Our First Week in Harvey's Lake, Pennsylvania

Samantha: 97 Months, Week 2
Aedan: 62 Months, Week 4
Owen: 21 Months, Week 2


Sunday, June 23rd was our last day on Upland before heading out to Pennsylvania. We finally had gotten word that we could close on Tuesday morning, so our plan was to leave early Monday morning and make the nine hour drive from Upland to Wilkes-Barre where we would stay the night in a hotel.

Most of the time we leave to head home on Sunday mornings, but since we weren't leaving until Monday, we were able to actually go to Ema and Papa's church that day. Here are all the kids dressed up and ready for church, showing off their bug jar.

After church that day, we met Aunt Jeni in Marion for lunch at Culver's so she could get Alaina and bring her back home, and so we could hang out for a little while. However, it's not too easy to sit and chat at a restaurant with kids, especially with Owen who was ready for his afternoon nap, so we didn't stay for too long. We stopped at the store for some random things and then went back to Ema and Papa's house for the afternoon. Owen took a good nap, and the big kids had fun spending some time playing outside. They love being outside in Upland. Samantha found this tree by the deck out back that she could climb up and sit in. I had to take a picture of her because she reminded me so much of myself when I was her age. I loved to read as much as she does, and I remember climbing the tree in my back yard and reading when I was growing up. I even had a rope tied to the branch of the tree so that I could tie the book to the rope, have both hands free to climb the tree, and then pull the rope up with the book attached.

The kids love dancing around to silly songs played on Alexa, and "It's Raining Tacos!" quickly became one of their favorites. If you've never heard it, you should look it up and watch the video, and then you will understand a lot more about the motions that Aedan does to the song. They definitely have fun with this song, and it makes us laugh watching them dance to it.

After dinner that night, the kids put on a performance of Aladdin for us. They get Alexa to play the music from the new movie, and they choreograph all the dancing. I love how Owen swings his arms back and forth and jumps up and down using both feet.  He loves getting into the music with them and copying whatever they do. He even can do a somersault pretty well! Samantha was doing somersaults off all the furniture and Aedan was doing a lot of jumping, dancing, and making silly faces.

Ben and I worked to get everything collected and packed up on Sunday night so that we could head out Monday morning as early as we could. Our goal was around 8:30. The drive was 9 hours of just driving, not including stopping time, so we weren't sure how long of a day we had ahead of us. We were a little worried about how the kids (and Izzy) would do in the car for such a long trip in one day, but they really did much better than we expected. We brought toys to play with, things to color, a movie to watch, and LeapPads to play with. The day passed by fairly quickly and uneventfully, and we reached the hotel a little bit after our usual dinnertime, but we pushed through because we just wanted to get there. The last hour or so, we just had lot of snacks, and that was about when Owen was starting to lose it in being stuck in his car seat.

We stayed at a Best Western in downtown Wilkes-Barre, so our first job was to get checked in and go pick up a pizza quickly to eat for dinner. We ended up eating outside by the pool, but no one seemed very hungry. I think everyone was just tired. We decided to let the kids go swimming for a few minutes after dinner, but the pool was outside and the water was a little cold, so they didn't want to swim for too long. Owen didn't even want to get into the water. Then, we had the job of getting everyone situated for bed. Ben's parents were kind enough to come out with us to help us move into our new house, so we got two hotel rooms. Samantha and Aedan were going to share a bed in the room with Ema and Papa, and Owen and Izzy would be in the same room as us. I think it was around 9:00 before everyone was finally asleep that night. Ben and I were exhausted and ready for a break, but we knew the work was just starting. It was a blessing to have a week in Upland between the craziness of moving out of our old house and the work of getting settled into our new house. It was a welcome reprieve, and I was thankful for it.

Tuesday morning came bright and early, and we had signed Samantha and Aedan up for a reading and art camp at Wilkes that they could attend for free because of Ben being a faculty member. We debated whether or not to sign them up simply because we were just moving in. However, we decided it would be good for them to have something to occupy themselves while we were busy getting things unpacked and situated in the house. That way we only had Owen to watch and entertain, and he would take naps in the afternoon as well. They missed the first day of camp on Monday, but the director said that was okay. We threw together a hodge-podge lunch for them from things we brought with us from Upland, and dropped them off a little before 9:00 so that we could get to our closing at 9:00. Ben's parents stayed with Owen and Izzy at the hotel while we closed. The realtor represented the sellers, so we weren't able to meet them, but closing went smoothly. We got the keys and garage door openers, and then we were off to pick up Owen and Izzy from the hotel before heading out to our house in Harvey's Lake. It was about 10:30 when we headed to the house, and we were excited to show Ema and Papa around our new place.

From there it was time to get to the hard work of moving in. All of our stuff was in the basement and garage, and they generally stacked things according to what room they went to, but it was difficult to decipher through the stacks of boxes and furniture everywhere. We decided our first job was to get the beds set up, particularly Owen's crib so that he would have somewhere to nap that afternoon, followed by everyone else's beds. I spent the afternoon rearranging boxes in the garage and making stacks for different rooms, as well as putting together everything that we wanted to go into storage in the attic. We decided to hire a couple guys to come to the house to help with moving the heavy furniture and boxes up to the attic, and it was the best decision we made in this whole process. They were super efficient and careful getting all of our heavy and bulky furniture and boxes upstairs, and it saved the rest of us a lot of sweat and frustration. You could tell they did stuff like that for a living because they had no trouble maneuvering everything around the corner at the top of our basement stairs without making any marks on our walls or floors.

Our goal for the first day was getting bedrooms situated, and we succeeded at that goal. The kids had a place to sleep, and I even got the curtains hung up in the kids' rooms to block out at least a little of the morning sun. That evening for dinner we walked down to the restaurant a block away from our house called Lakeside Skillet since we had no food in our house, and we were pretty hot and tired so we were looking forward to relaxing in an air-conditioned restaurant for awhile. The kids were hungry and devoured their food. The restaurant was empty because they are busier in the morning, and we were eating later at night than normal. Here are a couple pictures that Ben took of our house from the backyard that evening. You can see the beautiful sunset in the background. What a beautiful place we have found to live!

The next few days were all about getting moved in to our house and checking things off our do do list. Samantha and Aedan continued going to camp from 9:00-3:30 every day, which they loved, and Ben, Ema, Papa, and I worked on many things around the house. We tried our best to occupy Owen while we did stuff around the house. I spent much of Wednesday getting Owen's and Aedan's rooms unpacked. We had no food, so Ben went out late Tuesday night to get some groceries. We also had some things to get for the house like bolts for Samantha's closet, washers for the dining room table, as well as researching what type of lawnmower to get for our back yard and ordering parts to fix the shelf in our refrigerator. There are always so many little things to be done when moving into a new house.

It's always overwhelming to me because stuff is just everywhere, and I didn't know what box anything was in since I didn't pack any of them. A lot of the boxes just had stuff dumped inside the boxes, and we started to realize we were missing things. We couldn't find any of our trash cans, my green area rug that we had under our dining room table, all the stuff for our laundry, and some outdoor toys. Plus, the people that bought our house already pointed out a whole bunch of things the movers left at our old house that the movers already agreed to pay to ship to us like our baby gate from around our pellet stove, our reusable bags, part of our mixer, and the going away presents from our small group friends. There were a few other things left behind that the movers said they would just send me money to replace rather than shipping them. It was frustrating that not all of our stuff got moved. I thought it would be simpler having them pack, and in some ways it still was because it saved me a lot of work at the beginning, but now it seemed a lot harder. I felt frustrated that I wasn't able to stay until they were all done packing up so that I could have walked around the house myself to make sure they had everything packed up that we wanted. I was just feeling exhausted and felt overwhelmed when thinking about all the work that was ahead of us.

It was also pretty hot in our house since we don't have central A/C. Ben's dad helped us install our window unit that was left with the house, and it did a great job of cooling the main level, but not the upstairs. I was tired and hot, and my patience was wearing thin. Ema and Papa left on Thursday because they had to get back to Upland before Uncle Tim and Pla arrived on Friday. It was definitely challenging trying to get things unpacked with kids.

Here is Owen enjoying the cool air blowing out of the air conditioner as we hung out at the house, trying to get things unpacked that morning after Ema and Papa left. He loved feeling the air blowing right on him. It made us both laugh.

One of the big projects Ben worked on on Thursday was putting together the parts we ordered for the play set. We decided there was no point in buying a whole new play set with this one in the yard was perfectly workable. They even have the posts in the ground in cement, so it is very sturdy. We ordered the slide, the tire swing, two wings, and a trapeze bar. It took a bit of work getting the slide put together and attaching some wood underneath the play set to secure the tire swing to, but Ben did a great job putting it all together, and here is the finished product. The kids couldn't wait to play on it on Thursday afternoon when they got home from camp. I'm glad we were able to get it put together so they would have something to play with in the back yard. They loved our old play set so much. That was one of the main things they were going to miss from our old house.

Here are a couple pictures Ben took of our house and yard from the road in front of our house. I am still blown away that we own this house and that we are lucky enough to live in this beautiful location with this beautiful back yard. I love everything about our house and property, and I am so glad we "missed out" on getting the first house we put an offer in on. That was not the right house for us. This one is, and I'm so happy it's ours.

I am very task-oriented, sometimes to a fault, but I guess it's helpful in a situation like this where you are trying to get moved in to a house as quickly as possible so that life can feel like normal again, especially for the kids' sake. By Friday all the kids' rooms, the kitchen, and our bedroom was done. (Ben's mom unpacked and organized our entire kitchen for us. It was such a huge help, and I am so grateful to her for that.) Then we had to finish the bathrooms, toys and books for the living room and basement, and then decorations and pictures after that. We had some arranging to do to figure out where we wanted our shelves and things to go. The sellers left their pool table, which was nice, but it took up space we were originally planning to use in a different way.

Friday I also made my first trip to Aldi. It's about 20 minutes from our house, and my sister shops there pretty regularly for her groceries, so I was excited to check it out and see how it would work to start doing my grocery shopping there and try to save money on our grocery bill. Shopping in new stores is always a little overwhelming at first because I don't know where anything is, but I was able to find everything on my list, and even picked up a little sprinkler for the kids to have fun playing with in the back yard to cool off on these hot days.

After a busy week of pretty much non-stop work as long as we were awake, we decided to take Friday night off to just relax and hang out with the kids. We hooked up the sprinkler and everyone had a blast running around and getting wet. I loved hearing the laughter and squeals of joy, and seeing the kids enjoy our new back yard. Seeing them play like this made this house feel even more like home.

Samantha and Aedan got creative and made their own water slide by spraying the slide with the sprinkler. They were having such a blast! I just love how much fun they have together. (Owen didn't really like getting wet so he mostly hung back and watched.)

Samantha and Aedan love to spin around super fast on the tire swing together. Also, Owen loves to join Samantha and Aedan on the tire swing, and Aedan, and then Samantha, lovingly holds on to Owen's back so that he doesn't fall off backwards, and Samantha makes sure she doesn't get them spinning around too quickly.

With the ground going up on a slope, it gives Owen good footing for swinging back and forth on his tummy. He really likes to do this, as you can tell by the smiles on his face. (You can also see Izzy happily frolicking around the yard, probably chasing a bird. So far we have just left her off her leash, and we keep our eye on her when she's outside. She listens and comes when we call her, so we are going to try that for right now and see if we can train her what the limits of our back yard are.)

Since we had been so busy getting unpacked, we decided to take Saturday to take the kids somewhere fun. We drove down to a children's museum in Bloomsburg, which is about an hour from us. We were excited to actually live close to things to do like museums and zoos and lots more family activities. This museum was on the smaller side, but it was the perfect place to spend our morning and early afternoon. They had a special exhibit going on where you could try out playing different instruments, and Samantha and Aedan had a lot of fun with that. Aedan was really good at playing the brass instruments, and Samantha expressed interest in learning to play the violin. I would love for them to have an interest in learning music.

We visited all the exhibits in the museum, but their favorite was this area where they could dress up. They met these other girls that joined them in acting out their play, and here they are all taking a bow at the end.

We ended up leaving for a quick lunch at Wendy's before going back for some more play time. The kids were having so much fun that they didn't want to leave, but we reassured them that we would be able to come back again sometime, and we had already been there for several hours. Owen had woken up early that morning and was getting tired and ready for a nap. It was a good day, and I think it was good for Samantha and Aedan to see that our new home is closer to fun places to go, and that even though it's sad that we moved away from our friends and what we knew, we know that God led us to our new home and our new city, and that he will continue to provide for us. I am excited about exploring this new area, and I'm glad that we moved early on in the summer so that we have the rest of the summer to get acclimated and enjoy time together as a family.

(Blog about June 23-29, 2019)

Moving Away from Sault Ste. Marie & Our Week in Upland

Samantha: 97 Months, Week 1
Aedan: 62 Months, Week 3
Owen: 21 Months, Week 1

When I opened my eyes on Sunday morning, I let out a big breath, thinking in my head, "I don't know if I'm ready for this day." It was our last day before the movers came to start packing up all our stuff, and it was our favorite day of the week, the day that we really enjoy living in Sault Ste. Marie because we love our church, Sault Wesleyan, and we love our small group of friends that is comprised of 5 families and 15 kids. I knew a lot of people would be saying their good-byes at church, and I knew I would be feeling very emotional with thinking about leaving all the people we have met in our time here. This is this first church we have been this involved in, from leading small groups, to teaching children, to Ben being on the board of elders, to me being on the leadership team for MOPS. We have loved becoming fully invested in this church, and we will sincerely miss it.

On Sunday afternoon we did something a little crazy. We decided to eat a quick lunch and go over to Canada one last time for public swim at the John Rhodes pool. The kids were excited to go again, and even though it was Owen's nap time, he really did pretty well. We had fun playing in the beachfront pool together before splitting off some. Aedan wanted to go in the middle depth pool, and since Samantha can now pass the swim test, she wanted to go into the lap pool to jump off the diving board and rope swing. Ben took some turns with her, and then I took some turns with her as well. It's so fun to do some of these big kid things with her, and to be able to spend this time with her one-on-one. It was a lot to squeeze into one day, but I'm glad we were able to do this as a family one last time.

Owen fell asleep in the car on the way home, and I was able to lay him back down in his crib to get a little bit longer of a nap in. We did a few things around the house like picking up toys and things so that we were ready for the movers to come the next morning. Then, we had our last small group meeting out at the Clark's house. We had a "friendsgiving" theme, and everyone had a blast. The kids played outside on the trampoline, swing set, and in the sand pit. The food was all delicious, and we had a good conversation about our passage in James. With it being our last time, we spent extra time hanging out with our friends afterwards, and we even took some pictures of all the kids together, and then everyone (except Sam because she was sick) all together. The pictures turned out great, and we are sad to be leaving this wonderful group of families. I'm glad we can still keep in touch and follow each other's families on Facebook.

Samantha has been feeling really sad to leave her school and friends, and she keeps saying she doesn't want to move. I told her that it's okay to be sad and that I feel sad, too, but that where we are going will be fun and exciting, and that she will make friends fast, and we will have them do things over the summer so they can meet people before school starts up. We try and talk up all the different things we will be able to do in our new city, but also explain that she can still stay friends with Marek and her other friends. She has a lot of people that want to be pen pals with, but she is definitely taking our move the hardest out of all the kids. It makes me sad to see her sad, but I know that this is where God wants us to be and that this is what our family is supposed to be doing, and that in the long run, this will be better for our family. It's just hard for her to see and understand right now.

Monday was the day we had been anticipating for a long time. It felt weird thinking this would be our last day in our house, and that in fact, that night we were going to stay at a hotel down the road so that way the movers could start taking apart our beds and get everything loaded in the best way. When the kids woke up that morning, I took pictures of them in their beds in our old house for the last time.

After that we got right down to business of stripping the beds so I could wash all the sheets and bedding, plus taking down the curtains so I could wash them as well. We ate breakfast, the kids got ready, we finished packing up the last things we would need that we didn't want packed into the truck, and then sent the kids over to the neighbor's house with Miss Patty to play. She volunteered their place for the kids to hang out on moving day so that Ben and I could focus on packing and moving without the kids being under foot. It was really sweet of her to offer, the kids were glad to be able to hang out with our wonderful neighbors again, and it was nice to not have to keep our eye on the kids for a couple hours.

Here is the moving truck parked in our driveway, getting ready to start loading up. Ben and I had a few errands to run, like dropping stuff off at the dump, and then we just kept working on laundry and getting things done around the house. Ben helped the guys with knowing how to take things apart and how to get mattresses up the stairs, and slowly but surely, our belongings were being taken out, boxed up, and packed up. It was all a little stressful and tiring, but I was so glad we hired a moving company to do all of this. It's better to just have a couple stressful days than a couple stressful months.

Ben picked up Wendy's for lunch that day, and we got some for the neighbors as well. Everyone ate their lunch well, and then Ben put Owen down for a nap while I took Samantha and Aedan over to Juli's house to play with Kenny and Bradley. She was so sweet to offer to take the kids because her husband is in the Coast Guard and she knows how difficult it is to try and move with kids running around the house. Samantha and Aedan were excited to bring their swim suits over so they could play in the pool and the sprinkler, and when I went back to pick them up, they were happily playing inside. Juli said Bradley opened up to Samantha, and she doesn't do that with just anyone, and Aedan did not want to leave and tried to hide in the corner and refuse to leave. The only way I got him to come out is by telling him we were going to go eat dinner at Zorba's. I'm glad they had a fun afternoon playing with friends, rather than being stuck in the house with us.

Here are some pictures of the progress that had been made on the house on that Monday. Most of the big items of furniture were packed, along with all the mattresses, and things were definitely coming along.

The basement was pretty much all cleared out! Most things from down there were already packed in the truck or moved up to the living room so they knew what they were working with. It was a little strange to walk around and see it all empty like this.

Since we were no longer staying at our house, we ate dinner at our favorite local restaurant, Zorba's, with yummy Greek food. The kids did a pretty good job considering it had been a long day for everyone and Owen did not take a very long nap. After dinner we went to the Holiday Inn Express to check in to our rooms. Even though it was late, and we probably should have not have done it, we decided to let the kids go swimming for a little while before bed. The pool was a little cold, and Owen wasn't quite in the mood to be wrangled in the water, but Samantha and Aedan had fun roughhousing with Daddy in the water. Then, we took the kids upstairs, gave them all a quick bath, and tucked them into bed. We got adjoining rooms, and the bathrooms were too small to put Owen's pack and play in one of them, so we just put his pack and play in the same room as Samantha and Aedan, kind of tucked back in the corner. He doesn't wake up at night much anymore, so that's not really an issue anymore. In fact, as I held him and rocked him a little bit, he actually fell asleep in my arms. He was really tired from not napping much and having a busy day. Here is a picture of the sun setting over Sault Ste. Marie that evening from the hotel room. It's been pretty cool living this close to Canada.

On Tuesday morning we had plans to meet Miss Linda at Sherman Park so she could watch the kids for us while we closed on our Sault Ste. Marie house at 10:00. There was a MOPS play date scheduled for then, so there would be other kids for them to play with, too. Here are some pictures Linda took of the kids that morning. I'm so glad they got to spend our last morning in Sault Ste. Marie together. Linda and Ken have blessed and encouraged our family so much over the last year. Like we both say to each other, "God knew what he was doing when he put our families together."

Our closing was pretty short and sweet with no complications. Ben and I had a couple errands to run, and then we went back to pick the kids up from the park. I got this picture of the park and the St. Mary's River before we left. Samantha was very sad as we were saying good-bye and giving hugs to Miss Linda. She did not want to say good-bye, and she was not excited about moving away. The tears just started to flow as we got in the car and drove away from the park. Poor girl, she was having such deep feelings about this move.

Our original plan was to have the house all packed up by 1:00, and I would do a do a quick walk through and clean before we left town to drive down to Upland, where we planned to stay until we heard any word about when we could close on our new house. However, it was taking the movers much longer that we anticipated to get finished that day. They didn't get started as early as they could have, and we think they took a little too many breaks and weren't as motivated in getting things done. I really wanted to stay until everything was packed up so I could check the house myself, but they were nowhere near being done, and we still had to drive all the way to Indiana that day, so we really just could not stay any longer. Ben dropped me off at the house so I could do a quick clean of the bathrooms and clean out the refrigerator. He took the kids to get a quick lunch at Taco Bell before coming back to pick me up at the house. I took these pictures and videos of the house before leaving that day.

And here are a few last pictures of the kids at the house from earlier that day, playing on their play set one last time...

...and here they are posing for a picture on the front porch.

Ben took the kids around town, trying to find Mr. Ken at the docks to say good-bye, as well as stopping on campus to say good-bye to Miss Sheri. He took these pictures of the hospital where Owen was born, as well as some last pictures of the kids on campus. It's amazing how much they have grown and changed in the three years since we moved to the U.P. Plus, Owen will always be a Yooper as he was the only one born here!

Driving out of the U.P. felt weird because it felt like we were just leaving on a trip out of town. It was just our minivan, as the moving truck was going to take off the next day. I enjoyed driving over the Mackinac Bridge one more time, and we said good-bye to the U.P.

Our drive went pretty well, and even though both boys were tired and fell asleep, Owen only slept 40 minutes and then woke up crying, which then woke up Aedan. It was definitely not a long enough nap for the long day we had had and the long drive we had before us. I expected to feel a little more sad as we left what had been our home for the last three years, but I don't think the feelings had really set in yet because we have been so busy. I imagined it will set in later, but I did feel a little sad walking around our house, thinking about bringing Owen home from the hospital for the first time and thinking about all the memories of his early years being in that house, thinking about Samantha's first three years of school being there, as well as Aedan growing from a baby using a pacifier and being rocked to sleep to a boy that is getting ready for kindergarten. Most of my feelings were in being sad and overwhelmed with the idea of starting over again and moving to a place where we know literally no one. Plus, that it's farther away from family. However, I was excited about exploring a new area of the country and actually having more normal seasons and more things to do. I felt nostalgic, but ready for a new adventure.

Once it got to be around 8:00, we started trying to get the kids to wind down and settled down to sleep, as we still had a couple hours left to drive, and we needed them to sleep until we reached Upland. I took these pictures at about 8:50. I rocked Owen's car seat back and forth until he fell asleep.

Samantha must have been really worn out, as she fell asleep pretty quickly. I tilted her seat back a little to be more comfortable and even gave her a pillow to use to support her head.

Her poor little head kept falling to the side.

And here's Aedan pretending to be asleep. He didn't want a blanket or an animal and he took the longest to finally let himself fall asleep.

After awhile I covered Owen up with a blanket, but he seemed to not like it, and I took it back off. He did wake up crying once, but I was able to rock his seat and get him back to sleep. I was glad that the kids allowed themselves to fall asleep in the car that night. It was nice to have a quiet car after a couple long, stressful, emotional days of moving away from our old home and moving into a state of "homelessness."

We got to Upland around 10:00, and the kids were all excited to see Ema and Papa. I held Owen for awhile, but was able to hand him off to Ema as she watched a Cubs game so that I could help get everyone situated for bed. It wasn't too long after that that Ben and I rolled into bed as well.

Wednesday morning came too soon, as Ben and I had another busy day ahead of us. He was going to drop me off at the Indianapolis airport for my flight out to Harrisburg and then from there a two hour drive up to Wilkes-Barre. It was kind of fun traveling by myself. In fact, I don't think I have ever done that before. My flights were easy, I was able to read for the first time in a long time, and getting my rental car was not a problem either. I arrived at my hotel at about 4:30, got checked in, and then decided my plans for the evening. I decided to get some food at Moe's and then go see Aladdin at the movie theater in Wilkes-Barre. Ben took the kids to see the movie awhile back, and I had been wanting to see it as well. It was a little strange eating and seeing a movie on my own, but it was fun being able to make my own plans and do things on my own. I enjoyed my time out. Here was my view from the restaurant parking lot. It was weird to think that pretty soon this will be our new home, and we will live near a lake, surrounded by mountains.

When Ben got home from dropping me off the kids were just enjoying their day in Upland. Cousin Alaina was in town and they all just had fun playing. All of the kids enjoy being outside, playing with balls, riding bikes, and just exploring the backyard in Upland. Our kids were wearing their matching Toy Story shirts and Owen was interested in watching Ema make some food. 

On Thursday I didn't have to be at our new house until 1:30 to meet the realtors and do a walk through, so since I didn't have anything to do, I decided to relax that morning by sleeping in, eating breakfast, taking a shower, and working on my blog. It was nice to be able to have some time to focus and get some work done.

Ben decided to have Ema and Papa help him take the four kids to the Muncie Children's Museum on Thursday. The museum was not huge, but it was a nice place to spend a few hours in the morning. The kids enjoyed playing around for a while. We had a snack break, and then played some more. Ema sat by Owen on the way back from the children's museum and plied him with snacks to keep him awake. The kids did well again on Thursday, as they routinely do in Upland, and enjoyed hanging out with each other. Here are some pictures from the museum that day.

I stopped at the Back Mountain Public Library to sign the kids up for the summer reading program and story time, and took a couple pictures of it to show the kids. Then, I stopped at a place called City Market for a sandwich before meeting the realtors at the house.

Here are some pictures I took of the house as I walked around for the walk through, and while we were waiting for the movers to arrive. It was exciting to see the house without all their stuff in it, and I was just so excited that this would be our new home. There was much more space than I even remembered, and I kept texting Ben telling him how much I loved the house.

They ended up leaving the pool table for us, so that was an unexpected bonus. We don't really have a use for it right now, but maybe down the road. Or we can always sell it and get money from it.

(We put this chair here because we kept almost hitting our head on the light.)

It was a very rainy afternoon that day, making it take longer for the movers to get there, in combination with going up and down all the hills. Look at our beautiful new back yard!

After the rain stopped, lots of little bunnies came out into the yard. I sent this picture to Ben to show the kids because I knew they would be excited about the chance to see bunnies.

We even have some apple trees in our back yard.

The movers didn't arrive at the house until 3:30, and they had some trouble trying to figure out how to get the truck into the driveway with the trailer since our driveway is pretty steep. They ended up deciding that that wouldn't work, so they unloaded the trailer at the end of the driveway and walked everything up to the garage. Then, once the trailer was empty, they detached it and backed the truck up the driveway. However, of course as soon as they started unloading the truck, it started down-pouring, getting everything wet that they were carrying, and getting into the truck as well.

The seller's realtor ended up coming back and staying with me until they were all done unloading our stuff. While they got things out of the truck, I wandered around a little bit more, taking measurements of the bedrooms as well as looking at the play set in the back yard a little more. It was not as worn down as I thought it was, and I talked to Ben about how we could probably still use it. I climbed in it and jumped up and down a little, and it was pretty sturdy. There were even still hooks in the wood that we could hang swings from, so it looked to me like all we would need to do is buy the accessories for it, which would save us a ton of money and time from buying and putting together a whole new play set.

The movers finally finished unloading everything into the garage and basement around 7:30 that night, and I took this last picture of the front of the house before heading back to my hotel.

On my way back to the hotel, I stopped at Hillside Farms that I had heard so much about, and tried out some chocolate cherry ice cream. It was delicious and well worth eating ice cream before having dinner. I went back to the hotel to charge my phone and use my computer to figure out what I was going to have for dinner. I opted for a healthy place with lots of different salads, and I picked it up to eat back at the hotel. It had been a good day, but I was feeling rather tired and ready to relax some.

Most of Friday wasn't too exciting for me because I just had to drive back down to Harrisburg and take the flight back to Indy. Ben picked me up at the airport, and we were able to stop at Chuy's for dinner that night to have a quick date before heading back to Upland. Ben's parents put the kids to bed for us that night, so I wasn't able to see them until the following day. I was looking forward to seeing all my kiddos again.

After our trip out on Tuesday, and the day out at the children's museum on Thursday, we just stayed at home and walked on campus on Friday. The time to just decompress from all the stress of moving was nice. All three of our kids simply feel at peace in Upland. They are cared about and loved on by Ema and Papa. So, they don't have to be nervous, or pretend to be something different than they are. They can be themselves and know they are cared about. We took a walk around Taylor with Izzy, and then we all ate lunch on the patio at Ema and Papa's house. While it wasn't our original plan to spend almost a week in Upland waiting to move to Pennsylvania, it worked out really well. 

The kids were lucky to have Alaina staying in Upland with them the whole we were there. They haven't gotten to spend this much time with her since our vacation last summer to Niagara Falls, and I know Samantha was enjoying her time with Alaina so much. They were getting along really well, and they are like best friends that can just pick up right where they left off.

On Saturday we decided to take a day trip to the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo. Ben and I had never been there with the kids, and Ema and Papa decided to come along, too. Here are the kids posing for a picture outside the zoo.

The kids are at ages where they really enjoy zoos. Samantha likes reading the signs and learning about the animals, Aedan wants to just run from exhibit to exhibit, and Owen loves seeing real animals so close up.

They really enjoyed seeing this huge lion laying right up close to the glass.

We bought some tokens for feeding the giraffe a lettuce leaf, and the kids really had fun with that as well. Samantha and Alaina stood talking to the zookeeper for quite a long time, asking her lots of questions. I loved their curiosity and desire for learning.

We brought a picnic lunch that we enjoyed at a table outside the zoo before going back in to see more animals.

They had a petting zoo area where you could feed, pet, and brush the goats, and that was another highlight. Owen was really pretty gentle with brushing the goats. Samantha loves animals, and says she wants to be a farmer, so this is right up her alley. Aedan had a goat that kept nibbling on his t-shirt, so he thought that was hilarious.

Here are the kids posing for some pictures with animal statues.

We also decided to buy tokens to use on the river boat ride. Owen was getting tired at this point, so it was hard to keep him happy as we waited in line, but Ben always does a good job being silly and making him smile.

We let Samantha, Aedan, and Alaina ride in a boat together, and we followed behind them. The kids loved the ride, even though it was just a simple little river that went around slowly in a circle. Here is Owen and me on the boat ride.

And here are the other three kids ahead of us. They loved feeling independent and being in the boat by themselves.

We saw some kangaroos up close from our boat.

After the boat ride, Ema and Papa headed out, but we decided to stay a little longer. We put Owen in the stroller and hoped he would fall asleep as we walked around the zoo, which is what happened. He ended up taking a good little nap passed out in the stroller while the big kids enjoyed seeing more animals and had a lot of fun together. Look at these big kids! When did they all get so tall?

I love this picture of them! Such great expressions!

The zoo was a great day trip for us, and between that and the children's museum, and the extended time with Ema, Papa, and Alaina, it was almost like a family vacation without having to go to a different location. The kids were loving this extra time in Upland, and I think it helped soften the sadness of moving away because we were going to a place they love so much with people that do so much to make them feel loved and special. Even though we thought it was a bad thing that we couldn't move in right away, I am sure now that it was God's way of blessing us with extended family time as we were temporarily "homeless."

That night after dinner, all the kids got in really silly moods and had Alexa playing silly songs like "Cat Flushing a Toilet" and "It's Raining Tacos." This is the craziness that happens in Ema and Papa's basement, and I love it. Owen learned a new word, tacos, and he was trying so hard to say Alexa so he could get it to play a song for him. As you can tell, the kids were having a blast, playing, dancing, and roughhousing without a care in the world. It was a wonderful way to end a great day together as a family.

(Blog about June 16-22, 2019)