’t really change much for Camilla and me after our wedding. We have the same jobs, same home and we still spend most of our evenings at home with Grace and Everett.

Even so, we’re glad we got married and made everything legal. It’s not practically different but there’s something about it that feels different. It’s nice.

We do have a lot more money these days though, due to my trust fund kicking in last year. We’ve mostly been sitting on it but we decided to use a little on something for the family.

The kids have been keen to go to Cape Elizabeth ever since Camilla and I went there for our honeymoon. Camilla and I still talk about how great it was and I guess they want to see it for themselves.

It sounded like a great idea to us and seeing we both had a little vacation time saved up, we booked some airline tickets and off we went.

We stayed at my parents’ holiday house for our honeymoon but we opted for a hotel this time.

It was a new experience for the kids, so they loved it, especially room service. Grace loves trying new foods, so she was in heaven.

Everett is more of your typical kid and would eat French fries and burgers for breakfast, lunch and dinner if we let him but the room service at our hotel catered for all tastes, so he loved it too.

Staying right on the beach was a definite perk! Everett spent most of his time hunting for “treasure” in the sand, while Grace built sandcastles all up and down the shore.

Camilla did some sunbathing on the first day but I decided not to risk falling asleep. I was lucky I didn't burn on our honeymoon!

We had the kids to supervise this time around anyway, so someone had to keep their eyes open.

Camilla was wishing she’d stayed awake herself by the end of her session.

I had to touch her very carefully for a while, seeing it was a pretty nasty sunburn.

We spent plenty of time seeing the sights. I don’t think the kids realised it was educational at the same time!

Grace and I were also at the souvenir stand for what seemed like hours, while she picked out a present for her best friend, Jacinta.

Jacinta was impressed though, so mission accomplished.

Everett wasn’t too interested in bringing home any souvenirs, other than what he found in the sand, but he’s been enjoying bragging about it to his friend Marcus.

Marcus is a little older than Everett and has been to Cape Elizabeth “tons of times” and he usually ends up interrupting any time Everett wants to brag.

Everett likes Marcus a lot but I know he gets frustrated that nothing he does is ever as good as whatever Marcus has done.

For the most part though, they seem to get along well though, so I’m leaving it alone.

Lately, I’m realising how quickly the kids are growing up. I was reading Grace a bedtime story the other night and wondered how long it’d be before having her dad read to her is too babyish.

After all, Everett gave up the bedtime stories a while ago when he decided he was old enough to put himself to bed.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing, because the twins are still a lot of fun as they’re getting older.

I’m really proud of how they’re turning out and proud of Camilla and myself that we did a pretty good job with them, even being younger than most parents.

I’m just feeling kind of sad at the thought of stopping here. I’d really like to have at least one more child.

Now to convince Camilla, who is so far not going for it.

I’ve never had the experience of living with a new baby in the house. When Grace and Everett were babies, they lived with Camilla and her parents while I was living on campus. I saw them as much as I could but it’s not the same as actually being under the same roof.

Camilla is not really on board. She just remembers being 17 and struggling with not one but two newborns and isn’t keen to repeat the experience.

There’s no guarantee we’d have twins again but even if we did, it’d be different this time. We’re older, more experienced and we’d be doing it together this time.

But Camilla is happy with our family the way it is and is really reluctant to change the status quo.

Seeing she’s the one who’d have to carry this baby, I'll have to respect that. It doesn’t mean I won’t hold out hope she’ll have a change of heart though.

We do agree on one thing though and that’s that it’s time for us to buy our own home.

We weren’t planning on moving any time soon but our last family get-together at Jack and Audrey’s new place pushed us in the opposite direction.

There’s plenty of room for us all in our current place but there’s so much more to it than space. Right now, the shared walls mean we need to be more conscious of noise than we’d need to be in our own house.

It’d be nice to be able to have big family dos at our place. The kids especially love the chance to play with their cousins.

And being able to paint the walls, put in carpet or pull it up if we want and just have more control over the place in general would be really nice.

Camilla and I are both over paying rent, so we figure that seeing we have the money, why not start looking around? Jack is especially enjoying that perk of home ownership.

Dad is already offering his advice on the current real estate market, which I’m not quite ready for. We’ve barely even looked at what’s out there.

Camilla is really excited already. She was discussing decor ideas with Mum, for the home we haven’t even chosen yet.

I’ll probably just let her go nuts with the decor. She’s the aesthetically-minded one in the family, not me.

As long as our new place has everything we need, I’ll be happy. I’m really keen to start looking now.

Extras:
A couple more pictures of Audrey and Jack's new place, which is finally in a playable state. ;)
Don't mind that white frame! I have to pose another pic of Jack and Audrey to put there. ;)

Poor Camilla got heatstroke on top of her sunburn and ended up very, very red!

And of all the things to miss about living at Azure Court, I think Everett will miss the spiral staircases most of all. The cat will not. ;)

Notes:

• Title is from White Moon by the White Stripes.
• Just briefly, because I'm feeling really sick right now and just want to get this finished. Charlie rolled the want for another baby and Camilla has not. I'm not expecting her too, seeing there's no Family aspiration at play here. What I do think is interesting is that I've taken them off BC but they haven't tried for a baby once. According to their IFS, they both want more kids but they don't seem too motivated to actually try to achieve that. So I'm interpreting that as Charlie not being quite able to convince Camilla and deferring to her on this issue.
• And yes, I'll hopefully have moved these two into a new place by next round. I'll try to find a four bedroom place for them, just in case they do try for #3! ;)