And they MOVED!

Anthony and Lori have MOVED!!  What a crazy full week this has been.  As I said in my last post, part one happened last Saturday.  Tuesday evening was part two - another U-Haul filled with boxes, outdoor furniture, bikes, Lori's scooter, then depositing them at the new place.

Thursday evening was part three - all our vehicles filled to the hilt.  In fact, Anthony and Dick filled their vehicles twice, taking the first loads over to the new place.  In the middle of everything I had to run off to choir practice at Fillmore.  When I was finished at 9 I went back to their place to get Austin and brought him to our place to put him to bed.  Eventually my very tired hubby came home.  We went to bed, leaving the door unlocked and the porch light on.  Anthony and Lori were getting the house clean and beautiful for the new owner.  I told Lori when I left with Austin that I hoped they would get to our place before 5 am!  I was kind of joking, but kind of not.  I remember the all-nighters before moving.  I heard them come in very quietly around 4 am.  He had taken these pictures when they were finished and posted this collage with the caption, "Goodbye, old friend."  The lucky lady that walked into her new house the next day, cleaned to Lori's standards!

  
Friday morning I took Austin to school and they went to the settlement on their new place.  So now, some PICTURES!  First of all I want to post the ones I've been sitting on ever since I was there in early March during the inspection.  The snow adds such a lovely touch.

The barn - Anthony's future studio.

I took the next two last Saturday.  Here you can see the house from the side view.  Above the garage is a guest bedroom and bathroom with its own outdoor entrance.  

That screened-in porch is what sold Lori on the place.  Anthony said that as he sat there yesterday afternoon listening to the birds and feeling the sun and the breeze, he thought,  "People go on vacation for a setting like this."

The view from the porch.

This is a view of the barn from the house. 

I did food prep at my house yesterday, then went to their new place around 5 pm.  Dick came there after work.  They now live 14 miles from us instead of 6.  They are southwest of State College, near the little town of Pine Grove Mills, we are northeast of State College.  

Here are some pictures I snapped last evening.  First of all, the stove in its brick archway, facing the living room.

The twins and their mom came to see the place, and the kids had the greatest time exploring around the pond and stream below the house.  Of course there were strict instructions that they never play down there without an adult. 

The view from the deck.

Everybody was way too tired to do much organizing last evening.  We just concentrated on finding essential things.  I took this picture of them from the upstairs hallway, which overlooks the living room.  That is one tired, but very happy family down there in the corner!

I'll get more indoor pictures today after they try to figure out furniture placement.  

One last picture - my daffodils.  In a week or so my tulips are promising to be profuse, according to the number of buds.

Egg hunt and moving day

Monday already!  This was a happening weekend!

On Saturday our Houserville church had its annual egg hunt event.   Because it was also moving day for Anthony and Lori we were not able to help with that.  However, I ended up being there anyway, because the best way I could help Anthony and Lori was by taking Austin to it.  The egg hunt was held right around the corner at the Houserville Elementary School.  The bounce house and food were at the Houserville church.  In addition to Austin I had his twin friends, Sienna and Sheree.  Even Austin does not know them apart, so he just calls each of them "Twin."   What fun I was in for!!

Waiting for the "GO!"

They had different ages of children on different sides of the school building.  There were SO many eggs!

Discovering their loot.

It was a very windy day, and the empty plastic eggs kept rolling away!

I then took them over to the church for lunch and some bounce house fun.  These three are as cute as can be, but can they ever bicker and fuss!  The last thing we did was the bounce house, which they and a few other kids had a blast in.  There was no longer a line of kids waiting to get in, so they were allowed to just keep jumping and rolling and diving as long as they wanted.  I kept thinking, "I can't believe no one is getting hurt!"  And then one of the twins caught Austin on the mouth with her knee. Oh boy, that was the end of the fun.

He was more angry than hurt, and the whole way home to Anthony and Lori's house, he was saying all the mean things he could think of.  I kept reminding him that it was an accident, and he needs to just forgive her and get over it.  When we got home he went inside to tell his parents the terrible thing that "Twin" had done to him, then he went outside to shoot basketball.  The twins stayed in the house.  After a while he came to the door and said loudly, "Twins, I forgive you!  Do you want to play basketball?"   Kids!

The twins' mother came for them, Austin went to his room for some quiet time, and soon the friends helping to move arrived.

As it turned out, I missed all the fun, because I created my own "fun."  I don't feel like writing the whole long tale again, so I will just copy and paste it from my Facebook post.

Apparently I did not think that Anthony and Lori's moving was enough excitement for one day. In the middle of it all they sent me to Walmart for more packing tape. At the cash register my phone rang, and it was Anthony asking me to get disposable cups too, which I did. 

As I drove away from my parking space I realized my phone was not in my purse or any of my pockets. I quickly circled around, parked again, and ran back into the store straight to my cashier. No, there had not been a phone left in her area. And no, customer service had not had one turned in. 

With a sinking feeling I went back to the parking lot and thoroughly searched my car with no results. I drove back to Anthony and Lori's. They NEEDED those cups and packing tape and were probably wondering why it was taking so long. 

But actually, when I returned everyone was so involved in loading the truck that no one noticed me or my distress. I managed to get Lori's attention. She said I should definitely go back to Walmart, that the same thing had happened to her numerous times and it had always been turned in. I had just checked too soon. 

So back I went. No phone had been turned in. They took Dick's cell number so they could notify him if it were turned in. I retraced my every step, I tried to look through the long stack of grocery carts, I wondered why I had not brought Dick's phone with me so I could have tried to call myself. I hung around customer service a while longer and finally headed back to Anthony and Lori's, feeling horrible. I figured Anthony would know how to locate my phone; he knows how to do everything. But he was in charge of all these movers. How could I bother him with my phone issue in the middle of it all? My biggest fear was that someone had found it and kept it, although they couldn't have used it anyway without knowing my passcode. 

When I got back, they were all getting ready to go over to the new place. The plan was that Lori and I would stay behind until Austin woke up from his nap, then we'd pick up pizza and head over.

Just before Anthony took off in his Jeep he asked me for my iCloud login information, which I gave him. After they all left, Lori decided that she was going to go to Walmart and look for my phone. She was positive she would find it in a cart. 

While she was there, I got a call from Anthony (I had Dick's phone). He had seen on the "locater" that my phone was indeed somewhere at Walmart. Whew!!!! He said he could remotely make it beep really loud. 

I told him to call Lori. I called her too to tell her where all I had been in the store so she could walk around listening for the loud beep. 

After a while she called and said it had been turned in at the service desk - someone had found it in a cart. Thank you, Lord, and thank you, honest person at Walmart! And thank you, Lori, for being there, because of all things, in my distress I had not even written Dick's phone number down correctly!! And thank you, Anthony, for taking time in the middle of managing the biggest move of your life to bother with your mom's cell phone crisis.

So once that crisis was over, we woke Austin from his nap, went to pick up the pizza, and went to the new place to feed the hungry workers.  Once again, I cannot post pictures of that part of the day.  They will not officially own the place until settlement on Friday, so they were just moving furniture and lots of boxes that day.  The owner let them use the garage and large "fireplace" room to keep their things in.  

When we were heading back to their place, Lori said, "I was just thinking that all I feel like doing is relax on the couch, and then I remembered I don't have a couch!"  This is not going to be an easy week for them with no place to really call home.  They ended up coming to our place that evening.  

They knew they were welcome to sleep at our house too, but they went home to try out their new arrangement of air mattress and cot.  On Sunday morning they said it had worked out fine. 

We had our last hot dog and s'mores roast at their current house last evening.  I forgot to take any pictures.  I have to tell you what Anthony, in his corny humor, came up with.  "If crackers, chocolate, and a marshmallow is called a S'more, what would you call chocolate and a marshmallow without the crackers?  S'mless."  

After I was home last evening I got a call from Lori's phone.  It was Austin.  He said, "Grandma, I took a picture of my curly hair, and I'm going to send it to you."  In a few seconds, I received this:

Silly boy!

There are pictures and news from other family members too, but I'll try to post again tomorrow.  This one is way too long already.

A moving weekend

Things are getting exciting around here!  Anthony and Lori have been packing and purging and tearing things apart.  Tomorrow there will be a big moving truck at their place and some good, strong men to load all their furniture and the many, many boxes into the truck and then across town to their "mountainside retreat."  They won't officially own it until a week from today, so they'll still be "camping" at their own place this week, getting it ready for the new owners.  

No pictures yet, except this one that Anthony posted this week.  They met with the seller a few days ago.  He owns some Japanese swords and totally made Austin's day!

Our weather has been rainy ever since Tuesday.  Finally this afternoon the sun came out.  My joints hate rainy weather.  I took these pictures on Monday of the flowers Sam and Jenn gave me for Easter and our first daffodils blooming.  The rose bush isn't showing much life yet.

Have a good weekend!

Easter Weekend 2015

Happy Easter, everyone!  I have had no time for blogland this past week to check up on you.  My combination of jobs (secretary for a church with three locations and music director for two) creates an incredible amount of work during Holy Week due to the extra services held.  Besides, I took Thursday off work at the church office so I could drive to Reading for Destiny.  Dick helped me a whole lot a couple of evenings.   Our dining room table looked like this.

When I picked Destiny up on Thursday she told me she needs help with a science project about Jupiter.  I definitely didn't have that in my schedule, but on our way home we stopped for some groceries and picked up a few project supplies.  Suddenly my dining room table looked like this!

We had a meaningful Holy Thursday service at Houserville that evening, and afterward we went to Walmart and the Dollar Store for some more project supplies.   We worked late that evening gathering information off the internet.  I learned more about Jupiter than I ever cared to know!

On Friday morning I caught up on some stuff here at home, then Destiny and I hit the road for a million errands.  One of our stops was a quick eyebrow waxing job for her.

She got right to work on her project when we got home.  

In the evening we had a very meaningful Good Friday service at Fillmore.  When we got home from that we got right to work on the project again, and THEN Sam, Jenn, and the kids arrived!  Amazingly, Bianca did not act the least bit shy this time.  Sam and Jenn went out on a date and we had a great time with her and Sammy.

Destiny got finished with her Jupiter project.  Great big relief!

Dick took off work on Saturday, so we had a wonderfully slow, come-what-may kind of day.  Austin spent the day with us so Anthony and Lori could "pack and purge" for their upcoming move.  

Here are pictures from our day.

 

Painting Easter eggs with little boys takes on a whole different slant, but no less fun.  

Legos provided hours of entertainment.

In the evening we went to Chick Fil a and then to Sweet Frog for dessert.    Anthony and Lori met up with us to reward themselves for all they'd accomplished!

I needed to get pictures of this ever-smiling little girl, but do I see someone trying to photobomb my pictures??

This morning I noticed all the Easter posts on Facebook, but I didn't have time to think up or find anything wonderfully inspirational, so when we parked the car at Fillmore Dick took a picture of us with my phone, and that became our Happy Easter greeting.  

Lori and Anthony came to Houserville for church today, so Dick and I had two little boys wanting to help us with our music.  Here they are during the pastor's children's story.   

Later in the service Austin sat at the piano with me, so Sammy went to the stage with Dick.  Lori took this picture.  She said he was acting like he was directing a choir.

Soon Austin wanted to be with Grandpa too, so they sat up there on stools while we sang!

Destiny looked stunning today in a black dress and heels.  Why, why, why did I not take a picture of her??  I'm really sad about that.

We came home and had a very informal Easter dinner.  I had made ham in the oven and gourmet potatoes in the crock pot yesterday.  This morning I made baked corn while I was getting ready for church.  So we had to do some quick reheating when we got home  Our table was not a bit fancy.  When I tried to apologize, my dear children would hear none of it.  I said that I guess I was comparing it to some of the beautiful pictures of Easter tables I had seen on Facebook.  Anthony said,  "And how many worship teams did they lead this morning?  And how many of them had guests overnight for the weekend?"  That was good for me to hear.  I would rather lead praise and worship and I would rather have a houseful of family overnight than have a fancy table.  So I guess I'm doing what I want.

All too soon we were saying our goodbyes.  I held Bianca as long as I could.  She was so adorable and cuddly in her knit dress and pink tights.  She's holding a plastic hot dog from our little kitchen set.  Apparently it is one of her favorite things to chomp on at home, so when she found one just like it here, she was a happy girlie!

Austin stayed here for the afternoon.  He wanted to go to the park nearby, but Dick and I needed naps, so he watched Ice Age while we napped.  I slept like a log during the movie.  He said he thought I died, because I stayed laying the same way for so long.  When Lori and I asked him later how I looked, he lay flat on his back with his eyes closed and his mouth open, hahahahaha!!

When we woke up, we realized he had come without a coat, and the wind sounded ferocious outside. Dick convinced him to play Connect Four instead.  

But when Connect Four got old, he still had the park on his mind.  So Dick got creative and put Austin in his big orange hoodie and black stocking cap.  Austin did not mind one bit!

Have a good week!  Spring is here!  I see nothing but 50's and 60's in our forecast, which is indeed progress for Central PA.  Lots of rain too, but it IS April, so that's to be expected.