A NEW POST! Well, I figured I'd decorate this place a bit with a new entry. Most of you know we've moved. If you are my friend on FB you've seen the adventures of the move, the house and all that's been going on. If not, then I'll catch you up. :)
We got orders back to Portland...HOME. We were so happy but had a lot of work ahead of us, as with any cross country move. We had to house hunt from all the way over the other coast. Travis and I flew to OR for a week. We met up with our realtor and looked at several houses all over the county (back in Vancouver). We didn't find a house, but we decided exactly what area we wanted to be in...back where we lived before. Ok, so now we had an area, but still no house. 3 weeks later, I loaded up my precious van and drove all the way to WA by myself. It was great and I realized that I probably would be content being a long haul trucker. But I would need a mechanic with me and my darling husband who I love SO MUCH would probably drive me crazy being stuck in a truck for weeks at a time...oh well. Baby and I made it to WA in about 4.5 days. I think I could have done it quicker..now that I've done the trip, if I ever do it again, I'll know what I can handle. Anyway, I drug my friend, Evonne, along with me to look at houses. I figured it was good to have 2 pairs of eyes and different opinions. We looked at a whole bunch of houses. Some awesome houses in not so awesome neighborhoods. Some not so awesome houses in awesome neighborhoods. Finally, Travis found a house online and told me to go look at it. The Pool House. We went and looked at it, I even drug my old neighbor, Brian, with us to see it. It was a nice house, nice neighborhood. Bonus..it had a pool and hot tub..the kids were pretty tickled about that. It is a mile down the road from our old neighborhood so we know the area really well. I didn't LOVE the house, but it was ok. Travis and I talked and I made another appt to go see it again. The second time we really looked at stuff. Or so we thought. :) I took pictures to send to Travis and we decided to make an offer. It was accepted and I flew back to my family in VA (after being gone for over 2 weeks). From there, we faxed, emailed, called back to our realtor because of some issues with the stupid mortgage company the the previous owners. After a stressful month or so, we finally owned a house in WA. :)
We packed up our junk in VA (well, the movers packed it up), loaded it into the truck and hauled it away. We had to stay in VA for an extra week for Sara's high school graduation, which seems weird, since I don't think I'm old enough for my BABY to have graduated high school, but whatever. After graduation, we said good-bye to the baby girl, loaded up the other 3 vehicles and headed out on a caravan expedition. Travis in Chuck hauling Traily, Anisa, Jason and Batman (Nisa's fishie) in Foxy, and me in Cupcake. We planned to take it kind of easy and make it over in 5ish days, but got a phone call from the moving truck saying he had to deliver 2 days early or put our stuff in storage. We knew that a military delivery going into storage meant a possible VERY LONG wait for our stuff, so we pushed it and made it to Vancouver in 4 days. Hauling the trailer made our driving slower, so we did a couple of 16 hour days to make it on time. Based on my experience from that trip, if we ever have to make a cross-country move, I will drive all the vehicles, one at a time, by myself. It was too stressful with Travis trying to keep up or falling back.
Anyway, we arrived and the next day got our stuff delivered. I didn't have any time to really clean or paint the way I wanted to, so that came later. With a house full of boxes and furniture not where it belongs, we started to try to get settled.
The bad thing about moving is you don't see the problems with the new place til you actually live in it. The previous owners had lived here for almost 20 years so even tho they had done some upgrades, other things had been let go. Besides that, I'm an OCD clean freak, and saw all the dirt and grime. I got to work scrubbing cabinets and lining shelves. Steam cleaning carpets AROUND the boxes and furniture. Oh, and the pool. Yeah, it was GREEN. It hadn't been covered the there were 2 weeks between them moving out and us moving in, so it had leaves and cotton from the trees in the filter, and lots of algae. The rain gutter system had crushed pipes so we had to have the front yard dug up to replace the pipes and because of water issues in back, we had the backyard dug up to install a french drain. We quickly realized we had paid a lot for a fixer upper. doh. We got rid of lots of junk, realized we don't have enough storage here, but have found creative places to store things. I have painted most of the house and we're just now, after about 4 months, feeling a little settled. There are still things that need to be done, we want a new, bigger shed, I have to finish painting which includes a 25 foot ladder. The pool still has some algae, but we're converting to chlorine (right now it's kind of "organic chemicals") and we're hoping the chlorine kills all the plant life, and besides, it's too cold to swim right now. Next year, we're planning to put in an awning over the deck so we can spend more time outside.
Life is settling down to a new normal. Travis is back to work in Portland doing what he enjoys..inspecting ships. And he has several guys he knows that are there. Anisa is currently in VA trying to figure out where she wants to settle for now. Sara is attending Aveda Cosmetology Institute in Portland. As of last night, she has bright red hair, but she LOVES LOVES LOVES school. I'm just trying to stay busy and not get into trouble at Fabric Depot. :) We've already spent countless hours and tons of money at Home DEPOT. :/ But, we're super happy to be back Home. Anyway, that's what's been going on here. I'm going to try to be better at updated the blog, but I'm not making any promises. :)
