Settling in

Our days this first month were full of boxes and cleaning and moving things around and so. much. laundry.
Perrin's favorite part of the new house might be the laundry chute.  

And we have another 5th grader in band... clarinet this time.  She delights in making loud squeaky blats so we were all wishing for ear plugs. 😜

One morning a whole flock of wild turkeys wandered across the back yard.  Perrin really, really wanted me to shoot one for lunch.  Ummm.... sorry, but no? 😂

Perrin gets kind of bored when the girls are gone and he's very willing to 'help'.  

There were cars and a bridge and dinosaurs in the kitchen sink.  

Our old neighbors gave the kids a bucket of sidewalk chalk as a goodbye gift, which was so sweet.

Guess who is supposed to be potty trained and was really struggling the first couple weeks and got a few extra showers?  

Perrin and I stopped at a few garage sales and came home with some construction equipment.  

Bob invited Dang over for an evening.  They were playing Jenga with some wood pieces Conrad had left for Perrin.  It was intense and the crash was epic.

Since our upholstered basement furniture got ruined I started checking marketplace for replacements.  Cadence came with me to pick up this cute little chaise. 

It's going in our reading nook/library upstairs. 

And we borrowed a truck and went to pick up a good basement couch from old high school classmates of mine. Good meaning decent and not gross, but also not nice enough for me to care if it gets spilled on or jumped on. 😏

I went to a wedding and the only picture I took was of the really cool light fixtures.... haha.  Bob's cousin Erica got married on a Sunday afternoon.  The ceremony was held in his backyard which was thankfully fairly shaded because it was quite hot.  The reception was at the Miller Park pavilion, which is such a cool old building. And it has cool old light fixtures. 😏

We had left the younger four at the farm and they were not ready to go home.  Cecily spent the day at a Bible Class invite.  

Dragging soggy stuff out and bringing in industrial dehumidifiers did a number on the paint on the stairs, so once everything was dry I worked on touching up the paint.  I still don't understand why they painted the stairs bright orange. 

Bob has sprinklers set up all around the house to try and grow grass.  One hot afternoon after school the kids were racing around the house from sprinkler to sprinkler.  I'm already glad we put a shower right inside the garage door so they can clean off before they track mud and grass into the house.

He's my best laundry helper. 😂

Mr. Buster inherited the barn that Bob's grandpa made for him. 

The quote we got from the restoration company to shampoo the basement carpet was a bit expensive, so instead I rented a carpet cleaner and did it myself.  It probably didn't do as good of a job, but it worked.  

And we needed a new sewer pipe cover.  *sigh*  

I put carpet treads on the steps rather than trying to paint them again.  They look nice... why didn't we do this before? (Because I don't like carpet and I don't like sweeping stairs, that's why.)

So then we were waiting on the new sump pump to get the old house listed.  Meanwhile, back in the woods, it took four tries to get a mirror for this bathroom that was the right size and didn't arrive broken.  

The older girls' room is actually looking pretty put together and thankfully not cluttered!  (The other girls' room is still very much a work in progress.)

Bob invited the Brakers over one Sunday evening.  They played mariokart. 

And babies.

Labor Day was spent high up on a ladder painting porch beams.  We went with a composite material that looks more like wood, but has to be painted.  I was regretting that decision so much and wishing it was plastic.

So. Stinking. Terrifying.  I hate ladders, and heights, and spiders, and mosquitos. All of these were in abundance.  And of course the ladder doesn't get you close enough, or in a comfortable position to paint.  All day I was tensed up and nervous.  And it was hot, so I kept making the kids bring me ice water and popsicles. 

I painted until it was dark and we had to get out work lights and hated every minute of it. Summoning the motivation to do a second coat is difficult... 

I finally got to the crate of extra pictures and artwork that was in the basement.  This would almost be a cool effect if it wasn't also moldy. mur. 

The mosquitos have been really bad after all the standing water and humidity, and it's been hot so I haven't wanted to be outside.  Our windows are moth magnets after dark though (and tree frogs!), and also our window wells are full of toads so we just enjoy nature from inside.  I'm living all of my Girl of the Limberlost dreams... 😏

Tim and Asa started digging holes in the old basement.

We had some leftover vinyl tiles from the kitchen and Perrin helped me lay them on top of the plywood in the storage under the eaves.

I'm not sure I'm cut out for woods life... the rodents are large and the spiders are larger.

New sump pump installed!  Time to list the house. 

If you want to make all of my kids cry, show them this video.  Actually, if Perrin even hears the beginning of this song he starts to lose it.  😛😆🥲

https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc1bg_BvSBwR6MFElZeaiMmLSyMM6EgFpbsiFE0/


Emmy got braces!  They were really bugging her for about a week, poor girl.

There are dinos all over the house. 

There are a few rooms that are starting to look put together and not a cluttered mess, which I love.

The electricians came and hung the last of my light fixtures!  It was a very exciting day.  This is the one from my Grandparents' house.  

Hehe.  Sam and Jordan were struggling to get this shade on.  I'm dreading having to change the light bulb. 

Eeeeeeekkkkk!  It fits so well.  😁

So good.

Second coat on the porch went faster.  It was cooler, and there were fewer bugs, so I hated it less. haha.  My little helper was stressing me out walking around and under the ladder, "I'll stabilize it for you, Mom."  No thanks, please go away!  😆

I dragged the family to the 50th anniversary celebration of Washington Church.  It was rainy, but the fellowship was sweet, and the history presentation was great.  I also read the history book my brother put together cover to cover that night. Fascinating stuff. ha. 

Oh hey, look, the bus is coming down to our house! Woot woot! It only took a month of back and forth with the bus manager, but now I don't have to take them a half mile to the other bus stop. 😄

Perrin's bed frame was down in the water so it took us a while to dry it out and get it put together. We also lost the box spring to the flood waters so once again he is sleeping on plywood.  On the bright side, it's not as tall this way. 

This last week and a half has been very busy.  The older girls have school activities starting and ACYF and grandma sleepovers and I get to drive.  I have not made as much progress on unfinished house projects and unpacking as I had hoped. Oh well, slow and steady progress. 

Blessings. 

How high's the water, Mama?

With the girls off at school we had three days to pack and get the new house ready. Yeah.  Perrin was my reluctant sidekick while I cleaned at the new house.  Michelle came to help sweep the basement on Wednesday; Perrin found a spot for snacks and a screen.  🙄

Lori came over that afternoon and helped pack up the kids' bedrooms. I would not have gotten nearly as much done without her.  

I can't remember if we took a load out to the house, or if we (by we I mean I) were cleaning... regardless, box beams!  

Modeling the china cabinet. 😊

So, to really sell the old house illusion, I wanted to put siding on the wall in the hallway opposite the kitchen.  The idea is that it looks like someone added on the laundry room and bathroom and then the garage. Or connected the house and the garage.  I love it.

I will paint it eventually, but right now we're enjoying the smell of fresh cut pine siding.   

My mom came over Thursday with the boys to help pack, and then again on Friday.  She probably did more packing than I did.  😜

Bob took a few days off of work and moved boxes.  He got to help his dad and Conrad hang the mantel.

 

Eeek. So pretty!  Someday I will get around to tiling the fireplace surround.  

Dad was busy putting on doorknobs.

Desaray come and helped me clean and unpack part of the kitchen.  

We still had packing to do back in town... I could have used another week to pack more efficiently and be more organized, but getting to host Miori was worth the lost time.   We were pretty well ready to go at 10pm friday night.  We didn't have the basement workshop or the garage packed up- we were going to move that stuff slowly the following week since we didn't have a deadline to be out.  
Instead of sleeping soundly, it stormed.  Loudly. And we got so much rain. Bob checked the basement around midnight and there was water seeping in from the footing tiles. Ugh.  So we rescued the doll houses from the floor and I went to bed.  Bob kept checking periodically and there was more and more water. So he started unplugging appliances. And flipping breakers to the hvac. And finally cut the power to the whole house because the water kept rising.  (He also made a trip out to the new house, which had a completely dry basement.)  The thunder was so loud I could not sleep.  And we'd hear splashes in the basement when a tub would start floating and tip... or a box would get soggy and slump and whatever was on top would fall into the water.  *sigh*  Bob kept checking on it and at 3am I told him to stop updating me so I could sleep, took unisom, and got about 4 hours of sleep.  (I apparently have inherited the 'if something bad happens I'll deal with it better on a good nights sleep' mentality. 😝) 

 

This was about 1am, not quite over the bottom step yet.  

We got the kids up and dressed in the dark that morning and decided to take them straight out to the new house.  We picked up Kenna and forded several large puddles of water on the roads.

Back in town, the moving crew showed up.
 

Cleaning out the fridge... 

Dang and Matt waded into the basement and started rescuing things.  Matt's estimate was 16-18 inches, almost over his boot tops. It was a mess down there.  Soggy cardboard from moving boxes... sweet corn and green beans from the freezer floating around... 

Michelle went straight to the new house and the kids got busy staying out of the way in the pantry.  :) 

I forgot to change Perrin out of pajamas.  Oh well. 

Bob got a moving truck because our street in town is so congested.  No one parks in garages or driveways and it's always lined with cars.  Plus it's difficult to maneuver a trailer around the dead end. First load arrived at the woods! 

I made a couple of trips back and forth with the van.  Jack wanted to come into town with Cecily and Kenna.

Michelle and Donna unpacked the kitchen.  

The littles helped carry in a few boxes.  

These two got put on dusting off cobwebs before it comes in the house duty.  😊

Lunch break. I didn't have to make any of this.  

There were a lot of people in the house and it didn't feel full, which I love. 

Thankful for so many willing hands.

And the peanut gallery who were actually fairly helpful.  :)  

We weren't going to move the piano (I was going to get piano movers) but they had straps and they were willing so in she came. 😄It's probably a good thing it didn't sit in the stinky, damp old house for long. 

The older girls got their room set up pretty quickly.  Em's pretty excited that she gets the tornado bed.  (I shall have to blog about that sometime...) 

Meanwhile, Dang floated the freezers over to the stairs and they rescued as much of the contents as they could into coolers.  Yeah.  Floated the freezers.  Most of the cuts of meat were still solid, but the ground beef/sausage were getting mushy so my Mom browned hamburger.  So much hamburger. 

The flooding kind of threw any organization out the window as far as where things ended up at the new house.  But by the afternoon Michelle had gotten the living room looking pretty put together.  At least from this view you can't see the stacks of boxes everywhere else.  😏

And the two garages full of wet things drying out.  

Perrin made himself right at home and the stairs became a hot wheels track.  

I slept very soundly that night and we made it to church on time!  Picture in front of the fireplace with the gold key.  The kids were so excited to get the traveling family key! haha.  It mysteriously appears on moving day. 😏

There was a wedding Sunday afternoon and we watched them walk in and then left to assess the damage at the old house.  Rustin had brought a pump over so the water had finally gone down.  

Just... ugh.

The girls had carefully packed all the dollhouse stuff in cardboard boxes that were stacked in the basement.  The boxes were soggy, but most of the furniture and accessories survived!  

Dad came over to help clean up.  We also called Blysky to help us clean up, and ordered a dumpster.  

The kids got to ride the bus for the first time on Monday! woot woot.  I'm not sure they are super excited to be bus kids or not.  

Bob, Rustin, Sharon, and the Bluesky crew pulled most of the mess out Monday.  

They put three big dehumidifiers and air purifiers down there. So weird to see it so empty!  

The dumpster came and Dad and Mom came over to help us fill it.  

Don't look Koch cousins... Grandma's pristine couch is no more.  

We filled a 10 yard dumpster and there is still quite a bit of stuff drying and/or airing out in the new garage. 😜

Thankfully we had already moved photo albums and all of my sewing machines the week before.  Nothing that we lost is all that painful, except maybe the sweet corn I just did.  *sigh*  

Everything else is replaceable, or we didn't really need it anyway.  

People must have been praying hard, because even with all of that I didn't feel very stressed that day.  Or frustrated. And I didn't even feel like crying, which is surprising all things considered. 😝 Maybe I'm also still in shock.  

Blessings.