Home, Sweet, Home!!!

Wheee!!!!! We LOVE our new home!! And it actually feels like home already! I had ambitions to take pictures of all the activity, but there was so much activity, not ONE picture was taken! :)

Highlights of the weekend:

• Our two Dads coming over Friday with trailers and helpfulness. When they brought the kitchen table in, it was so cool - the table looked "small" compared to it taking up 2/3 of our previous kitchen! They worked hard and must have been exhausted.
• On Friday, Mom Vanderwest helping pack our whole kitchen and then unpack the kitchen over here. She's a great organizer and "non-clutter" person - I even had two boxes of garage sale items just from the kitchen. :)
• Saturday: Wow. The men were strong, efficient, hard-working, eager, no complaining (except Boyd did try to convince me I didn't need my favorite silk tulips and some other decorative things :). They were like machines! Thank you, each of you, for giving your time and energy for us. Moving began at 10 am, ended at 2 pm.
• Nathan, Robyn, and Seth enjoyed the day at the Oxford's playing with their crew...thank you, Lori - what a blessing to know they were in good hands.
• Kim helping with last packing and cleaning up at our old house...then bringing us yummy tacos for Sat. dinner. What a servant.
• Watching Jonathon Vanderwall bring box after box upstairs. I hope we can train our children to be so willing and helpful at just 9 years old.
• Working with Sister-in-law Kelly and niece Leslie to set up the kids' rooms before they came home. Their rooms look tidy and sweet. Kelly's fun and a "get it done" kind of gal!
• Feeding the work crew pizza for lunch. We set it up at the island and a few minutes later it struck me that there were 15 people eating in my house and I hardly noticed it. Wow. What a cool feeling.
• Joanne bringing a tasty lasagna over - making it in her kitchen around her husband who was painting(!) - we enjoyed it for 2 days!
• It was fun to hear people say how happy/excited they were for us!
• The kids are so tickled! They love it all! I think having more space will help everyone feel like they have room to roam and space of their own.
• I was careful to not lift things (due to all the great help)- though my back was squawking at me a fair amount on Fri and Sat nights. All that bending up and down and being "on" made for some tiring days. I am feeling better now. Before the move, I did pray to not go into labor on Saturday! (4 weeks to go now)
• Looking out the windows on Sunday and seeing snow falling from the picturesque pine trees.
• Ken worked on getting much of the garage organized on Monday while I was at school. I love that man so much! It has been a joy working together in this endeavor.
• We're feeling fairly settled - Ken said our work of weeding through everything and packing conscientiously made for a smooth move.
• Most of all, we feel humbled to have so many people willing to help us and be excited with us. We are blessed. Many times in the past days I have been moved to stop and thank God for this wonderful tool and blessing.