Update

Nate and I got all of our stuff over to the house on March 30 and handed in our keys! It's so nice to just live at the house and not be driving back and forth! We're still in the process of moving in and putting all of our stuff away. Last week the weather was warm and beautiful so we spent a lot of time walking around our neighborhood and the walking paths in our area. We love our location! Nate also did a lot of work outside in terms of cleaning out the garage (we rented a dumpster), raking the lawn, and scattering grass seed.

I would love to share more pictures with all of you, but we don't have the internet at home yet. Check back in a couple weeks for pictures! My family is coming up in a week to celebrate my brother Adam's birthday so our goal is to have a lot accomplished by that point. What a long process.

March 24-25: Moving still continued

We have so much stuff! Nate was working nights so he slept during the day and then brought a load of stuff to the house. Then we'd meet at the apartment again and pack more and bring another load over. It's pretty much just piled up in our crawl space, kitchen, and entry way. Minimal organizing and putting away has occurred. That's for next week. We just need to focus on getting everything out of the apartment. This is very stressful for me. When I was a little kid, I had a reoccurring nightmare that my play room was completely full of boxes up to the ceiling. Before I could go to sleep, I had to unpack and put away every box. Every time I move, I think of this nightmare and I feel close to a panic attack. You'd think that after moving twice a year for the last 7 years that I'd start to get over this. At least I can take comfort in the fact that I am done moving for a good long while.

March 23: The move...continued

We still have more work to do on the house, but for now, we have to put all of that aside and focus on moving out of the apartment. We still have a lot of stuff left there. At this point, my shins and knees are black and blue from carrying large, awkward items. All I can say is that I'm so happy our house is only 15 minutes away from our apartment. I'm also very thankful that Nate's dad left his truck for us to use this week. That is a huge help.

Today we moved over a bunch of shelving units and our dressers. Tons of miscellaneous boxes were moved over as well. Thank God for the crawl space. Only thing is, at some point, we'll have to pull it all out again and sort through it to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. I know that we have about 3 blenders, 2 irons, and 3 hand mixers. This is so not necessary.

March 22: Scramble!

Mom and Dad were awesome and stayed an extra day. They got so much done. Dad put up the trim in the basement living room and overcame a few obstacles with that. Mom finished painting the laundry room and finished the touch-ups.

Nate had worked the night shift the night before so he slept and then brought over a truck-load, including the TV. He also organized the basement living room for us. Complete with lawn chairs as furniture. I'm really excited to buy furniture for that room.

Nate grilled brats and then we all talked and relaxed for a while. Mom and Dad packed up and eventually took off.

Nate and I decided finally that the upstairs living room would be the sitting/game room and the downstairs living room with the fireplace would be the TV room because it is best set up for surround sound. We have been pondering this ever since we bought the house because both rooms have are kind of odd and we weren't sure how to arrange furniture in either one. I think we finally figured it out and I'm really happy with the result.

We accomplished so much this weekend. It feels like it was the most productive because we finished so many projects. I'm really happy with the house as a whole now. It's starting to feel like home.

March 21: A day of rest

On Sunday, we took it easy. Mom and I put the first coat of paint on the laundry room in the morning while Dad added extra screws to our railing to reinforce it. Unfortunately, Nate wasn't feeling well so he slept in. We had actually all been intermittently sick during the weekend. On Friday night, Dad woke us up to let us know that the furnace had back fired twice. We kept it off all weekend and just used the fireplace for heat incase the furnace was making us sick. We've actually kept it off since. We're happy that the weather has been nice so we don't actually need the furnace.

In the afternoon, we traveled to Chaska to celebrate my second cousin Eli's 1st birthday. We spent a wonderful afternoon there and then came back to the house for pizza. We relaxed and talked the rest of the night and ended up getting Dairy Queen blizzards before bed.

March 20: The floor is done!

Dad and Nate worked really hard on the floor all day and got it done late at night. It looks amazing. At first I was concerned that the color would be too light, but it has dark grain that works with the existing wood in the room. Also, it really brightens up the room. They did a great job going around the fireplace and finishing the floor in the numerous door frames and crawl space.

I went to the apartment and packed another car load. Then I brought it back to the house and unpacked. Then I dusted, cleaned, and polished all of the trim on the top level and part of the main level of the house. It was so dirty.

Mom spent the day doing a few touch-ups from where it was scraped during the carpet installation process. Then she finished the kitchen!!! She could be heard singing "ding dong, the fugly green is gone...". What a transformation. The cupboards are so much happier now with a complimenting color palate. We painted two colors to make the long eat-in kitchen seem more like two rooms: a dining room, and a kitchen. The kitchen still needs more attention. The previous owners aparently used the counter tops as cutting boards so they need to be replaced sometime soon. I would also like a new sink as this one is not very efficient. The drains are on the side of the basin, not centered, and the bottom is flat so nothing goes down the drain without quite a bit of coaxing.

We got so much accomplished today.

March 19: They're Back!

I stayed home from work again and packed more boxes/rubber bins in the morning before heading over to the house. Once I got there, I unpacked them. Then I did a deep clean on the bathroom that we would be using. Our one functioning bathroom out of the three. I conquered the dirt and dust! Dad came in the afternoon and we prepped the basement floor for the laminate by scraping any raised concrete and vacuuming the resulting dust. As soon as Nate got home, they laid the plastic and got to work! Mom came later with Lex after their shopping trip in Mankato. Then Mom and I went back to the apartment to pack more necessities for the weekend.