Old to New

Before we moved, I took a few pictures at the old house of things I knew we would miss.  I also asked the kids what they wanted to remember, and they came up with things like, "Mom, take a picture of the bathroom!  I want to remember what the bathroom looked like!  Oh, and the kitchen floor!"  I didn't quite oblige ALL of their requests.

 

The peach trees...it was a GREAT year for peaches!  We were so glad to be able to get a crop off of them!

The grape vines...of course the year we sell the house is the first year they actually produce more than a handful of grapes!  We got a canner full of grape juice out of them.

Max in his apple tree...this was one request I gladly granted.  He loved to climb in this one!

Can you see Max? :)

The day before we closed on the house, Max started Kindergarten!  It felt like a huge milestone for me...I mean, sending our first kid off to school means we've been parents for 5.5 years already!  I wasn't really sad or weepy to send him, though, and I haven't really looked back, either.  He absolutely LOVES going to school, he LOVES learning, and he LOVES to ride the bus.  It's been so neat for me to see his knowledge grow in leaps and bounds.  We would try to teach him to sound things out this summer, but he never really 'got it' or was very interested.  I love being with him and watching him stare at a sign, mentally trying to figure out what it says.  Personally, I've always loved to learn and I enjoyed school, so it's fun for me to see him at least start out so enthusiastic.  He is only half day for now (a 'morning friend'), but we have the option of switching him every 9 weeks.  He says he would like to go full day, so possibly after Christmas, but we aren't going to rush it.  I went to his fall party as a room mom and just had so much fun seeing him in his classroom and interacting with the kids at his table and getting to know them a bit myself.  Bottom line is, school has been very good for Max and even good for as since it forced us to get a bedtime schedule and routine that starts much earlier than we were used to!  Earlier to bed, earlier to wake up has been working pretty well, not surprisingly.

Here are a few pictures of our old house the day before we moved...we had pretty much everything boxed/packed up so it could just go straight onto the trailers.  This is the living room/kitchen.

Basement

Basement from another angle

On Friday, the closing took 2 hours (11-1) due to issues with the title company, so Greg and I grabbed some McDonald's for lunch and got out to the new house around 2 if I remember right.  I had a crew ready to clean and Greg had a crew ready to take apart and move stuff.  The cleaning got done and I got the kitchen totally set up (with tons of help, of course!), plus our bed got moved.  I had already planned for the kids to stay overnight at Dad and Mom Beutel's, so Greg and Griffin and I stayed overnight at our new house on Friday.

 

On Saturday we started pretty early and just moved stuff.  Lots of stuff.  I didn't remember to take many pictures at all, but here is what I have:

Getting furniture off the trailer

Amy and Diane brought lunch, which was so delicious and so appreciated!

 

Uncle Phil reading a comic to Max (he's such a Rassi...he loves to read comics!)

First picture of the front of our new house!  We LOVE it!

Breakfast Sunday morning...first one in our new house!

Max's third day of school, but the first one at the new house...so he got to ride the bus!  I'm very thankful that the bus comes at 7:40 at our new house...at the old one it was 7:03!

Such a big kid!

Blurry, but documented. :)

One thing we love at the new place is our big back deck...Greg especially loves grilling out on it.  He made steaks for our first supper at the new house.

I know I said the Kindergarten schedule has been good, which is true...but it has also been a big adjustment. :)  One day Max literally fell asleep standing up on the couch!

Greg took some pictures of the girls one afternoon.  We have a lovely backdrop of trees in our backyard!  Lovely Nora.

I love this picture...Nora was whispering, "I love you" in Tirzah's ear.  We have this one in a frame in their room.

Griffy has just been growing like a weed and getting cuter every day.  He sometimes doesn't have much patience with his siblings' expressions of love, but he is loved all the same.

There is a whole lot of wallpaper in the new house, which we are gradually planning on changing.  The nice thing is that all of it is pretty muted/neutral and very easy to live with.  The laundry room linoleum was not quite so muted.  We wanted to buy a big chest freezer to put in there but wanted to get new linoleum first so we weren't trying to move a freezer full of food.  We did get it done and we love it!

Ta daa!  A nice dark pattern that does not show every little piece of leaf that gets tracked in!  Much nicer. :)  We are working on getting some new linoleum in the kitchen plus a little breakfast nook since the island doesn't leave room for a kitchen table.  I'll make sure to take pictures as it gets done!

 

Overall, there is not a single minute that we have regretted buying this house and moving.  It all happened pretty fast:  We first looked at this house July 19th, then looked at it again on the 21st and 22nd.  We made an offer on the 22nd and had a deal by the 23rd, signing papers on the 24th to close a month later.  Even though it was fast, Greg and I both felt such a peace about it...as we often agreed, it wasn't that we didn't have any misgivings about packing, moving right when Kindergarten started, selling our house, etc., but underneath the surface, we were peaceful and felt like it was the right thing for us to do.  I was in the house three times, and each time I came in to it, I loved it more.  I have never shopped for a house before, so I didn't know if it was normal to be able to picture our family in it so easily.  I totally could, though.  I could picture the kids in their bedrooms, playing in the toy room, growing up here and playing in the timber, etc.  We prayed that if it wasn't the right house for us, things would fall through or something would come up...and even though it went quick there were definitely opportunities for that to happen.  In the end, we signed on the dotted line and even had a contract signed to sell our house before we moved!  God put everything in place, and I thank Him for that!