3 Russell Moose

We are online in our new home--guess that makes it official. Move-in day, last Wednesday, went fantastic. We had a ton of help from Arrowhead and Riverside people on both ends of the move and I could not have asked for a smoother move. After the U-haul was unloaded, people stuck around and put beds together, unpacked my whole kitchen, broke down empty boxes, arranged furniture...really, it was beyond my hopes for how well a move could go.

Everything has been hard since that day. Praise the Lord we have a sense of humor and a desire to care for our kids rather than give into the exhaustion that the past 6 days have caused. Here's a little Re-cap, just the "highlights":

Wednesday night: we have no shower curtains, therefore, no one got clean. Fortunately Gail brought dinner, so that issue is solved.

Thursday morning: Leave by 8:30 am to return U-haul 5 minutes away. An HOUR AND A HALF later, we had 3 cranky kids, 2 cranky parents and a U-haul we were ready to leave on the side of the road. Finally got that taken care of. If there were another option besides renting a U-haul, we would never do it again. BAD experience.

Thursday at 10:45 am: Buy 3 Happy Meals (that never, ever happens) to calm cranky children (and they had every right to be cranky). 20 minutes on McDonald's Playground cheered them up. Walk to Target. Get a few things, including a shower curtain, liner and rings. Juliana is done. Skip other 6 errands, go home.

NO WATER.

A main pipe burst in the complex, no one had water, they didn't know when it would get turned back on. Let Jules nap, don't flush any toilets, wonder if we made a large mistake by living in an apartment.

Thursday, 4:30: Go to Costco. Use the restroom, eat dinner there (not exactly what I had in mind for our first few meals--McDonald's and Costco), buy some food, not lots, we have no pantry yet.

6:00: Get home, know right away the water is back on. Jules had apparently turned the faucet on, and when no water came out she never turned it off. Hang shower curtains and get CLEAN. Yea.

Friday: Gail brings Rocky. Dan and Carlee go to KMart to buy a pantry (think armoire with lots of shelves) and a cabinet for the bathroom. Carry very heavy boxes up stairs. Dan nearly throws his back out, Carlee not having fun yet. Dan starts to build pantry. It breaks. Really, really breaks. Now we are really not having fun.

Audrey comes with dinner (thank you!!!). Jenna and Juli stop by to say hi.

Call pantry company. They say we can return or exchange it, but they won't ship replacement pieces. No energy to box it back up, leave it, broken, against the wall.

Saturday: Starts well. Getting lots done. As I am fixing and filling the last drawer on the bunk beds, I slice my left index finger wide open. Lots of blood.

Stop the bleeding, Dan puts butterfly bandages on it. Come the realization that my tetanus shot is way overdue. Decide to go to Kaiser. Don’t know where Kaiser is. No one is home to look it up for us. Hack into someone’s unprotected wireless internet. Find address, find it on map. I decide to go alone. 2.5 hour wait. Get tetanus shotin left arm and lots of steri-strips put on my yellow finger (they cleaned it with iodine). Leave Kaiser. Go to Trader Joe’s. Have people over for dinner. Feels a little more like home.

Sunday: Go to church. Love it. Come home, fall asleep. Get nothing done. Go to spa, which was perfectly warm on Wednesday and Thursday. It’s freezing. It starts to rain while we are there. Decide to take 3 grumpy kids to dinner. Why do we do that?

Monday: Dan starts work. Have a great day with the kids and get some unpacking done.

Tuesday: Start to build cabinet for bathroom. It’s already broken. Power outage. Joanna comes by—yea! Dan installs overhead lighting (into existing ceiling fan) with very few problems. And, he set up our wireless!

Wednesday: Box both units back up, carry them down the stairs, go to Kmart. They have neither in stock and won’t give me a raincheck. Get my money back Decide to boycott Kmart (not hard to do, I don’t like it at all, but it’s really close!).

Go to grocery store, come home.

Add to all of this, Juliana’s exploration of everything—Dog food, trash, toilet (oh, and she is potty training too)—Gabe’s tummy issues that require a lot of changes of underwear, Mckenna’s disappointment that we didn’t start homeschool the first day, and Dan’s and my exhaustion. It’s been rough.

But, it’s been good. We love being on our own, we love Riverside, we love our church, we love being close to a lot of people. We love going through hard things and learning to keep perspective, a positive attitude, and a sense of humor.