Aedan: 25 Months, Week 1
On our last morning with the kids in Oxford, I arranged a play date with our friends from our small group, as well as Beth and her kids and Pam and her kids. I even asked if Samantha's friend Oliver would be able to come over to play. We tried to get them together to play, but it just didn't work out since we were so busy in the last few weeks. However, his mom passed the message along to his dad who then brought Oliver and his little brother over to play at the park. Samantha was so excited to see him, and they both ran off and played together for quite some time. It was a pretty warm and sticky day outside, so the kids didn't have quite as much energy to play in the hot sun, but it was a great last play date with some good friends. We were able to give some really nice good-bye hugs before heading back home for lunch.
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| Oliver and Samantha |
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| Olivia, Samantha, Daniel, Aedan, Evie, and Isaac |
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| Corrine, Stephanie, Jenny, and Leah (Our Small Group) |
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| Small Group Ladies, Plus Pam and Beth |
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| Jacob and Samantha |
When we got home from the park that morning, both kids were hot and tired and ready to eat lunch. We had homemade pizza on the menu, and Ben hoped the car would be done in the shop by then, but they were taking a long time trying to determine what part they needed to fix it and had to talk back and forth with the dealer. I got started on making pizza right away, but that wasn't quick enough for Aedan. He gets cranky when he's hungry and tired, so here is a video of him crying for his lunch. I feel like it's good to remember the times when he is like this, for when I forget what it's like to have a two year old.
After eating lunch, getting Aedan down for his nap, and letting Samantha have quiet time, which we have been doing on most days lately, we had a little bit of time before it was time to take the kids to meet Grandpa and Grandma in Richmond, Indiana. Since it was the last time Aedan would be sleeping in this crib in Oxford, I had Samantha climb in the crib with him for a few cute pictures. It's so strange that this is the place where Aedan first started sleeping in his own crib in his own room, the place he learned to walk just a year ago, the place where Samantha spent two years in preschool and made some of her first very best friends (as well as a few future husbands), as well as the place where Ben held his first position after finishing his Ph.D, and where we made friends together as a couple. It was sad for me to think of leaving this place, and to be honest, I tried not to think about it too much.
The closer we got to our move date, the more empty things became. Ben and I packed up the pantry on Monday night, so when Aedan came downstairs looking for a snack to eat after his nap and was met with a great surprise when the closet where we usually keep our pantry items. It was cute to see him looking in, wondering where all his snacks went.
After having some yogurt and raisins for a snack, we finished getting the kids packed up and then took them outside to get a last picture of the kids in front of our home in Oxford. Samantha was tired, and Aedan is not usually very cooperative for pictures, so this is the best we could get.
I really like this picture of Ben and Samantha, too bad I'm in the background trying to get Aedan to come over and sit down for the picture.
I had plans to go out to dinner with Andrea and Ben took the kids on his own to meet Grandpa and Grandma in Richmond to eat dinner and drop the kids off. So after they took off, I worked around the house a bit and took off curtains from the windows. I took pictures of the kids' rooms with pretty much everything taken down and packed. All we had left to do was laundry of their bedding and their rooms would be done.
That evening once Ben and I were both back home, we started packing up more boxes like our lamps, other kitchen stuff that was left out, and anything else that we could find to pack up to make Wednesday an easier day for us. Here is a picture of what our living room looked like that night. We were really doing pretty well and planned on getting the house cleaned on Wednesday, as well as taking apart all the beds, picking up the Uhaul, and getting all ready for the movers to come on Thursday morning.
Wednesday was more of a complicated day than we were planning on because they didn't get our car fixed on Tuesday like they said they would because they didn't have the right part. I had plans to meet Maggie for breakfast, so she picked me up at the auto shop after I dropped it off. It was great to get together with Maggie one last time, to share and to talk about our life before we moved the next day. She also made a really nice picture for me where she did the lettering of a Bible verse by hand and had friends sign it for us, as a good-bye gift.
Ben and I then spent the rest of the afternoon packing, doing laundry, and cleaning the house. We were waiting and waiting for the auto repair shop to call us back to tell us our car was done, and it took much longer than we planned. Luckily, we were still able to pick up our Uhaul before 5:00, return all our library books and movies, and pick up Ben's prescription at Kroger. Ben drove the Uhaul back home while I finished our errands and took this great picture of it sitting in our driveway, ready to be loaded up the next day.
Getting everything packed up and ready to go was much easier to do with just Ben and me. We were glad that Ben's parents suggested taking the kids for us for those couple of days. The movers were going to be arriving anytime between 8:30-10:30, so we got up early enough to be all ready for their arrival. I ran a few errands that morning, like dropping of our internet modem, buying ice for our coolers for refrigerated food, and buying rope to tie of the Uhaul. The movers from You Move Me arrived around 8:45 and had accomplished a lot by the time I got back from my errands around 10:00. They had a pretty good handle on everything, so I decided to start vacuuming and cleaning the rooms that were empty. I was doubtful several times that everything was going to fit because they were doing a great job of packing everything tightly, but we had more stuff than when we moved to Oxford because we got all the boxes and tubs of clothes that we had been storing in Upland, plus we had a few other outside toys that we didn't have before, along with Samantha's bed and mattresses and the elliptical machine. In all honesty, it was better for me to not watch what Ben and the movers were doing because it was making me nervous. I didn't know what we would do if everything didn't fit in the truck. We already had the Santa Fe packed pretty full, and it was a good thing we had that rather than switching for Ben's parents' car. Every time I commented about whether it was all going to fit, one of the moving guys said, "Oh, don't say things like that! We will get it all to fit." The main moving guy said it's just like a big game of Tetris, and he was really good at it. I was impressed with how they got everything to fit, and also with how careful they were with our stuff. They even gave us a couple extra moving blankets and used one of their straps to contain everything at the end in order to close the Uhaul door. They were very efficient, had good senses of humor, and most importantly, got all our stuff loaded. We only had to leave a few things behind like out gas tank for our grill, our plastic outdoor chairs, and the tricycle that was given to us by the Brashers that didn't work properly anyways. The movers were done by 11:00 and only charged us for two hours of work. The office lady from College Property Management came for a walk through at 11:30 while Ben dropped off the furniture dolly that didn't fit in the Uhaul after getting it all packed. I had a few last minute things to clean up, Ben and I scarfed down the Wendy's that he picked up for lunch, and then we were on the road by 12:30. Here we are leaving Oxford for the last time, Ben in the Uhaul and me in Santa Fe with Roscoe, off to our new home in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
Ben and I made pretty good time driving, only stopping once for coffee, gas, and a bathroom break. We decided to push through and not stop for dinner that evening because we just wanted to get to the hotel to see our kids and relieve Grandpa and Grandma from their kid-watching duties. We got hotel rooms in Grayling, Michigan at a hotel that had an indoor pool and playground. We figured the kids would enjoy having some activities to amuse them that evening and the next morning. Ben and I arrived at the hotel just before 8:00, and we were all very tired from a long and exhausting day. We got everyone situated in their rooms, got the kids to bed, and then Ben and I were finally able to go out to pick up some pizza to eat for dinner. It's not very often that we eat dinner after 9:30 p.m., but we were glad our long day of driving was over and that we were on our way to our new town.
On Friday morning Ben got up and left with the Uhaul around 7:30 so that he would make it our new house by 10:00 a.m. when the other movers were scheduled to meet us to help unload the Uhaul. Ben took a few pictures of the house and the truck when he first arrived at the house that morning.
Here is a picture of our packed Uhaul truck, waiting to be unloaded. We had a 26' truck and it was jammed full, so unless we have a lot less stuff, if we every move again we will have to get a semi truck instead.
Since there was really not much of a point for the kids to get to the house very early, we decided to stay back at the hotel, eat a more relaxed breakfast, play on the indoor playground, and then go swimming once the pool opened at 9:00. The kids had a good time, and it gave them something to occupy themselves for the morning. We swam until about 9:30 and then got the kids dressed and everything packed up, getting on the road at about 10:30. It was a little over two hours to drive from Grayling to Sault Ste. Marie, and Samantha is pretty good at amusing herself in the car, especially if she has a coloring book to color in. However, Aedan was already tired out from the morning and not sleeping well the night before, so he was pretty cranky in the car. I rode while Grandma drove her car, and Grandpa drove the Santa Fe with Roscoe. I tried to amuse him with toys to play with, but after awhile he just threw everything down on the ground and chose to cry and whine. I put a show on to try to entertain them, because at this point I was desperate, and that held his interest for a little while, but not as long as I had hoped. Aedan was tired and really all he wanted to do was get his paci and go to sleep; however, I didn't want him to fall asleep in the car that morning because that would ruin any chance of him falling asleep at the house that afternoon when we would really want him to sleep so we could get some work done around the house.
Well, we finally arrived in Sault Ste. Marie after what felt like a very long trip in the car with the kids. The movers had finished unloading everything just after noon, and our house was full of boxes, which was to be expected. However, to Ben's surprise, he walked down in the basement and noticed the carpet in the area back by the built-in shelves was soaking wet, like squishing under your foot wet. For some reason, the dehumidifier had leaked all over the carpet, so once I saw the water saturated carpet, I quickly moved all the boxes that were placed on top of that area of the carpet so they would not get more wet. Ben's mom suggested we rent a wet/dry vacuum to suck up all the water from the carpet, so that was a problem we weren't planning on dealing with right when moving in. We think the water came from a kink in the hose that led to the dehumidifier, and that could have happened from the movers moving the couch downstairs just that morning, we really had no idea what it was from, and it was disappointing and frustrating coming to our new home that already had a problem.
Moving is always a stressful time. It just is and there is no way to get around it. All of our planning paid off and things were going smoothly, but it's difficult relocating to a new town, having all your stuff packed in boxes, and trying to get acclimated to a new house, all while having little kids underfoot for whom their world was stressful and unpredictable as well. Sometimes Ben and I don't do very well handling stress, especially when we had unforeseen problems like the wet carpet in the basement and the old dishwasher that was full of stagnant water, had a leaky pipe, and was a real pain to get out. We were not as patient as we should have been with our children, and it was difficult to know how to handle these problems along with trying to get our house in order enough for everyone to have a place to sleep that night.
During the afternoon, I put Aedan down for his nap downstairs in the bedroom in his pack and play so that we could get bedrooms set up upstairs. Luckily, he was tired enough that it didn't seem to bother him that he was sleeping in such a weird place. In fact, he actually fell asleep in my lap while I sat on the floor and rocked him. We put on a movie on the computer for the girls that afternoon while the adults got to work around the house. Grandma worked on cleaning up the carpet in the basement, Grandpa and Ben worked on putting beds together, and Jeni helped unpack all of the boxes of kitchen supplies. I worked on making sure all the boxes were in the correct place according to their actual labels, helped to make the beds, and began the long process of unpacking boxes.
Later that evening, since the house was still covered in boxes, we had no food in our refrigerator, and we were all pretty tired from a long day of working, we decided to leave the house, take a break for dinner out at a local restaurant, and even get a view of a ship passing through the Soo Locks. I think the locks were more interesting to the adults than the kids, but it was exciting to see our town in the summer, to see more life in our new town, and to be walking around with shorts and t-shirts. Here's a cute picture of the three kids looking out over the locks.
The rest of our weekend went by pretty quickly since we were all busy unpacking, getting the old dishwasher finally taken out and the new one installed, drying out the carpet in the basement more, getting the kids' rooms pretty well situated and most of the boxes unpacked in the kitchen. In fact, we were even able to eat dinner in our kitchen on Saturday night, so that felt good. We were making really good progress. Jeni and Alaina left on Saturday afternoon to head back home, and Grandpa and Grandma stayed through Sunday so they could attend the Sault Wesleyan Church before driving back home. It felt strange but nice to be in our new home as just our family of four.
Being at the house on our own meant that we couldn't get quite as much done unless the kids were asleep, so our progress on packing slowed. However, we were able to get the curtains hung up in the kids' rooms, and I got their toys and bookcases all set up as well which made their rooms feel a lot more normal and like home. I even went grocery shopping with both kids at Walmart on Monday morning, so life was feeling a little more normal.
We had some colder, rainier weather, but we were able to go out Monday night to a playground that is right down the street from our house. It is a playground made all out of wood and looks like a castle from the outside. It was a little chilly out, but it felt fine as long as we wore our light jackets.
Being at the house on our own meant that we couldn't get quite as much done unless the kids were asleep, so our progress on packing slowed. However, we were able to get the curtains hung up in the kids' rooms, and I got their toys and bookcases all set up as well which made their rooms feel a lot more normal and like home. I even went grocery shopping with both kids at Walmart on Monday morning, so life was feeling a little more normal.
We had some colder, rainier weather, but we were able to go out Monday night to a playground that is right down the street from our house. It is a playground made all out of wood and looks like a castle from the outside. It was a little chilly out, but it felt fine as long as we wore our light jackets.
Jeni lovingly agreed to mow our lawn for us before leaving on Saturday afternoon, which made Roscoe happy since he didn't have to walk through dandelions anymore. However, when we got back from the park we realized that our kids hadn't been out in the backyard yet, so we let them run around and enjoy our backyard before it was time to get them in the house and ready for bed. It will be great to enjoy this new space for the kids to play. We are so grateful for our fenced in back yard for the kids, our wonderful new house, and for the space that we have to grow as a family in Sault Ste. Marie.
(Blog about May 31-June 6, 2016)
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