Having Friends Over

Two weeks into living at the house, and we thought we were ready for guests.  While the house was far from unpacked or really clean, we were so happy to have our recent neighbors, Barb and Larry, over for dinner.  They got the grand tour followed by stew with my dad's biscuits.  (YUM!)  I made sure I took a picture with them because I recently realized I had none!  The girls always loved running across the street and visiting with 'Ms. Barb' and both she and Larry have been wonderful friends in our time there.  We plan to do other things with them and keep them around as much as possible!

Water Works

At the beginning of the month, we got city water put in.  A guy with a big digger came and dug a ditch from the front of our house to the street, where the water line is.  The only picture I got was of everyone watching the digger at work.

Among other exciting happenings that day was the realization that the water did, in fact, work.  This came in the form of water shooting violently into our basement.  I'm fairly certain that spiders were evicted from that portion of the basement ceiling.  After a startled moment and a little scrambling, we were able to get the water turned off at the street, avoiding further damage.  It was pretty easy to clean up, just scary for the girls (especially Evie), reminding them of the traumatic flood of last year.

Since then, Aaron's gotten my washer hooked up and my dishwasher working, as well as ALL the sink faucets replaced and the tub and toilet running.  Little by little, the house has been becoming useful and beautiful!

Family Picture, New House

Our new home.  We seem unable to get a picture where everyone is looking at the same place at the same time without making silly faces, so this was our best shot of the day.  Not to mention it was kind of last-thought thing right before heading to our new church.  But I'm glad I took it.  We'll take other family pictures there and realize how we've all grown since this one.

Improving

Some things around here are starting to feel much better!  For one, we've got play areas for the kids all put together.  This is one small part of the deck.

 Aaron mowed the lawn - it took several hours with our push mower.  Not to mention that those hot hours have to be repeated every week for the next couple months.  I love seeing the clean-cut lawn!

 These lilacs are just one of the many beautiful plants around the house.  There are some pretty red flowers on a bush that I think are called ceretopetalum, a little bush with white flowers and, sadly not photographed at all, a single black tulip out in front of a tree.  I'm glad I took the picture of the lilac when I did, because their season must not be long and the blooms were gone two days later.

I adore this swing.  We don't always use it, since it's on the side of the house that I can't monitor easily (the kids tend to stay on the deck, which I can close off).

 Another of the flowers.  Someone who lived here had a lovely green thumb!  I don't.  We'll see how all these beauties fare.

 This is the other side of the deck.  The kids like that all their big toys are out there.

Lots of other things are getting done.  Like, now our tub drains (rather than holding water for 5 days) and I can use the kitchen sink, we have city water, the tree that was threatening to fall on the house has been pulled/sawed down.  The list goes on.  I can't even remember everything that WAS wrong that has recently been fixed.  For sure, though, we've had an eventful two weeks of owning this house!

Saturday Dealings

On Saturday, before Aaron went in to work, he and his dad spent some time burning willow dropouts, pulling down a dead tree, and generally beautifying the yard.  We put the burn pile at the edge of the pool-reject area, with the added bonus that we burned out some of the dead cattails in there.  Not many, since I was too wimpy to let the fire get too close to the deck.

 While Dad and Aaron were busy with dead wood and I was keeping the deck wet with a hose (being terrified of a spreading fire), the kids entertained themselves by playing in the sandbox-turned-splashpool.  I only have pictures of the girls because Carson came and went at leisure and wasn't in when I had the camera out.

Moving Day

I didn't take many pictures on the day we moved out of the old house.  But here are the few.  Bro. C. was the first to come, and he pulled the U-Haul in, since it was more than a one-person job.  He also stayed (almost) the longest.

The kids got a kick out of running through the empty truck with Bro C's son.

This totally made my day!  As I was walking out the door to get a couple boxes of donuts, a brother walked up the front walk with these.  Here I was ready to give back to these brethren who came to help, and they just kept on giving to us.  It was a small thing, but I teared up a little over it.

These are pretty much all the guys from the ward who were helping on the 'load up' end.  They very effectively brought everything out of the house, then designated a couple of themselves to be in the truck.  It all went so smoothly!  I told Aaron that it seemed surreal that our house could get emptied of our lives in less than two hours.  He reminded me that it took 6 weeks of planning and packing.  I've only been back to the house once - it felt very empty.

By the time we were unloading, I had stashed my camera safely away, so I sadly did not get any pictures of those in our new ward who came to help, or of the house in shambles...that part isn't so bad, though.

setting the record straight

My wife is a really good wife but i think she left out they main reasons why this house was such a catch.  This house is located outside the inner city. We were in milwaukee which is a known for the worst schools in the country.  This city is known for haveing someof the best and the school is within walking distance.  The location could not be better.  The house we bought for 110000 is surrounded by 500,000 dollar homes our assessed value is 224000.  It could really have a good return on investment one day.  It is also very big almost twice the size of our last house.  This was needed space.  We can fix the other things but no one can fix a neiborhood.  I feel blessed to be here.