All moved in

We closed on the house last Tuesday. It was also Hannah's first day of school. Because we only have two cars and Nathan went to work before the closing I drove Hannah in for her 9 am class, we were set to do the walk through at 11:30 and closing at 12:30. Well, we went to the walk through and the AC wasn't working in the house. Since it's been in the 90s almost every day since we've been here there was no way we were going to close without AC. Fortunately the owners were able to get someone out to the house at 3 pm and it was an easy fix. We changed the close time to 4 pm and the title company came to the house for the closing, which was great. We finished just in time for me to to drive and pick Hannah up, as she has a lab until 5:30 pm on Tuesdays. I think I spent almost five hours in the car that day. I do not like Denver traffic, after I grabbed Hannah we went to the rental and Nathan met us there with the moving truck, we had a lot of stuff at the rental, because we had brought it all in the RV. We loaded up the truck, unloaded it at the house, brought the truck back to where we picked it up from, as we had no where else to park it and then headed back to the rental for the night to sleep. Wednesday Nathan headed to work and the kids and I did three truck loads from the storage unit to the house. We got everything unloaded into the garage of the house by 2 pm and I returned the truck, and ended up running back down to the rental (which is 45 min-1 hour away depending on traffic) because Hannah had forgotten some key things, like her wallet. I grabbed most of everything that was left there, but managed to miss Nathan's meds, so he ended up going back there after work as well. But we managed to sleep at the house on Wednesday night instead of the rental. Thursday I brought Hannah to class, cleaned the rental and came home, unpacked some and then went to pick her up. The younger three worked on unpacking while I was gone and did a great job. On Thursday she only has class until 3:40, so I was able to come home, make dinner and then Hannah, Damen and Kaleb headed off to youth group. They had a blast at youth group, which was great.  

Friday, Saturday, Sunday and today involved more unpacking.....some just chill time because we've been doing so much and things like shopping for necessities, getting ready for school (I'm starting with the younger three tomorrow), making a cake for our anniversary and church. Nathan managed to work his 40 hours last week, even with the house closing and move. We're looking forward to a little more stable existence starting soon hopefully. 

Yesterday Nathan and I went on a nice walk and then I was walking while the boys were biking to the basketball courts. I was debating going the whole way with them or not, and decided to, as it doesn't hurt to walk more (well it does, as my knees do not like the amount of stairs in this house, but that's another story)......it was a good thing I continued on, as the boys found the basketball court and headed back to get a basketball, well Damen's chain came off his bike and he was pulling over to fix it and Kaleb ran into him, sending Kaleb over the handle bars of his bike and Damen crashing hard across the ground. Fortunately they both had helmets on, as Damen's head went bouncing across the ground. He said he'll never question me telling him to put a helmet on again. They are both scraped and bruised, but doing okay. I wasn't quite to them when the crash happened, but several other people who were near asked if they were okay. I got there and helped them walk their bikes back home. 

Here are some pictures from the week:

The clouds here are so cool and you get some amazing sunsets!

One of the kids favorite parts of the house, the double stairs

Kaleb's closet (the kids worked hard and set up their rooms all on their own, beds and everything!)

Elsa has definitely been enjoying have more room to roam and at one point set herself up in the middle of the stairs

The garage full of stuff

The kids set up the couch in the living room all on their own as well!

These are flowers from our yard that Evie cut

The fun continues

 This past week has again been a full week. Apparently I'm not very good at slowing down. The kids stated last Wednesday they were going to youth group, I'm not going to object. They had a blast and would love to continue going to that church...however, our new house is 45 minutes away without traffic, so unfortunately it's not very realistic to continue going. We close on our house tomorrow and will be moving everything in tomorrow and Wednesday. Everyone is definitely looking forward to getting out of where we are. 

This past Friday, Saturday and Sunday we spent time with Nathan's parents, as they were in Greely for a dog show. It was over an hour to get there, but their hotel had a workout room, pool, basketball court and dog and grandparents 😀 so the kids enjoyed hanging out with them. Evie and Kaleb slept over on Friday night and went to the dog show with them on Saturday and then Damen and I headed up Saturday afternoon and caught part of the dog show and hung out at the hotel as well. Sunday after church we all headed up there and spent the rest of the day with them. They are leaving tomorrow, but will come see our house for the walk through tomorrow. It was good to see them and get to visit for a few days. 

Apparently Magic didn't actually sleep with Evie, but did manage to wake Kaleb up several times, as Kaleb slept on the floor. 

All the kids enjoyed seeing Magic, and since he's Grandma's son they started calling him Uncle Magic.

Here he is getting all gussied up for the show. He won on Saturday!

Have we really only been here a month?

This week has continued to be a whirlwind. We "soft" closed on our house in Indiana last Wednesday, the buyers signed paperwork Thursday and then we didn't get the money until today. It was kind of weird and I've still been juggling questions from our realtor through today. 

Thursday I took Evie, Damen and Kaleb to Red Rock. We walked a trail and Evie and I went to the amphitheater, it was super cool. The boys were super disappointed that they were not allowed to actually climb on the rock formations...I don't blame them, it looked like it would have been a lot of fun. Here are some pictures from Red Rock. 

 

Friday we went and saw Newsies, it was a community production by a group that has homeschool theater productions as well, they are currently looking for a building, but they are the closet group to our new house, so I'm hoping they will find something and the kids can get involved there. 

Sunday we headed to our friends' church near our new house. It was good to see them and the service was good as well. It's definitely different out here than Indiana, as looking for a church your options are much more limited. Researching churches near our house there were six to choose from, as opposed to the 20+ that we could have gone to near our house in Indiana. 

Yesterday I took the younger three to the Colorado Capital building and we did an hour tour. The building was amazing, they used stone in it that the only known deposit of it in the world is in Colorado and it was beautiful. We also got to go up in the dome and it has a beautiful view of Denver and the mountains. 

 After going to the capital I came home and took Hannah to the community college to see how we could get her into the classes she needs, as they were all full and I couldn't figure out the waiting list online. The good news is, no one else could figure out the waiting list either, so now she's the only one on it. The bad news is she's on the waiting list. But we talked with an advisor and that was good and he helped us out with things like her math assessment, which they didn't even asses her math skills for? They only asked questions of "can you solve this problem?" They didn't actually make her solve anything, what's up with that? 

Today I took the kids to the Littleton Museum, which is about 15 minutes from here, it was a neat little free museum with a small living history section from the 1860s and 1890s. It also had a cool art display and some history on Colorado mining and Littleton. Hannah decided to join us because there were animals, unfortunately you were unable to touch or pet the animals, so that was very disappointing. The boys thought I duped them because it was more history and they did that yesterday. But the day redeemed itself, as we went to the library across the street and it's the best one we've been to so far. Not only that, but I was able to get a library card there. Because there are an insane amount of counties in the Denver area there are a lot of different library systems and the one we went to today is completely independent so they let anyone who is in the area get one. 

On top of all of the above, I've been working to finalize insurance, read through documents from the mortgage company, try and figure out switching utilities for the new place to our name and all the other things that go along with moving into a new house. 

Going crazy

 This past week has been absolutely insane. We have been crazy house hunting, put an offer on a house, signed a contract on it after crazy negotiations, and are planning to close in two weeks on that house. Meanwhile, our house in Indiana we are signing closing documents tomorrow and I've had to read through all that paperwork. Trying to remember which I am, the buyer or the sell in all the paperwork is nuts. I've been trying to find homeowners insurance, along with car and RV and not one seems to sell them all together out here. Because we're closing is just two weeks everything has to be put together super fast, so it's been taking tons of time and been super frustrating trying to figure out how things work here, because things work slightly different everywhere. For example, the earnest money that we've put down on every other house was only 1% of the value or so, here it's over 2%, and I didn't know that until we were signing the contract, I was like "what?" I don't have that in cash right now.....deep breath. God is good and faithful. The kids absolutely love the house and have informed me they will not move out.....I said maybe we shouldn't get that house 😂 

Besides all the paperwork and house hunting, the week wasn't that eventful, which means the kids have been pretty bored, because I've been busy and on the phone with all the house sales stuff. Nathan spent four hours going through the new house with the inspector today. Which has been he's been super whacked work wise as well. 

Oh, and he had to present in front of the customers this past Thursday! They had him presenting at a preliminary design review (PDR) before he had even been there three full weeks. It's a big all day meeting with the customer and they provided breakfast and lunch. Everyone said he did great and were really impressed. 

It rained yesterday and today in the afternoon, which has been a welcome relief from the super hot and dry weather we've had since we got here. There were also double rainbows both days, which were beautiful.

Hopefully all the house stuff will be settled by the end of the week and next week we'll be able to venture out, as the weather is supposed to cool down a little as well.