A Moving Story.... Part 2

Tuesday proved to me more than ever the blessings and care of God, and the amazing love and generosity of His people!!

When we went to bed on Saturday, as far as we knew we had a max of  7 people for sure helping us. That will be fine, we can manage, we said, it'll be good.

By Tuesday morning we had over a dozen people we were expecting, and as the morning wore on people kept on calling or just arriving.

In the end we had 21! people come and donate their time, muscles, energy, and vehicles. And that was on Tuesday alone!

While we did try to move a lot of the big outdoor stuff on Monday, we left most of the heavy appliances for when we had help. Hey, gotta make use of all that extra strength right? :)

Sometimes we had a bit of overkill... :D Or, maybe it takes 5-6 guys to move a Piano.. who am I to say??

Not to mention Couch sectionals! 

One thing about moving, is all the little odds and ends that you, being familiar with your surroundings, tend to completely miss!  The clock on the wall, the flowers, the knickknacks on the window sill, the Bible on the end of the couch.... Oh you mean those have to come too!?! :) Thankfully my awesome friend Nic and her amazing Mom were there to help us out and took charge of grabbing all those bits and pieces we overlooked!

Finally all the smaller vehicles (read everything but the U-haul) were packed, and we set off with a caravan north-wards. Josiah and a group of energetic young men were already at the new homestead unloading his trailer and truck load of wood, and we left another group of folks back at the old place to finish packing the U-haul.  Once our entourage of vans, mini-vans and other miscellaneous automobiles landed, it was all fast movement as we shuttled boxes from cars to the garage. With all the help, things were done quickly and efficiently and we were done in plenty of time for the big truck to arrive.

One wonderful thing about having large french doors, that just happen to have a deck off the back of them, is that you can back the U-haul truck right up to the deck, pull out the ramp and... 

... there you go! Right in the house! :)

And the advantage to a split level house is that there are shorter levels of stairs to take large objects down.

The disadvantage comes when you need to put these items on the lowest level, meaning a sharp turn to traverse before reaching the other short flight of stairs. :)

The U-haul was unloaded as fast as humanly possible, and a quick lunch was grabbed in shifts during the process. As soon as they could, a group ran back down with the U-haul to grab the big items that hadn't fit, before the time for returning the truck came.  Meanwhile up at the house, some serious cleaning went on... :)

We even unpacked a "few" boxes and tried to figure out where they went in the little kitchen. (those dishes have been moved at least twice by this point... :P )

After this I am afraid my photo documentation ceases. Thing just got too busy. The truck came back, we unloaded, Dad ran it down and returned it. Most of our helpers left, with many thanks from us, but a few overly dedicated ones (you know who you are!) stayed and helped us set up bunk beds, and chicken coops.

We had a quick dinner, and then gratefully said goodbye to that last group of friends, while we headed back home to pick up a load of poultry to put in the newly finished chicken coop.

Somehow, in the middle of it all, Josiah had managed to section off a part of the back room in the pole barn, which we had planned to use as a chicken coop.

It turned out very nice!!

The first flock of chickens arrived and were settled into their new home, then tired, exhausted, but happy we all crashed into our newly re-constructed, and re-located beds for a quick night's sleep, before heading back at it the next day.

.....to be finished. :)

~Chs

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

HAPPY BOXING DAY!!

If you had asked us pretty much at anytime in the last week what we were doing, the reply would have been some variation of "Packing..." or "Boxing..." Each day our to-do-list was long, and each night we would wipe what we could off and fill it up for the next day.

Josiah's boss was kind enough to park his large stock trailer in our driveway and let us pack it full. So that is what we did. We sure have enough stuff! :)

See? 

Our garage has become a staging place of boxes, boxes.....

and more boxes... :D And that's not even a recent photo! You should see it today!

Big ones, small ones, square ones we have every kind of box you could think of.

We are trying very hard to label them properly, and our very organized mother has had us relabel/sort things a couple times.  Of course there have been those moments where we have had to unpack a box due to the question "Hey! Where is my ____?" Oh whoops! Yup, packed away already.. :P

Pretty much anywhere you go in the house there is just a walk way between rows of boxes.

A lot of them are filled with books....

And one with a Kitten! (Don't worry this was only temporary)

 Of course, the more boxes were piled about, the more places we are able to label as "EMPTY"!

So this year finds us on December 26th actually celebrating "Boxing day" :) Because that's what we are doing... boxing up anything in sight.

So from our house to yours.....

HAPPY BOXING DAY!!!

:)

If anyone is interested in helping us move, the main move is planned on Tuesday Dec. 30th. We will be beginning around 9. Just contact us and let us know if you want to join the fun!! :) (We will also be doing preliminary and extra moving on Monday and Wednesday.)

~Chs

Noting the Fingerprints

Most of you know that we did indeed sell our house and are currently in a state of moving. But you might not know the "whole story", so in case you're interested, here is a tracing of the Fingerprints of God over the past few months.

It was the first week of November and the Sauves were tired of showings. We had decided way back when we put our house on the market that if it didn't sell, we would take it off the market the end of October because we didn't want to move in the winter. So that first week of November, Dad planned to call our realtor and end our house selling attempt.  Apparently God has a sense of humor... our realtor was out of town on Monday and Dad forgot to call right away on Tuesday. Before he remembered, we got a call that said, "Someone would like to see your house this Friday." After some hemming and hawing, we said yes to the showing but "No more! After this (we of course were assuming nothing would come of it) we are done."

So Friday came. We are used to showings; sometimes people breeze through in 10 min., if they're semi-interested they might stay for a max of 45min. This young family stayed for over an hour. We were cautiously excited. Personally I was still skeptical. Surely we weren't actually going to sell our house!? It seemed an impossibility. But with God nothing is impossible, and sure enough by Saturday we received their offer. God's Fingerprints were unmistakeable. 

The next few weeks were taken up with the thrilling, and sometimes depressing, occupation of looking at houses.

There were old ones....

and short ones.

Ones with small barns....

and fallen down barns.

Ones with furniture...

and ones without.

There were yellow ones...

 and green ones.

 

Kept up ones...

and run down ones.

And after looking at all those "ones" we still weren't closer to finding home. So we widened our search, and took off some limitations and swallowed some preferences.. still nothin'.  I think God was laughing at us a little, because there were a few houses that we had seen way back at the beginning and had marked off for certain reasons.

 One of them, because it had such an odd long narrow property, and an awful driveway, and backed to corn fields, and ... well we decided to look at it anyway. Sure enough, this house with the nasty driveway and the odd acreage just happened to be the house that God had destined to be our next residence (at least for the coming 7 years.. :) )

Sure the driveway is long and needs fixing, but God already provided for that, because the Pastor of the new church we just "happen" to be attending, just "happens" to do excavating and was so kind as to be willing to help fix the driveway even this late in the year.

Yes, the 10 acres are stretched out skinny and long, but they are flanked on one side by a large plot of unused land that might possibly be rent-able in the future.

True there is a marsh running through the property but the woods surrounding it are scattered with large Maple trees perfect for tapping, and the marsh will delight my ducks too! ;)

There is enough clear land for pasture, and the brushy land is filled with surprises, like 10 mature apple trees (in need of pruning to be sure, but there) and a large overgrown grape arbor.

So you see, if you follow the fingerprints of God, you'll find us at our new abode with 10 acres full of hard work and potential, and a little Quad house (the first Quad in our experience), happy and grateful for His guidance!

(we hope to be settled in our new house by the first week of Jan. but more on that next)

~Chs

Whose Chair?

We picked up a bouncy seat for when Baby Nephew is over... Kitten thinks it makes a nice Kitty seat too! :)

~Chs