About Moving

We moved two days before Thanksgiving. There is never a good time to move, but I gotta say, the timing of our move was about as good as it gets. Nils had almost the whole week off, so we were able to plow through the unpacking like bad-A's. After we moved in, we worked from sun-up til late every night unpacking, putting away, and trying to make this place feel like home. We've been here for 3 weeeks now, and we're nearly done. There are a few things that need to be hung up on walls, and of course some rooms will just evolve as time goes on, but overall we're feeling pretty settled.

Moving out of our Apple Ave. house was pretty gosh darn sad. When we had to walk out for the last time, all 4 females were sobbing and wailing, as the 2 males looked on in disbelief. We moved all of our stuff out the night before we closed. After everything was out, some neighbors and friends sat with us on our empty living room floor chatting and whatnot, and I wanted to take it all back and stay! Best neighborhood ever! Now I'm trying to recruit everyone to come down and live by us. I don't think it's working.

Sob!

We love the new house, though. It's roomy and open, and we feel like we have to yell to hear each other. (Please excuse my crappy phone pictures.)

When Nils put our kitchen table together, we laughed and laughed. It barely fit in the old house, and in this house it looks teeny tiny. We put that big bookshelf in the nook to make the table look less puny, and we love how it looks in there. Plus, everyone will think we're bookish and intelligent. Muah-hahaha!

Family Room/Kitchen

Kitchen/Dining Nook

We went from 5 bedrooms to 3 (until the basement is finished), so the kids are sharing rooms. You can see how excited they are about that, based on these representations of Addie and Aani.

Nils promised Addie that after we moved into the new house, she could get a fish. She and Aani each got one. They named them Bubble and Shadow. They lived for a day and a half due to excessive feeding. There was much sobbing. It was pretty ridiculous. Addie kept saying things like, "HE WAS SPECIAL!" regarding her fish, Bubble...that she had for one day.

I was happy that both fish died within a few hours of each other, because then the girls could commiserate with each other. They planned a funeral. Addie played the prelude music on the piano as we sat in our assigned seats. Aani conducted, starting out by saying, "Dear Shadow and Bubble have died. Please join with us in singing Away in a Manger." I probably shouldn't laugh so much when they do things like this, but the melodrama is so funny to me. The music to Away in a Manger was provided by the Little People nativity set, which just added to the hilarity of it all. I couldn't help myself.

Bubble and Shadow's memorial site- their bodies were flushed down the toilet.

This house is a spec house (new-build that we didn't build if that makes sense), so we get to put in the yard and stuff. Yaaay? Anyhoo, over the last few days we've had a cement crew here, putting in a driveway extension, RV pad (for our imaginary RV/boat, which will remain imaginary for eternity) and a shed pad for Nilsynils...for his shop/shed that he will build with his bare hands, since he didn't get a 3-car garage. Compromise, right?

We wanted to get the kids' handprints in the cement, and they had to be late to school and everything! Such a now or never moment. We really plan on being in this house for a long time, and this is proof.

So far, we're pretty happy here. We have no neighbors, which is weird. Hopefully we'll get some people by us and make some friends. We're about a 10 minute walk from the school, which has changed my life. I moved Aani to this school, so the 2-school shuffle/2 time tracks deal is a thing of the past. It's glorious.