Moving.....

Well - I can't believe that 2 weeks have passed since we I was last able to post. I have been with out internet until today - and honestly, even if I had had internet, I probably wouldn't have had time or energy to use it anyway.

Tuesday we dropped the kids off at Frank and Tina's for the week. They were on fall break and so they got to spend the whole week hanging out with their cousin and Aunt and Uncle.

On Wednesday the 26th, we closed on our house - which was earlier than we had hoped and gave us a couple more days to try and move before the end of the month. Despite getting snowed on all that day, we still managed to get a bunch of stuff moved over to the new house that evening. Thursday we continued to pack and move over those non-daily essentials, and build the stuff we had gotten at Ikea so that we could minimize the amount of work to be done over the weekend. Turns out this was a good idea.

Friday night, Dan picked up the U-Haul and a few teen-age boys from the ward, who live nearby, came over to help load boxes. Then Dan unloaded the truck at the new house... by himself. I tried to help with as much of the small stuff as I could - but being the sweet caring hubby that he is, he wouldn't let me do much.

Saturday, a few guys from the Elder's quorum at church came over to help with moving the furniture. Dan and 4 other guys spent almost the whole day moving all our furniture into the van and then back out of the van and into our new home. The lunch we fed them doesn't seem like thanks enough for the hard work - which I know led to sore muscles later. :) Saturday we also picked up the kids and brought them to their new home. We showed them their new rooms and they had fun checking everything out. We also made a little stop at Peoria ward Halloween party - the kids enjoyed getting dressed up and weren't even too disappointed that we totally missed the trunk-or-treat part of the party.

Sunday was a bit of a break for church, and Dan trying to finish a few last things before he had to go out of town.... Thankfully my mom also arrived late Sunday from Texas to help. That night - he was up being sick half the night.

Monday, he left for Chicago. Unfortunately for him - every time he leaves - everything goes wrong - then he feels bad for being gone. Things started out relatively small and just got worse.... For starters, that night - I had the same bug Dan had and it left me exhausted, sore and barely functioning. I'm not quite sure how I would have managed with out my mom there. Tuesday was mostly my mom trying to help unpack with me spending a lot of time napping.

Monday was also Halloween - the kids loved getting dressed up - and loved answering the door for trick-or-treaters. My mom passed our candy while I walked the kids around the block - that was plenty of candy and plenty of walking for all of them. They had fun - they all got into saying "Trick-or-Treat!!!" And Evie seemed to enjoy herself... a least until she saw a scary mask. After that she wanted to be held a lot and kept talking over and over about the "Scary Monsters!!" One was particularly bad and had her screaming and crying until we got to the next house. Aaron has been a pirate for the last 3 years now - I guess it's he favorite. Funny - he never really talks about pirates any other time of the year.... By the way - Eileen is showing off her rings.


Wednesday was Eileen's birthday - My big girl is now 7 years old!! And for her birthday she got a Snow Day.... that's right - no school. We celebrated that night with cupcakes and Great Grandpa coming over. Eileen enjoyed her birthday dinner of cheeseburgers and beans and mommy tried to do something other than sleep and wish the kids were at school....


Also on Wednesday, we found out that the cable guy would not put cable into our basement - so he ran a line into the upstairs and then I had to wait for Dan to get it down to my comp (which is not set up for wireless)

Friday was when things started going really wrong. We had had a bit of trouble with some of the drains in the house, on Friday, it got a lot worse - like a huge inch deep puddle of sewage water in our laundry room. We had a plumber come over to snake the pipe. After working for an hour and a half, he was unable to pull out any problems - he concluded that there must be a break in the line. With a house stinking of sewage and no way to fix it, we woke up the kids and dragged them to Frank and Tina's in the night. I was up until after midnight talking to claims adjusters and trying to figure out why this was happening and what insurance or home warranty would cover.

Saturday we were met at the house by the sewage clean-up people, and the plumbers. The plumbers tried a few other things while waiting for the people to come mark the power lines so that they wouldn't dig into them while trying to fix the pipe. In they process, they were able to push something through the line and clear it up. They still don't know exactly what the problem was, because they weren't able to pull anything out, but for now we have working water. So thankfully (since both the insurance company and the home warranty people were trying to tell us that they would NOT cover replacing the pipe since it's not in the house, and since replacing the pipe might have taken at least another whole day) we were spared a large cost of repair, another night away from home and more emotional distress. Now we just need to get the sewage clean up done and the claims done and this will all be a distant memory.... I have pictures of this... but you don't want to see them... trust me....

Sunday, Dan came home to a wife who had actually recovered some of her sanity and to his own bed. He met us at church and we enjoyed meeting our new ward and are eager to make new friends. I went to choir today - it was nice to not be in charge of it, and it was nice to see the good turn out they have.