A Moving Story.... Part 1

(Even dividing this by each day, these posts are going to be long.. there's just no way around it. :) )
 On Sunday, December 27th we received the keys to our new house!! So "on our way home" from church we stopped by the newly acquired and now vacant abode to walk through.

The french doors in the dining room are one of the many things we love about this cozy quad.

The wood stove insert in the family room would definitely be another favorite!!

This is what our living room at the old house looked like Sunday evening. Kitten and Sadie Rose weren't quite sure what all was going on, and Kitten wasn't sure she liked it. But she did enjoy climbing all over the boxes! :) We had the van trailer and truck all loaded up on Saturday and there were just a few things to do Sunday night in preparation for the first journey the next morning.

Monday morning dawned cool but beautiful, with clear skies and a stunning sunrise.

Josiah proved the "old adage" about duck tape fixing everything - true. :)

This first trip we handled on our own, and beside from the insides of the van and mini-van being filled with boxes, most of the stuff we took were outdoor items.

The truck and big van each pulled a trailer. Josiah's truck had this adorable baby trailer which we filled to the brim with Cinder blocks. You never know what you might need and we brought everything we could: cinder blocks, pallets, fencing, metal posts, and an entire wood pile! :)

The van among other things carried our 70 plus puzzles. :) Mom had come up with this great way of organizing the garage using a colored dot system and pallet stations.

One thing we wanted to do before the big move the next day, was ripping up the "living room" (now dining room) carpet. It was an old shag carpet and desperately needed to go.

You know how hard it is to take a photo of yourself working?? :D This is the best I could do. The floor was absolutely gross underneath the carpet; stinky and dirty.

Oh, and there were all the fun nails and staples left in the wood that we had to pull out manually....

We headed back around noon, eating lunch on our way, and met 2 good friends back at the old house to re-load. Mr. Reiche was so kind to come help us out, and Josiah's boss Jim (who had been so wonderful to let us borrow and pack his stock trailer) was there too. We loaded one of our freezers in the van, and

Oh, yeah straw... that has to come too. :)

Our caravan of trailers. Once again heading north.

We had loaded the stock trailer well... which of course meant it took a while to unload. :) And then we had to find places for everything in the new pole barn. It's amazing how fast you can fill up buildings!! Thankfully our friend Stu Eddy met us up at the new house to help unload.

Had to take a break for "sustenance" as Faith would say, in our newly carpet-less dining room.

After dinner Faith and I painted the floor to seal it and cut down on the smell. (Oh look I'm actually working! :) Thanks to Theresa for this photo)

Meanwhile in the family room Josh was goofing off working around the fireplace...

With the floor painted, and everything unloaded, the tired group (us) headed back "home" for the night, hoping to get a good nights sleep to prepare us for the next leg of the venture - the main move on Tuesday.

~Chs