Moving Day

Saturday we officially moved everything we own out of the rental house to our new home. I figured out I've moved 12 times in the past 15 years which would explain why I hate moving so much.



We had a lot of friends helping, and we paid them in pizza and beer.



Also, we promised them free Moose hugs which Eric took full advantage of:


Dan and Michael climbed one of our trees and Erin was nice enough to hand them up some beers:


Here's a picture of us relaxing on our deck, the first day officially living at our new house:


As for unpacking, it's slow going. We have one bedroom and both bathrooms out of commission right now. This is the current state of disarray we are living in:


All the baby furniture and baby stuffins (this kid almost owns more stuff than we do!!!) are in the living room right now because last week the guy re-tiling our master bathroom, which is above the baby's room, discovered a leak in a pipe that will now require a complete tear out of the entire ceiling in the baby's room. So that room is a disaster area. Here is just one of the holes in the ceiling:


So for the past few days we've lived in a house crowded with boxes and stuff, and no working bathroom upstairs so that means my multiple trips to the bathroom every night are made downstairs to the guest bathroom that has only a toilet, no flooring, no sink. The cement board doesn't feel real good on your feet at 3am. Just sayin.

Just to prove he's pulling his weight, on moving day, Moose did move his own belongings:

The trench and raccoons

FINALLY we have air conditioning!!!! We had a geothermal heat pump installed last week. It only took 2 and a half days for the company to dig a trench, lay the tubing and install the heat pump unit downstairs.

It started out with a giant trench being dug on Monday morning, running all the way from the side of the house....




...down the strip of land we've been calling the "go-kart track".




They laid in the tubing...



...removed the old unit from the basement....


...and installed a brand spankin' new one!


I spent the week painting, painting, painting and one day braved a mass of hornets that were having a meeting to discuss undoubtedly evil things up on our front porch's light fixture. I gathered my courage and a can of hornet killer with a long range sprayer and fired. I came away without a sting! Colleen: 1, evil stingy bugs: 0



Last Thursday, Dave started ripping down the insulation that was hanging from the rafters in our pole barn.

BEFORE



Turns out there was a reason so much of it was falling down: Raccoon poop. Imagine as much raccoon poop as you could possibly imagine fitting on the top of that white insulation and then multiply it by seven. Then again. It was DISGUSTING. Beyond disgusting. I know you're thinking "why did she share that?" You wanna know why? Because it was far far far grosser than just that little bit I typed about it above. So consider yourself spared. You didn't have to smell it. Or see it. That's right, I am not posting pictures of the poo - you're welcome.

Here's an AFTER picture


Notice the rotten, sagging wood stacked up on those shelves in the back. Also covered with raccoon poop. On Saturday, Dan and Amadou helped Dave yank all of it down, a horrible and disgusting job. Suzi and I helped sweep up afterwards and for that Amadou, Suzi and Dan deserve the award for "bravest friends of all time".




AFTER


We rented a dumpster to throw away the myriad of junk/garbage that was left in the house and pole barn. Unfortunately, the rule for returning is: nothing can stick out of the top of the dumpster. As you can see we were failing miserably after the clean up:


Amadou stomped around on it, mashing it all down.


AFTER


In closing, here's a picture of Moose and I in front of the giant pile of hardwood that is going to be installed tomorrow in all 3 bedrooms. Moose was trying to lay down in my lap, yet again. I have less of a lap these days so he fails pretty much every time. It makes me laugh.

It sucks as it cuts

My cousins Mary Beth and Jason came for a visit this past weekend. On Friday we sat around in the sweltering heat on the front porch and discussed Jason's hair that was way too long for this heat. Dave offered to cut his hair for him. For those of you that don't know, Dave owns a Flowbee and has used it for 15 years. Why? Well because it's awesome and it vacuums up your hair as you cut it - DUH! Jason was eager to have Dave cut his hair with it and after witnessing the haircut, Jason's friend wanted his cut too. Dave turned the front porch into a barber shop.


Saturday, Dan, Amadou and Eric came over to help Dave clear another section of the forest. It's hard to capture the dramatic change fully but here's from a couple of weeks ago:

BEFORE


AFTER


It's hard to capture the heat on "film" but I think I sorta did with this picture. My lens fogged up because of the humidity.


So what have I been doing? Lots. All the doors came with brass knobs and all the bathrooms had brass hardware so I switched them all out with brushed nickle. I'm getting better at using power tools. Also, the painting is finally done in all the bedrooms. I can't take all the credit, I had some help from Dave's Dad & Mom.

Baby's room
BEFORE





AFTER




Guest Bedroom
BEFORE



AFTER



Master Bedroom
BEFORE




AFTER


And now for the obligatory Moose photo...here he is "helping" Amadou with the yard work.

Itty Bitty Tiny Things

Let's take a break from the house for a second.

We have received so many great things from family and friends for the baby in recent weeks.

First off, I bought a large patchwork fabric in Ghana on our honeymoon but it needed to be finished with a back and edge. My mom took it home and made a quilt out of it and it came out so NICE! It's so colorful, I know the baby will love staring at it. It has soft brown fabric on the back with silk edging.



We also received this blanket that is so cute:


Another gift I have been squealing over is a TINY TINY pair of baby jeans AND jacket. I put a sharpie next to them so you can tell how small they really are.



I think just baby pants in general are adorable because they are SO SMALL....see:


Lastly, today I bought a onesie and because I swore I wouldn't buy any baby things till the baby was born, I'm going to say this one was from Moose. Also, I've noticed this blog seems to always end with something about moose and this entry will be no exception.

Gutters, Hornets and a baby pool

Saturday, Amadou and Chris came down to help Dave with work on the house. I wish I'd taken more photos of the section of the forest they clear cut BEFORE they did it. But let's just say, the side of the pole barn was totally overgrown, you could not walk down this path you see here. Not at all. You couldn't even SEE the side of the pole barn.



The clear cutting revealed a fire wood shelter along with rotting particle board feed bin that sort of looked like something we might find a decomposing body in. It will be added to the burn pile.


These evil, awful, horror movie style trees are all over our property and have sliced up Dave and anyone who has come over to help with yard work. I am not sure what trees these are but those thin "branches" you see sticking out of the trunk are actually GIANT thorns that are very sharp. They completely cover all branches and the entire trunk and they are all at least 15 feet tall. We have about a dozen of these trees and they are just downright evil.


The guys pulled up all of the nasty glued down office carpet from the basement that was covered in mold and some sort of cat awfulness, which combined for a pretty bad smell. They also removed a bunch of garbage left in the basement, such as: a little kid's kitchen playset, a fake Christmas tree, some of those fab aqua kitchen tiles, stero equipment, a falling apart desk and drywall covered with mold. We kept the BB gun. (now we need to rent a dumpster)



Our firewood pile grew last week too because Dave's dad came down and helped Dave chop down the birch tree that was (stupidly) planted RIGHT NEXT to the house.

BEFORE
Here is the tree (on the left side of photo) and all it's offending branches that clogged the gutters.


AFTER
And here's Dave (sans tree) looking at one of the many small trees he pulled out of the gutters that were under the birch's branches. I don't think the previous owners ever cleaned the gutters.



Dave pulled about a dozen giant hornet nests off the house today, and for those of you that know me well, any flying stinging insect makes me panic so just photographing these empty nests made me really squeamish - here's just a sampling of them:



I've been working hard too, but it's all painting indoors and it's not quite done yet so that is being saved for a later post.

Lastly, Moose is a very spoiled dog - he has his own pool. He loves cooling off by crawling around the circumference of the pool on his belly, dunking his entire snout under water and blowing bubbles.


Just don't tell him he'll have to share this with a toddler one day.