The Road Goes Ever On and On...: My Life is One Long Blog Entry

We all know "normal" is a relative term, right? Well, my life is not even relatively close to the common man's concept of normal. I told James, "Why does everything in life seem to amount to a blog entry?"

For example, how many moms get this said to them first thing in the morning, "Mom, the snake is gone." Oh yes, the snake that was captured in our back yard, brought in the house, held in a box that it "could not get out of," and was to be released today in what was amounting to a glorious release ceremony by the triplets...disappeared. So yes, there is a snake somewhere in my house. Not a large one, nor a poisonous one, but a snake. The sad thing is, in the midst of all the chaos, I'm only slightly concerned. Yep, it's all relative.

I know I haven't blogged in quite a while, but life has been zooming by. We are due to leave on the 20th (yes that is next week, but please don't remind me of that) and will meet our little sweethearts on the 25th. I would say I am super excited, but to be honest, I am equal parts in denial and in over my head. This is not to say I am not over the moon about finally bringing my babies home. That part is very exciting to me. It's just that there is SO MUCH that has to be done before I leave. Packing for four, unpacking the house, setting up the girls' room, planning school for when I'm gone, making notes so James knows how many times to make a recipe, etc. etc. So why am I taking the time to blog? Well, I think my Aunt Bee might disown me if I don't (just kidding Aunt Bee, well, sort of).

Moving amounted to a Herculean task. It didn't just involve getting our copious amounts of stuff out of the old house, it also involved sprucing up said old house for our tenants. Thankfully we had some wonderful friends that helped move and clean. This is what our family room looked like with new floors, paint and a new fan/light.

Here is some of the cleaning crew. Would you believe our church secretary came and cleaned our stove? Now that's service!

When the guys were re-installing the dishwasher, I was informed that it "piddled." I asked, "You mean like an old man?" To which the response was by our friend Dan, "Well, you don't need to get personal." The upshot of that "piddling," was we had to get a new dishwasher. In addition, we also had to get a new stove. Yeah, ca-ching, ca-ching.

This is what the kitchen finally looked like at 1am the day our tenants were moving in:

And this is what the new house looked like at the same time:

Here's another view from the outside looking in. And yes, there is a tree in the entry way. Remember what I said about "normal?"

So our major moving day was a very long one. Our friends from Galt came to help. Our friend Chris helped move and his wife Karen stayed with the triplets. Carol, the church secretary, came and took my laundry to do (she deserves a raise, doesn't she?). Then our friend, Dan, "happened" to be riding by on his bike, and in the meantime installed our dryer. I figured I was impressing our new neighbors in that I had a nanny, an on-call repairman, and a laundry lady.

Here's poor Monkey Boy after hour 12 of the move:

After that long day was over and we were in our new house in the wee hours of the morning, James tried to light the pilot light, only to discover that it would not light. It turns our that our water heater was the original (21 years old) and had decided to retire from its heavy labor (I would too if I had to heat enough water for 10 people a day). We would go for two days without hot water. Thankfully, our good buddy, Seth, sells water heaters. He brought one home for us and helped install it. I think water heater installers are the newest super heroes.

While we were waiting to have hot water, I decided that we would go to our old house to take our showers. I packed up the six, and after karate practice went over, praying that James had not turned off the hot water at that house. When we pulled up, we saw the curb still filled with all the junk ( I mean, gently used items), that the donation truck was supposed to pick up. I told the kids that we had to haul it all back in the garage. We did that, and in the process, the garage door decided to stop working. Thankfully, I remembered how to disengage it so we could manually pull it down (thanks Dad). It was about 10pm before we all headed home to the new house.

Let me tell you, that whole shower experience could have gone much differently had God not decided to show me some mercy. Big D and I had been back and forth that day picking up smaller loads (oh, did I mention that James had jury duty the week we were moving?). The contractor was also there working on the floors. At one point in the day, D and I were doing errands and I asked him if the older kids had their karate gis at the new house. No, they didn't. Heavy sigh from Mom, and yet another trip back to the old house. When we approached the house, we saw our contractor's van coming the opposite direction and pulling into our court just ahead of us. He had been done for the day and just "happened" to forget something, and just "happened" to retrieve it at the very same time we were coming. I followed him in as he opened the door. He left, D got the karate gear, and I walked down to the kitchen to get one thing. As I walked down the hall, I glanced out of the corner of my eye and spotted my keys to the house that I had apparently left there earlier! If we hadn't both forgotten something and shown up at the very same time, I would have shown up that night with six kids and gotten no showers (James was working that day of course). To say I was thankful was an understatement!

We are definitely settling in at the new house. I absolutely love it and am very grateful to have it. We see many good times ahead. In the meantime, we've already had some entertaining goings on...

When we moved the piano (thanks to a friend who has a truck with a special lift), James opened it up and discovered about three boxes of flashcards that had been missing.

Apparently the triplets were using it as an ATM machine, but no money came out. Oh, there's plenty of money coming out of us these days, but not the piano.

I had made sandwich cookies and put them in the refrigerator because the kids like them cold. Apparently there is more than one baker in the family. When I opened the freezer, this is what I found (one guess as to who put those there, no, not the dad, he's just sampling...doesn't everyone love wooden cookies?):