By way of updating

I'm well overdue an update on the ol' blog, here. There has just been so much going on that it's been hard to find a free minute. So here it goes. Almost immediately after the company left a few weeks ago, we decided to move ahead with things and make the move to our new house. Within about 2-3 weeks, we had the entire upstairs painted, (which included stripping wallpaper in some places), new carpet was laid in two rooms and hardwoods refinished in three others. There has been much cleaning, updating/remodling, and of course the unpacking to do. (In addition to our already busy lives...) But fortunately we have really great families who, when we say, "Come! We're going to work your fingers to the bone this weekend, and by the end of things you'll be exhausted and sore. Oh, and you won't get paid for this. Just do it out of the goodness of your heart!", they answer with a resounding, "We'll be there!" How lucky are we? We couldn't have done it without all their help. We've just had so many folks who were willing to pitch in and help make this move much smoother and easier.



And we're finally feeling settled in. We all really love it here. It's an older home with lots of character to it and more space than we had before. The backyard is fenced in and there are lots of trees and greenery around that make it seem really homey. We have really nice neighbors, so all in all we're pleased as punch to be settled in and can start making this a home.



We also had a new addition to the big bunch of us: our niece, Ally, was born on July 20th. What a cutie is she?

Of course the kids have been up to their usual antics throughout the move. When you have kids, I think its just the way of the world, that if you are cleaning up one thing, they will be making a mess somewhere else. During one cleaning episode I came into the living room to find two rolls of paper towels and one roll of toilet paper completely undone and covering a large portion of the living room floor. To my question of "What in the world is this?", Elise responded, "Because the floor was hot lava and we couldn't walk on it." How can you argue with that logic? There have been a few other incidents, such as the time they were helping clean the bathroom. It went well for a little bit, they were cleaning their little hearts out and being entertained all at the same time, until eventually they moved on to the non-traditional cleaning products like hair gel, lotion, and vaseline. And then there was the time I heard Cory, somewhat loudly, asking who had painted the basement floor. He was not happy and I had no idea what had happened. It turns out the kids had decided to paint a piece of pegboard they found, not realizing that the paint was dripping down through the holes. An honest mistake, for sure.

And then there's the part where I lost the diamond out of my engagement ring. I was pretty devastated about it. I'm a very sentimental gal, so I took it pretty hard. I just looked down at my hand during the day and their was my ring--minus the diamond--with the prongs all jutting out in wierd ways. I don't remember doing that. There's no telling what happened and where on earth that diamond is. The whole ring would have been much easier to find, but just the diamond? I just get overwhelmed with the different possibilities of where it could have fallen. Cory was very understanding and sweet about it, but I still hate it--especially with our anniversary coming up this week. Somehow that makes it seem more sad.

So that's our week, in a nutshell. It's been an extremely busy few weeks, but we're still here, still happy, and that's about all you can ask for. :)