Old house, New House

In the last 2 weeks, we closed on two real estate deals. We sold our first home in New York. It was bitter sweet leaving that home and passing it along. I loved that house. I worked hard on that house. That house was "done." But, I know that our friends who bought it will love that house too. Plus I'll get to occasionally see pictures of it. :)


A few days later, we closed on our new house here in Texas. And after all the issues we had with that closing, I seriously never want to have to close a real estate deal ever again. Or at least never use our terrible lender ever again...

Our new house in Texas is big, and beautiful, and we love it. Which is good, because it needs some love. Although the house is 8 years old, the original owners seem to have never, not once, purchased a can of paint or picked up a paint roller. Everything is brown or beige. Brown floor tiles, medium brown oak cabinetry, brick fireplace and hearth, brown granite, brown tiled backsplash (it matches the floor... no bueno) and super-flat, beige cheap paint on every single wall. Including the ceilings. Suffice it to say, I see paint in our future. Lots and lots of paint.

See all the brown? And empty cabinets? Still settling in here, but so much space in the new kitchen!

The day after we closed, Brian left town to attend his father's funeral. Which left me in charge of getting our family moved out of our furnished rental and 2 storage units that weekend. Luckily, our ward is big and helpful and we have a really big turn out to help get everything into the new house in less than 5 hours.

Once the help was gone, I found some of the kids toy boxes and got to work making an even bigger mess than I already had on my hands... because that's how moving in works.

Mt. Cardboard. In our main floor hallway. Impassable...

I went to bed exhausted... but everyone had an assembled bed to sleep in. With sheets on it. And blankets. I felt very accomplished, actually. So when Sunday morning came, and my kids woke me up too early, and I looked at the state of the kitchen and knew that I had NO IDEA where any of our dishes were, I packed the kids in the car, still in the pjs, for the nearest IHOP. It was Sunday, but I'm pretty sure Heavenly Father understood. 

Long story short, it was a long weekend. But we bought a new house, we had help, we got moved in, we broke the sabbath (kids gotta eat!) and then went to church anyway. Daddy came home. We survived... barely. And we keep wading through the boxes, trying to reassemble our lives here in Texas. It'll happen. Sometime...

First Day of School, Again

Today, a week later than expected due to real estate uncertainty, Allison started school again. We are now, officially, a Rowe Lane Rocket family!

Allison was super brave and super excited (97% sure that I was more nervous than her). I hope she has a great new start here. :)

The Great Frigid Fiasco

Otherwise known as: Moving Day in a Polar Vortex.

Oh yes, my friends, you read that right. Polar Vortex. Capable of turning nearly any and all plans involving being in the North East into a nice big mess.

You see, our move was scheduled for January 6-8th. Two days to pack, one to load and then we could be on our way to Texas early on January 9th. Plenty of time to get it all done with little stress.  Ha...

What went wrong? Well, for starters, our assigned moving crew found themselves on January 6th in Atlanta with all flights cancelled. For ice. What? Ice in Atlanta? Seriously? So, they rented a car and drove all day and night long to Pennsylvania to pick up the moving truck which they would then drive to Syracuse and be to us and packing no later than noon on the 7th. Except when they got to the truck, the temperatures were so cold that the diesel fuel had frozen to a slush in the truck's gas tank. I didn't even know that was possible!

That being the case, it was no impossible for our crew to move us, so we got an emergency assignment to a new crew that had just finished a job in Boston. They hopped on the road and got to us about 6 pm on January 7th. Fully 33 hours after our move was supposed to start. They now needed to cram our 3 day pack and load into a day and a half.

Our crew was kind of awesome. They started working immediately and packed late into the night. The packed and loaded with high temperatures of 8* and negative windchills. I've never been more glad to hire movers. Ever.

By 4 pm on January 8th, nearly everything we owned was boxed (with varying degrees of care) and loaded onto a 53" moving truck. Surprisingly, we took up a LOT of the truck... about 2/3rd. Who knew he had so much stuff?

 

It was really strange to walk around our boxed up house. The house we put so much time effort into making ours. I think I'll miss that house. It was a really great first home for us. :)

Luckily, but the morning of the 9th the cold had lifted some and we have no trouble with delays for our flights to Austin. And the kids did amazing. Especially Lindsey. She spend lots of time playing with those great princess figures that Santa left her

 And then this happened. Best thing ever. :)