The truck stops here!

It took at least a dozen trips to get a house full of “extras” into the storage unit to make the house look fake fabulous.

We paid by the month, and as the house was sold and the month was over, we decided to bring everything back home in one fell swoop.

Four teens, one U-Haul, and two hours and we had a house full of belongings back home.

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It was kinda fun…. on this end.

Not so much in the basement…

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Maptastic

As I uploaded the photos from my phone I realized I had a lot of screen shots from maps.

This first one shows the region of South Carolina we are moving to.  Hey – I guess I need to make a moving tag.

This map also shows the “fall line” and supposedly the further north you go from the fall line the less likely it is that an alligator will be your neighbor.  I am 100% serious when I say that was a major consideration while job hunting.

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This map shows the largish area we would consider a house within, and the smaller orange is our most preferred area.  The little black squiggle is wear our friends the Hoyt’s live. 

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Here is another map with schools and possible job’s for the kids with stars.

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This is a map of our current lot.  We do not plan to look for a home with acreage in SC.

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Silly setting and faith-filled friends.

We were up at 5AM and had kids up shortly after.  We hit the house hard, loading garbage cans and hampers and bedroom fans and suitcases and Stewart’s computer and a few boxes into the cars. 

And by 7:40AM we were out the door.  Stewart headed to Nan’s for some sleep; he’d been up all night after working FedEx til 2:30AM. 

Nigel went in to work early.  The first showing for the house was 8:30 AM.

There was Dunkin’ and a playground.  We took Marie to work at 9AM and then John, Tabitha, Johanna, Katriel and I went to visit Ba and Poppy.

We had lunch at Wendy’s and checked into our hotel by 3:30PM.

Some Property Brothers and rest.

(REST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

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Then we went to Rebecca and Dana’s house for a picnic.  Here we thought it was a big family gathering and we were joining in.  Turns out it was essentially our family and their Grandma Helena.  Later Rebecca’s sister, BIL, and niece came by.

The boys got to see Jonathan for the first time in almost a year.

It was so deeply life-giving to spend time with our friends.  Not only did Johanna and Katriel very much enjoy playing with Levi and Caleb, but the grown ups got to spend time catching up, and we ended the night in prayer.

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Changing Seasons

We are selling our house.  As I post this a few weeks later, it still feels sort of surreal.

When we first laid eyes on this house in January 2007, I was just overwhelmed with awe that God saw fit to allow me to live at this wonderful place.  Five bedrooms.  Five acres.  Private drive.  Walkout basement.  Fairport Electric. And just minutes from our first house.  It checked every box and then some.  It was absolutely a fixer upper, and we only did some of the fixing up – after all – there is that chronic case of wanderlust to contend with.

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It has never looked this clean.

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Hard to believe this will be our “old house” soon.

John headed down to South Carolina today to walk through the plant and be presented with the job offer.

To Be Continued.

That thing where you have the floors refinished

And destroy the rest of the house.

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This was their first attempt to move the couch from the living room into the family room.

I had to remove myself for the second attempt (that one worked).

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Fridge in the hall.

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Piano and some kitchen essentials in the laundry room.

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The process was dirty and loud.

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Very, very dirty.

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They did not do one thing to mitigate the dust.  Had we been aware, we would have made some attempts ourselves.

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It was very pretty after they were done.

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Except for everywhere else.

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We had fun foods and ate in weird places.

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This was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Another project

Here we go with another home project.

While we painted the cupboards and added the “ship lap” wall a few years ago, the counter has needed attention since we moved in.  So many times we’ve explored how to replace it.  But the odd angle has made it less than straight forward.  We also have never wanted to invest a LOT of money into a laundry room countertop.

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But after some time on Pinterest, I found a product we were interested in using.

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It was seriously easy to do. 

Base coat.  Spread the flecks.  Seal. 

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The sink is just a run of the mill stainless steel sink.  We had a few ups and downs finding a faucet that worked, but John found a way to make this one connect well.  I am extremely happy with the outcome.