Moved In

I've said it once and I'm saying it again.  Moving stinks!  Of course I might not feel this way if we ever had the chance to simply move down the street or to the other side of town.  All our moves have been across the country or an ocean, so no big deal, right?  Even though we lived in WA three years ago, it's still a big move, just not as daunting.  I remember when we moved to RI and I was supposed to take the boys to school to meet their teachers and we got lost and stuck in traffic and had to reschedule the whole thing. We went home with tears in our eyes wondering how we'd ever feel at home in such an unfamiliar place.  It's been so much easier moving to a place we know!  I'm not lost every time I leave my house.  I've been able to call friends to take my kids so I could actually get some unpacking done which has been a wonderfully strange experience.   We are still sorting through the mess from boxes being dumped out on every surface available and when there wasn't an open spot, the boxes were emptied onto the floor.  We seriously had to clear pathways down the hall and into rooms because stuff was everywhere.  It looked like our house had been ransacked by burlgars.  Unfortunately this was also when we had family after family stop by to say hi.  I'm still embarrassed thinking about how many people have seen us at our absolute worst as they toured our new home.  I feel like I need to invite everyone back to walk through it again now that we've got everything mostly put away.  Oh well.

Now for a little update on how this house came to be ours.  The housing market here is crazy hot with houses selling within hours of going on the market and bidding wars making the prices skyrocket.  We knew it would take a miracle for us to find a house from the other side of the country but a miracle happened.  A friend told us this house was going on the market and put us in touch with the owners whom Randy met when he happened to be out here looking for jobs.  The home had previously been owned by some good friends of ours so we'd been inside several times which meant we weren't buying it site unseen.  Long story short, we bought the house without a realtor and without it being placed on the market, so we've moved back to the same area we were in before and even in the same ward.  We love the house although it is old.  I'm thrilled it has air conditioning, unlike most homes in the area, and we love the huge yard (which is slowly coming back to life as we water it in the dryest of summers). The boys have spent hours exploring all the different paths and steps, and swinging on the rope swing.  I can picture us growing old here and hope this is our forever home.

The boys seeing the house for the first time at the walk-through

Marcus was a little excited

There are TONS of built ins.  We don't have enough books and knick knacks to fill them

The tree house and rope swing that swings so high it took me a week to work up the courage to try it out

Marcus cleaning out the pond

The basketball hoop goes low enough that my boys actually feel tall when they play

Marcus loves his shower with all the {unnecessary} gadgets

The moving truck was too big to get up our steep driveway so they had to unload everything into a smaller truck and then drive that truck up and unload it which means everything was moved twice!

The 2nd truck

Taking a walk through the preserve across the street from our house

I love our street!  It's even prettier when the grass is green.