Moving

We are finally settled into our new house.  I was unable to do blog posts from my phone or the kindle so I just emailed them to myself until the day came that I could use a computer again.  Today is that day.  I haven't found the camera cord yet but since the battery died long ago it doesn't really matter.

This is from January 7th.

In mid December we naively thought getting the house ready would take hardly any time.  As time went on we were proved wrong.  Toward the end we scrambled desperately with 13 hour work days.  It wasn't quite enough.  We kept pushing back the date of departure until we finally said Monday would absolutely be it.  I left about noon with the kids while Buddy finished up.  Once again we underestimated what was left and Buddy didn't start driving to St. Louis until 10pm.  It was the hardest move we've had.  That house is so big and it's impossible to get it completely clean and finished.  By the time we left almost every room in the house had been painted, almost all of the doors and trim had been painted, and almost all of the electrical switches and outlets were replaced.  The dark cave of a basement room finally had a light fixture and new carpet which turned it into a completely different room.  Buddy killing the mold that had been under the carpet and sealing the concrete helped as well.  We concealed the sump pump in the sump room which made it much nicer. The sump pump looked a little creepy because it was a barely covered hole in the ground with a pipe coming up almost to the ceiling.   When we moved in there was a large exposed sump pump in the corner, a bare bulb in the ceiling, and an exposed waste pipe running across the ceiling.  Now it would make a nice small guest room or office.

The list of things we accomplished in that last week is really long.  The house is much nicer than it was one month ago.  We are both so burned out on renovating and look forward to maintenance free living.  Unfortunately the camera battery died after Buddy took three pictures.  All we have are a couple of pictures from his phone. 


We arrived in Kansas before noon on Tuesday to pick up the car which had been shipped.  Our next stop was the housing office.  Once again I naively thought housing would be ready.  Naivety has been a trend recently.  There was one unit available but somebody was ahead of us on the list.  They gave us a key to look at it anyway.  The key didn't work.  The neighbors offered to give us a tour of.their place which was very nice and extremely helpful.  She told me a bit about the different layouts.  When we finally were able to see the empty unit we knew we could do better by waiting.  It was very fortunate that we were able to see the neighbor's much bigger place.  The first couple on the list ended up taking the empty one.  They are going to have a fabulous porch but pay for it with extremely small bedrooms and a weird layout.  More units will be available next week.  There will be one on Monday and six on Thursday.  I'm hoping the Monday unit is a good one.  We are number one on the list so we have first dibs.

While we wait for housing we are at a hotel.  We spent the first two nights at the Great Wolf Lodge but have now moved into something closer to post since the kids will start school tomorrow.  The kids really enjoyed The Great Wolf Lodge.  Nyla liked story time and the clock show.  Bohdin liked Magiquest.  After the first story time Nyla.went to the craft room and decorated a picture frame for the stuffed character that appears at story time. While Nyla created her present, Cora colored.  She enjoys coloring and I had plenty of problems with her coloring in Kentucky.  The night before we left I discovered her art on the upstairs hallway wall.  I had to repaint three areas because of her.  The lady in the craft room said Cora was very good at coloring for her age.  I have to agree.  She is certainly the best at coloring of my three kids by a long shot.

Cora finally hugged her first character.  At the story time I attended Nyla coaxed Cora up then shoved her toward the bear or whatever she was.  Cora gingerly hugged it much to Nyla's delight.  When Nyla gave the present to the character that audience "ahhed".  The next day a girl was in the craft room making a present for the character just like Nyla did.  Nyla started a new thing.

The waterpark was fine.  The best part was the extremely low crowds.  I think there were six other families in the entire resort.  There were times when we would be the only ones in the waterpark.  We never had to wait for anything.  There were three.tube slides and two body slides.  Buddy and I took turns going with Bohdin.  Nyla tried two of the tube slides but was traumatized when she went down the dark slide.  I had mixed up the two and sent her and Buddy on the wrong one.  I knew she wouldn't like the dark one and I meant to have her avoid it.  Bohdin kept trying to convince her to do a body slide with him but she was firm in her refusal.    I tried to explain to Bohdin that he would have been too scared to do those slides as a six year old and she just needed more time.  Bohdin wasn't scared of any of it.  He even did the dark one repeatedly.