We are learning about life living back home. This week has been interesting. My parents were out of town for the week visiting my aunt and uncle. Consequently, I learned about the responsibilities of living back home this week.
First of all, I got the 'Grandpa' duty. Mom asked me to at least pop out on him once this week. He's 90, but in very good health...but he lives by himself, so Mom likes to check in on him at least weekly. So, we pop over on Wednesday after dinner. Ring the doorbell, but no one answers. We do it again to no avail. Well, Grandpa's hearing isn't the best. So, we head to the front door and knock real loud a couple of times. No answer. So, Jut goes and peeks in the window. Sure enough, there's Grandpa watching the tv. So, Jut flags him down and we visit with him for awhile. That was fun responsibility.
Second, we got the 'corn' job. My parents plant more sweet corn than our entire extended family could eat for the year, I think. Well, a batch was ripe this week while they were gone. Since I am home, it fell to me to pick it, shuck it, blanch it and freeze it.
So on Friday, we went to pick it. I wish I would have had the camera. E went with Jut and I. Number 1, she loves the dirt. Playing is dirt is great and a garden is full of dirt...so she was having fun from the get-go. Then, she found my grocery bag full of shucked corn. She pulled out one ear, ate a few bites. Pulled out another and ate almost an entire row...pulled out another and ate a for awhile...you get the picture. She never eats cooked corn, but I guess she likes it raw because she at least one full ear. Anyway, the corn made her just a sticky mess...and you combine that with the already dirtyness of playing in the garden. She was a site to behold. When I got her home and threw her in the tub, I even found a corn worm in her hair. GROSS! But, she had a good time and so did Jut and I.
We took the corn home and froze 27 pints. Not a ton, but it was a good first effort. I've done it numerous times with Mom, but never on my own. So, I put my first notch on my belt as a 'real' grown up. I wouldn't say that doing up the corn is fun, but it wasn't too bad either.
The nicest thing about being home happened this evening. Mom and Dad needed to go grocery shopping and so they dropped by this evening on their way to the grocery store. We were able to chat about their trip and they played with E. We ordered pizza and had dinner. It was really, really nice. I'm glad to be home.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Settling in
We are managing to get settled in. E loves our new house with all the rooms and the stairs. She's always getting into something new here.
We have been exploring the area. Today we walked to a wonderful park that had a huge wooden playscape. E made a new friend, Caden. He's 2 and had lots of fun showing E how to go up the steps and down the slide. She would have followed him anywhere. It was pretty cute.
The landlords are FINALLY finished with the house. They finished the last touches to the bathroom yesterday. Yipee!! However, I was thankful that they were in the house because our sewer had a couple blocks and it was backing up into the basement. We didn't know about it because we never went down to the basement. So, luckily they were there and got the problem fixed right away and cleaned up the yuckiness, too.
Internet and phone are being hooked up next week and it will finally become "home"...I miss those 2 items. I'm a bit too dependent upon the Internet, I think. This month break has been good for my 'addiction'. ;-)
We have been exploring the area. Today we walked to a wonderful park that had a huge wooden playscape. E made a new friend, Caden. He's 2 and had lots of fun showing E how to go up the steps and down the slide. She would have followed him anywhere. It was pretty cute.
The landlords are FINALLY finished with the house. They finished the last touches to the bathroom yesterday. Yipee!! However, I was thankful that they were in the house because our sewer had a couple blocks and it was backing up into the basement. We didn't know about it because we never went down to the basement. So, luckily they were there and got the problem fixed right away and cleaned up the yuckiness, too.
Internet and phone are being hooked up next week and it will finally become "home"...I miss those 2 items. I'm a bit too dependent upon the Internet, I think. This month break has been good for my 'addiction'. ;-)
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Moved in!
We've finally moved into our house!! Yipee! However, the laundry/utility room is not finished. Consequently our washer and dryer are still sitting in the middle of our kitchen...not the ideal place for them. But, we are there and no longer residences of my folks...so that's a good thing.
I have 1/2 of the kitchen unpacked and hopefully will finish that and the living room this evening...and then it will begin seeming more like home and not just a place filled with boxes.
I'm going to be adding pics sometime...hopefully soon.
I have 1/2 of the kitchen unpacked and hopefully will finish that and the living room this evening...and then it will begin seeming more like home and not just a place filled with boxes.
I'm going to be adding pics sometime...hopefully soon.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Moving day...and our 6th anniversary
Well, moving day has come and gone. All of our worldly possesions are at 425 Euclid Avenue. However, we are NOT living at 425 Euclid Avenue. Upon entering the house on Saturday, we found a note from our landlord explaining that the house was not ready. Mind you, we knew that the downstairs bathroom would not be ready because they are in the process of completely redoing the entire bathroom, but we thought that we would be able to stay there. But, we were wrong. Luckily, I had packed overnight bags, and so after all of the boxes were left inside the house, we went to Mom and Dad's and spent the night.
The moving out went very smoothly. E slept until 9. So, Jut and I were able to get a lot of those last boxes finished without E "helping". When the guys from St. Louis showed up, we plopped E in her high chair to eat a couple of popcicles that wouldn't make the move and she sat there for at least an hour watching all of the furniture get moved out of the house. She was quite entertained by the entire process. She also was fed numerous donut holes as she sat there...I don't even want to guess how many she ate that morning! But, she was a happy girl all day. We left our house at 2, ate a quick bite, and hit the road for Alma. E wouldn't eat any lunch at Wendy's, but as soon as we hit the road, she decided that she was hungry. So, she downed about 6 aprocots, a couple handfuls of teddy grams and she zonked out for the rest of the ride to Mom and Dad's.
The moving in wasn't quite so smooth. We went from living in a 1-story duplex to a 2-story house that is at least 100 years old. Everything in the house is built very small. Our headboard was the first piece of "big" funiture to go up the stairs...well, the wall at the turn in the stairs now has a very nasty scrape and needs a bit of repair work after the headboard passed by. Our mattress fit up the stairs because it could bend. Then, they tried my dresser...there was no way that was going to make it up the stairs. That also meant that E's dresser wasn't going to make it up the stairs either because it is deeper and longer than mine.
Now, we had a bit of a quandry...2 dresser downstairs and 3 bedrooms upstairs. How does that work out? We haven't quite got that figured out. Fortunately, the house is huge...about 1800 sq feet. So, I think that the "office" is now going to be a dressing/office area. The house also has a large foyer, and I'm thinking that E's dresser will stay in the foyer. Not ideal, but it will be workable.
You might be thinking...well, can you put any of the furniture through the windows upstairs? The windows upstairs are very narrow. Our window a/c is barely going to fit. It is definately not an option to hoist the dressers through the windows.
The fridge was alow an issue. It wouldn't fit inside the front door...so we had to pull of the front door and the doors to the fridge, but afterwards, it went right through. The couch was another fun piece of furniture to make it though that tiny front door, but it eventually made it with some pushing and pulling. So, we at least got everything inside the house...even if its not in the rooms that we thought that it would reside.
So, Sunday was our 6th anniversary. With all the craziness, we didn't even remember until we were at church. After church, we headed to the grocery store to buy stuff for lunch to feed us and my dad. We had a glorious meal of hamburgers and potato salad. Then, we crashed for the entire afternoon. Jut went to youth group at 5. When he got home, I had just put E to bed, and we decided that we needed to go to our house on Euclid to get all the boxes out of the kitchen so that they could finish doing their work in there...and maybe do something special since it was our anniversary.
So, we went to the house. Moved our boxes. Explored our new home without 20 other people around. Thought about where to place furniture...grabbed a couple more items that seemed important, and left.
So, there is supposedly a new ice cream shop in town. So, we went there...and it was closed. Well, Big Boy was where we first met for coffee, so we headed there...it was closed. The only thing open was the drive-throughs at the fast food joints. So, we went to Arbys and ordered some jalopeno poppers and a jamoca shake and drove to a park at the edge of the Pine River and played the "would have you ever imagined" game for a bit. Then, we ended our anniversary by sleeping at my parent's house for the night. Exciting day. However, it was better than the anniversaries that we spent as the dean's of camp at Wolervine...so go figure.
The moving out went very smoothly. E slept until 9. So, Jut and I were able to get a lot of those last boxes finished without E "helping". When the guys from St. Louis showed up, we plopped E in her high chair to eat a couple of popcicles that wouldn't make the move and she sat there for at least an hour watching all of the furniture get moved out of the house. She was quite entertained by the entire process. She also was fed numerous donut holes as she sat there...I don't even want to guess how many she ate that morning! But, she was a happy girl all day. We left our house at 2, ate a quick bite, and hit the road for Alma. E wouldn't eat any lunch at Wendy's, but as soon as we hit the road, she decided that she was hungry. So, she downed about 6 aprocots, a couple handfuls of teddy grams and she zonked out for the rest of the ride to Mom and Dad's.
The moving in wasn't quite so smooth. We went from living in a 1-story duplex to a 2-story house that is at least 100 years old. Everything in the house is built very small. Our headboard was the first piece of "big" funiture to go up the stairs...well, the wall at the turn in the stairs now has a very nasty scrape and needs a bit of repair work after the headboard passed by. Our mattress fit up the stairs because it could bend. Then, they tried my dresser...there was no way that was going to make it up the stairs. That also meant that E's dresser wasn't going to make it up the stairs either because it is deeper and longer than mine.
Now, we had a bit of a quandry...2 dresser downstairs and 3 bedrooms upstairs. How does that work out? We haven't quite got that figured out. Fortunately, the house is huge...about 1800 sq feet. So, I think that the "office" is now going to be a dressing/office area. The house also has a large foyer, and I'm thinking that E's dresser will stay in the foyer. Not ideal, but it will be workable.
You might be thinking...well, can you put any of the furniture through the windows upstairs? The windows upstairs are very narrow. Our window a/c is barely going to fit. It is definately not an option to hoist the dressers through the windows.
The fridge was alow an issue. It wouldn't fit inside the front door...so we had to pull of the front door and the doors to the fridge, but afterwards, it went right through. The couch was another fun piece of furniture to make it though that tiny front door, but it eventually made it with some pushing and pulling. So, we at least got everything inside the house...even if its not in the rooms that we thought that it would reside.
So, Sunday was our 6th anniversary. With all the craziness, we didn't even remember until we were at church. After church, we headed to the grocery store to buy stuff for lunch to feed us and my dad. We had a glorious meal of hamburgers and potato salad. Then, we crashed for the entire afternoon. Jut went to youth group at 5. When he got home, I had just put E to bed, and we decided that we needed to go to our house on Euclid to get all the boxes out of the kitchen so that they could finish doing their work in there...and maybe do something special since it was our anniversary.
So, we went to the house. Moved our boxes. Explored our new home without 20 other people around. Thought about where to place furniture...grabbed a couple more items that seemed important, and left.
So, there is supposedly a new ice cream shop in town. So, we went there...and it was closed. Well, Big Boy was where we first met for coffee, so we headed there...it was closed. The only thing open was the drive-throughs at the fast food joints. So, we went to Arbys and ordered some jalopeno poppers and a jamoca shake and drove to a park at the edge of the Pine River and played the "would have you ever imagined" game for a bit. Then, we ended our anniversary by sleeping at my parent's house for the night. Exciting day. However, it was better than the anniversaries that we spent as the dean's of camp at Wolervine...so go figure.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Weekend road trip
What a crazy couple of days...
Let me give everyone a little of a backdrop to this story. E is teething. Her molars. Can you say "Ouch". The poor little peanut has been doped up on Tylenol and Oragel for a week. She hasn't been sleeping at night...so needless to say, neither are we. 2-3 hour stints of wakeful unhappiness each night were common place during the week.
So, of course, why wouldn't we pack up for a trip to Indianapolis for the weekend? Everyone loves to have a crabby baby next to them in the hotel, right?! Thursday night was another one of the those long nights. We had planned on leaving at 10Am...well, we didn't even roll out of bed until 9 due to our 3 hour stint of unhappy wakefulness from 2:45 to 6. So, it was a late start. We eventually rolled out of town around 1.
E was tired! It was way past time for a nap. But, the car seat now faces foward...oh, the fun and joy of looking foward. So, one cannot sleep...there is too much to see. We made it to Lapeer before she fell asleep. Once again, it wasn't really happy wakefulness during this time...I was questioning our decision to leave until E slept until just before the MI border. The remainder of the trip was much better than we had anticipated.
Once we arrived at the hotel, it was time to explore. E checked out every nook and cranny in our hotel room. She then proceeded to check out the rest of the hotel. Like all toddlers, she has a natural draw to the stairs, which she must have climbed at least 10 times. At 9, I finally called her exploring quits and made her go to bed. Hopefully our neighbors were not in their room as bed time insued. Jut could hear her screaming from the lobby at one point in time. But, eventually tired one out and she slept peacefully...for awhile.
About 2:45 AM, the little peanut woke up very unhappy. We gave her the teething medications, but to no avail...she was not going to be quiet unless her mom stood up and held her. Our poor neighbors! I walked the floor with her for about 1.5 hours and Jut took her down to the lobby for an hour or so after that...we again were awake until about 6. Crazy baby!
When she woke back up at 9:20, she was very happy to find her Grandma and Grandpa waiting for her in the lobby.
So with much trepidition, we were off to a wedding with a baby with not much sleep and 2 parents that didn't get quite as much sleep as her.
But, as E proved with Aunt Stacey's wedding in December, she loves a good wedding and she's up for the challenge. E was as good as gold. She let everyone hold her. She loved having a shadow follow her everywhere watching her go up and down and up and down all the wonderful staircases at Aunt Evie's house. Grandpa kept close tabs on her and made sure that she did not get into too much trouble.
She got fed more treats than she had ever been fed. She got to eat two of her new favorite foods...chocolate chip cookies and blueberries. The blueberries were divine!! However, I was glad that she was in disposable diapers because when those blueberries came out the other end...YIKES! The chocolate chip cookies were wonderful too. She made more of a mess with them than she dreamed of making with her 1 year b-day cake.
She was a trooper, but at 6 (mind you, no naps today), Jut and I decided that we had pushed our good luck long enough, and we headed for the road. We didn't think that she could keep rolling for much longer. Sure enough, within 5 minutes of being strapped into her carseat, she was out!
E slept for the entire trip home...5.5 hours. However at 11:30, guess who woke up, wide awake ready to play. So, we fed her dinner (at midnight, do you call it dinner?) and played until 2. Crazy girl. She was awake at 7:30, again.
We were tired!!! and still are, I think...what a fun, crazy weekend!
Let me give everyone a little of a backdrop to this story. E is teething. Her molars. Can you say "Ouch". The poor little peanut has been doped up on Tylenol and Oragel for a week. She hasn't been sleeping at night...so needless to say, neither are we. 2-3 hour stints of wakeful unhappiness each night were common place during the week.
So, of course, why wouldn't we pack up for a trip to Indianapolis for the weekend? Everyone loves to have a crabby baby next to them in the hotel, right?! Thursday night was another one of the those long nights. We had planned on leaving at 10Am...well, we didn't even roll out of bed until 9 due to our 3 hour stint of unhappy wakefulness from 2:45 to 6. So, it was a late start. We eventually rolled out of town around 1.
E was tired! It was way past time for a nap. But, the car seat now faces foward...oh, the fun and joy of looking foward. So, one cannot sleep...there is too much to see. We made it to Lapeer before she fell asleep. Once again, it wasn't really happy wakefulness during this time...I was questioning our decision to leave until E slept until just before the MI border. The remainder of the trip was much better than we had anticipated.
Once we arrived at the hotel, it was time to explore. E checked out every nook and cranny in our hotel room. She then proceeded to check out the rest of the hotel. Like all toddlers, she has a natural draw to the stairs, which she must have climbed at least 10 times. At 9, I finally called her exploring quits and made her go to bed. Hopefully our neighbors were not in their room as bed time insued. Jut could hear her screaming from the lobby at one point in time. But, eventually tired one out and she slept peacefully...for awhile.
About 2:45 AM, the little peanut woke up very unhappy. We gave her the teething medications, but to no avail...she was not going to be quiet unless her mom stood up and held her. Our poor neighbors! I walked the floor with her for about 1.5 hours and Jut took her down to the lobby for an hour or so after that...we again were awake until about 6. Crazy baby!
When she woke back up at 9:20, she was very happy to find her Grandma and Grandpa waiting for her in the lobby.
So with much trepidition, we were off to a wedding with a baby with not much sleep and 2 parents that didn't get quite as much sleep as her.
But, as E proved with Aunt Stacey's wedding in December, she loves a good wedding and she's up for the challenge. E was as good as gold. She let everyone hold her. She loved having a shadow follow her everywhere watching her go up and down and up and down all the wonderful staircases at Aunt Evie's house. Grandpa kept close tabs on her and made sure that she did not get into too much trouble.
She got fed more treats than she had ever been fed. She got to eat two of her new favorite foods...chocolate chip cookies and blueberries. The blueberries were divine!! However, I was glad that she was in disposable diapers because when those blueberries came out the other end...YIKES! The chocolate chip cookies were wonderful too. She made more of a mess with them than she dreamed of making with her 1 year b-day cake.
She was a trooper, but at 6 (mind you, no naps today), Jut and I decided that we had pushed our good luck long enough, and we headed for the road. We didn't think that she could keep rolling for much longer. Sure enough, within 5 minutes of being strapped into her carseat, she was out!
E slept for the entire trip home...5.5 hours. However at 11:30, guess who woke up, wide awake ready to play. So, we fed her dinner (at midnight, do you call it dinner?) and played until 2. Crazy girl. She was awake at 7:30, again.
We were tired!!! and still are, I think...what a fun, crazy weekend!
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Beginning Blogging
Well, I guess I've entered into the world of blogs. I'm not sure how, but with the newest changes in our lives occuring, I figured it would be the easiest way for people to stay in contact with what is going on in our lives.
We are on the verge of moving (again...2 time in 9 months). We were offered a position with a church in St. Louis, Michigan. So, we have a candidating weekend scheduled in 2 weeks, and if no one in the congregation objects, we will be moving at the end of the month.
So, the potential move date is July 25th. Today is the 3rd. The math teacher inside of me counts that as 22 days until we move. Do we have a place to move into? Nope...not even any leads? Have we started boxing up anything? Nope...nothing. Are we going to be home in the next 3 weekends to pack? Well, of course not. Why would we want to do that?
We are headed to Indiana this weekend to celebrate my cousin's wedding. Next weekend is our candidating weekend at St. Louis. Jut is going to be chaparoning a week of camp the following week. E and I will be staying at Mom and Dads...and hopefully house hunting. The following weekend is Flegel Family Fun weekend (aka my family reunion) at Grandpa and Grandma's house. Then, the following weekend we are scheduled to move. AGH!
I'm trying really not to stress about it...it will all get done. I'm just not sure how and I guess that is where God comes in.
We are on the verge of moving (again...2 time in 9 months). We were offered a position with a church in St. Louis, Michigan. So, we have a candidating weekend scheduled in 2 weeks, and if no one in the congregation objects, we will be moving at the end of the month.
So, the potential move date is July 25th. Today is the 3rd. The math teacher inside of me counts that as 22 days until we move. Do we have a place to move into? Nope...not even any leads? Have we started boxing up anything? Nope...nothing. Are we going to be home in the next 3 weekends to pack? Well, of course not. Why would we want to do that?
We are headed to Indiana this weekend to celebrate my cousin's wedding. Next weekend is our candidating weekend at St. Louis. Jut is going to be chaparoning a week of camp the following week. E and I will be staying at Mom and Dads...and hopefully house hunting. The following weekend is Flegel Family Fun weekend (aka my family reunion) at Grandpa and Grandma's house. Then, the following weekend we are scheduled to move. AGH!
I'm trying really not to stress about it...it will all get done. I'm just not sure how and I guess that is where God comes in.
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