Back to Blogging

Wow--after an EVENTFUL summer, I'm so ready to get back on my blog. DOn't know how or if I will ever catch up--but I'll try to do some highlights.

For the entire month of June we were moving. We started packing almost as soon as school was out and boy did we underestimate how much stuff we had. Reed's mom came to help us (really saved our butts--we would have never finished!), and we made two extra runs to Sam's club for boxes. The movers had to send one of their guys home early to go to the doctor after emptying the basement of all of our food storage. I'm sure they think we are crazy--but in case of famine, they now know where we live. That mover said he has never left a job hurt and these guys were tough--but those 45lb pails are heavy and we had a ton of them. Then, to make moving day even better--it started to rain when we needed to unload at the new house. Now, keep in mind that the new house wasn't finished and we were just going to be storing our stuff in the basement. To get to the basement, we had to go down a small dirt hill to get to the walkout. No big deal in dry weather--a complete mess in rain. So we ended up postponing the unload for a day and it was better. We lined the hill with left over wood, but the basement floor was still a mess. It made the move once we finally got in the house messy too. So much for a sparkling brand new house--but we made it through.

So--we said good-bye to the old house on June 13 and it was sad. The kids were really emotional and it did feel weird. The worst part was feeling homeless. Some great friends let us stay in their house (while they were gone) for a few weeks, but then they came home before we could still move in so we spent another week in corporate temporary (filthy!) housing. I really thought I was going to lose it. For a week I never took my flip-flops off, was constantly all over the kids to not touch anything they didn't have too, and had a permanant headache from the bleach smell for all my cleaning of that place. After that week, I determined that it was a good think I did not serve a mission!

The goal was to be in the new house by my birthday, then the day the granite was supposed to be installed, the granite guy said it wasn't ready. It was the only time in the whole process that I saw my builder (who was awesome!) get made. The guy was just a slacker and didn't do what he said he would and there wasn't anything that we could do about it by then. We needed around a week after the granite was in to finish electrical and plumbing and then get our final inspections so we could move it. We ended up moving in on July 3rd and because we were so rushed it was sort of a mess but I just wasn't willing to stay in temporary housing any longer.

(This no smoking sign was left over from construction and we just never took it down, so for the first weekend everybody that came in said something about it)

The move in went as well as can be expected. Friends and neighbors just showed up and called to see what help we needed getting furniture and heavy stuff from the basement. I did the kitchen first and we started to function by the time the weekend was over. People in our new ward just offered to bring us dinner, and I couldn't have been more appreciative. After almost a month of frozen food and eating out, I didn't have the heart to say no. Since then it has been slow--and somewhat steady. I knew it wouldn't be until after school started that I would finish, but I have been so frustrated the last couple of weeks. But--the kids have needed me and we have had so many other summer things that I've only been able to make sporadic progress. So far, I have not taken a thorough set of picture of the new place, so I have just a few odds & ends. Some of that is because we are still finishing things. These photos are from after the kitchen backsplash was put in. Today I had the painters back for touch-ups and the lighting company out with some lights that have been on backorder. ugh--I'm so ready to really be finished.

The view from the deck. This is one of our favorite things here. We have this beautiful view. The deck is totally shaded in the late afternoon and evening. One of our first dinners on the deck, we had a mom and baby deer walk right through the yard. We see all sorts of neat birds and in the mornings you can usually hear cows. Aside from any animal noises, its really quiet at night and the only lights are the stars and our streetlights.

Reed's first ride on his new "toy" for the house

The great thing was the Reed was around for all the big days and around more in June than we even planned for. We just identified a few different time frames that we scheduled for him to be around. In hindsight, we had some divine intervention that somehow he just never booked some other days in June and was around a lot. I don't know how we would have managed without that. Then, he was back to his usual routine for July so we do bigger things on the weekends and I just plow through as I can. With the kids back in school now, I've made some progress in the basement and nonessentials (holiday decorations, garages, food storage and my craft stuff! )

The only shot of the front--this is actually a first day of school photo, but I'll do a whole post for that later.

Somehow, the rest of our life still went on. we had swim team, scout camp, cub camp and even a vacation (much needed!).