Here's a glimpse of what the past week or so looked like:
Last Tuesday (May 17th), my sister was still visiting to help with the kids and moving. While Caleb was at school, Jenny watched Sonya. Tim and I had one quick walk through to do yet on the house because the owners were still in the middle of cleaning and moving when we did a more thorough walk through on Saturday (May 14th). So after that, we went over to Port Abstract where we closed on the house. Signing the papers went faster than I thought it would. Before we knew it, they handed over the keys and the house was ours. Talk about surreal! Our agent was wonderful throughout the whole process. :-) After we signed everything, we decided to take go to the house, just the two of us -- no kids. I took a few pictures and jumped up and down in excitement a few times. :-)
I think we brought a few items over that we had packed the night before and unloaded those before heading back to the apartment. Then we packed up Jenny's van and all of our cars to go back to the house already. Tim picked up Caleb from school -- He was pretty stoked about the house! We all got McDonald's to go and had a picnic in OUR backyard. So fun!
We brought Sonya's crib over already to reassemble since her pack'n'play was still in the apartment (in our walk-in closet where she's been sleeping for the past who knows how many months). My sister left around 3-ish after bringing over another load of stuff. Then it was time to vacuum, wipe down walls, and start taping everything off so I could paint. I even filled in a few holes here and there. I was hoping to get more accomplished, but wanted to enjoy every moment too.
On Wednesday (May 18th), I sanded down the walls a little bit and started to edge the corners, the ceiling, around the windows, etc. with the colored primer. Then Tim brought home a really cool painting edger which made the process go by so much quicker. My friend, Terry, from church helped me get all the walls primed. A friend from college, Kyle, started working on the green (grape leaves) paint in the dining area. I was so nervous about that color because it was pretty bold compared to the neutral beige, off-white sorts of colors that are hard to screw up. Tim, Kyle, and the kids ate pizza while I relaxed at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner with some of my fellow moms at church. The boys finished the first coat of green while I was gone.
Thursday (May 19th) was another painting day. I finished a second coat of green in the morning while Caleb was at school. Sonya sat in her pack 'n' play and watched me. After we picked up Caleb, we ate lunch and enjoyed the nice weather for a little bit. Later on in the afternoon, my friend, Jen, came over to get Caleb while I started painting the brown (mesa) color in the living room and hallway. Sonya was napping so a got quite a bit accomplished. I got about a quarter of the way done with the brown and found a good stopping point so Sonya and I could walk over and get Caleb. It was such a beautiful day! Then we met Tim back at the apartment where he had supper waiting for us. We took another load of boxes over to the house and I went back to painting again. I finally finished around 11pm. Whew! Talk about a long day! But... it was worth it! The rooms looked better than I had hoped.
Friday (May 20th) was more packing and cleaning. Debbie watched Sonya while Caleb helped me with the doors while I brought more boxes to the house. I was able to clean up the plastic and cardboard that I had laid out during painting and removed all the blue painter's tape. We returned to the apartment, filled up my car again, and went to the house to have lunch. The kids enjoyed playing in the back yard. Sonya and Jonathan picked some dandelions. They are so cute together!! Around supper time, Sears dropped off and installed our brand new washer and dryer. Another friend from college, Nick, was doing a motorcycle trip around Wisconsin to visit friends and then his sister so he stopped by for a little bit. Caleb liked the motorcycle. :-) It had been about 4 years since I've seen Nick so it was nice to reminisce. Then we had some time to disassemble the bunk bed and our queen bed at the apartment so it was ready for moving day.
On Saturday (May 21st), we were all ready to move. Everything was taped shut and disassembled as much as possible. Tim got the U-haul around 8-ish. My dad and two of my brothers started moving some furniture out. Another brother and a friend from church, Andy, came to help too while I watched the kids, packed and unpacked a few things and also directed traffic. The furniture was all in place and beds were assembled again by 11:15 right around the time that the pizza was ready. I think we had all worked up a pretty good appetite and ate all but 5 pieces of pizza out of the 5 pies that we bought. After everyone had left, poor Sonya fell down the stairs to our basement. Caleb learned pretty quickly that he needs to lock the gate right away or ask for help if Sonya is in the way. Considering she fell down the whole set of stairs, I think we were all mostly just scared. She was back and laughing a few minutes late. Thank God our stairs are carpeted!
We unpacked a few things, got another quick load of stuff rom apartment, got groceries and slept at the house for the first time. I woke up feeling like I was finally home after a long trip. It was such a nice feeling. :-)
Sunday (May 22nd), there was a speaker on creationism vs. evolution at church. It was really intriguing so we went back later that night to hear more. The rest of the day was relatively relaxing. We didn’t do much cleaning or unpacking so that was nice.
Monday (May 23rd) consisted of cleaning the apartment all day and packing up a few odds and ends that didn't make it over to the house on moving day.
Tuesday (May 24th) - I cleaned the apartment in the morning, watched Veggie Tales with the kids after lunch. Sonya fell asleep in my arms so I put her to bed. Then I read Caleb a book and he fell asleep on my shoulder while reading. He was so cute. It's been a while since he crashed like that for me. So while the kids napped, I unpacked and organized the house a bit. Then we grabbed some Subway when Tim got home and headed over to the apartment to finish cleaning. I can't believe we're done with that place! All we have to do is replace a lightbulb and turn in our keys. I don't think I want to clean another stove or refrigerator for a while though. lol...
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I'm hoping to clean up the house a bit more so I can post some before and after pictures. This was such a fun and exciting process. I can't believe we're in the house already. I might go through home buying withdrawal without all the excitement of exchanging emails and phone calls and viewing houses, etc. But, I'm sure we'll have find enough projects around the house to do to keep us busy for a while.
1 comment:
It sounds like you had a lot of fun moving! For our sold picture, we took it the day we walked through and our realtor just happened to have a 'sold' sign in his trunk, otherwise they never put any other sign on it. I think it is still in the front of the house too.
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