And enter a new life . . . or at least house

Well, we've officially moved. Yay!!!!! Everything that could be delayed was, however, due mostly to the incompetence of our guy at Wells Fargo; so the fact that neither Steve nor I (especially I!!) cheerfully committed bloody murder is actually a big accomplishment on our part! Things finally closed on our house four entire days after the official appointment for closing (BIG deal when you realize we lost an entire weekend for cleaning and getting help), and we only barely got the keys by 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon of the very last day we had access to the trailer we used to move. So, yes, that meant three trips with a HUGE trailer in one night (and when you consider loading and unloading, that takes a bit of time), and it would have been even more if we had not been able to rustle up some emergency help (with pickup trucks) from both our old and new wards. I was so beat after that night that I just came home, helped Steve put our bed together, and crashed. I left the cleaning that was left for the next morning, and thank heaven I did! I didn't think there was that much left to do (fridge, one bathroom minus the shower, touch-ups on baseboards and walls, vaccum floors and edges, sweep laundry room and garage, mop kitchen floor), but if a certain saintly sister of mine hadn't volunteered to help me, it would have taken MUCH longer than the four hours I spent there! Whew!

So now we get the joy of unpacking and trying to figure out how to set up our new house. I still rearrange after putting stuff one way, but it's coming around. At least the little girls' room is all organized now (complete with new monster bunkbed), and the living room is presentable for visitors . . . if you don't look at the tiled part of the entryway not right by the door, lol. Obviously, our computer is up and running (very important since we're trying out Magic Jack for our home phone right now -- kinda like Skype except you plug the phone into the USB on the jack and you can not only make calls, but receive them as well), and our utilities and such are switched over (as far as we know), so I guess most of the headaches with that are over, knock on wood. And the yard is going to take a LOT of work to get in order, but then that goes with any yard after winter. So wish us luck! Although I do think Marina is going to be very sad when we till the garden (assuming we can get rid of the jungle of grass in it!) since that will most likely chase her beloved garter snakes away. Ah well, such is life, lol!

So here's our new living room, kitchen and dining area, family room upstairs (excuse the mess, and there probably will be couches here later), tv room down stairs (which Steve wants to turn into a complete theatre room later, complete with stadium seating), exercise/game room (waiting on spongy flooring for the weight machine), our big shared-w/the-neighbors tree, our yard with fenced garden and shed (yes, the grass was terribly long and wet when we cut it), the front of our house (can't really see our lilac hedge that's overgrown here), our cat, Tiger, who's already figured out where her house and food dish are, lol, Jessie and Marina's room (the other kids weren't around to ask to take pics), and the master bed and bath (in total chaos of course!).