well well well.... if we thought that march was a beast (which we did : ), then it really just proved to be a training ground for may... of sorts. things weren't exactly the same, but we could sum may up with "crazy" or "wow".... those surprises spice things up a bit, too!
may 1-5 i traveled to utah for a fun trip to byu women's conference. while i was there we found out that "some things" (just easier for now) were approved in the adoption realm. this meant that we could move forward with our move to a house - i guess that crazy idea really began in april. though they were hoping we could move in may 1, our lease began may 15. this gave us some time to pack some things up and get a little organized. we couldn't finagle our way out of giving a full 30 day notice to the apartments, so technically we had that up to last saturday... but we wanted out, so of course we were coming over here starting the 15th! we moved most of our stuff with the truck and all the big furniture on saturday the 18th.
this is where i need to pause and pay tribute to the elders' quorum and Aaronic Priesthood moving service. we asked for help starting at 8:30 am. we were nervous about who/how many would actually show up. the week before or so i tried to publicize and verbally commit/guilt trip people into coming. the day before i sent out an email reminder giving one last plea - but of course a very fun sounding plea! the missionaries showed up right at 8:30, and others soon arrived after. there were 10 "grown up" men, 8 "young men", and 4 primary boys (movers in training) in addition to will and i. and you can probably guess how helpful i really was heaving things into the truck : ) this little army showed up, packed the truck full, offered their vehicles for the remaining things that wouldn't quite fit in the truck, drove over and unloaded things into the new house (where we directed them to) INCLUDING THE PIANO all by 10:30. 2 hours and we were DONE!!!
tender mercies for sure.
did i mention we woke up a little nervous? i feel like i hardly did anything! i pointed out to the youth where the treats, snacks, and water were, and i directed traffic, and i really did carry some things... : )
but i can't express how thankful we were that so many took the time to come help us. it would have taken will and i all day long and then some. and there are things that, honestly, i CANNOT lift. the piano is it's own category entirely! : )
i will say, however, that it was really important to us that no one do any packing or cleaning. we're big kids and we can do that ourselves. if someone wanted to offer to come help with that part, that's their own grave to dig... but in my opinion, the worst "moves" are where you show up and half the house isn't packed yet.... so if you only get one thing out of reading this monster-long post, know that NO ONE wants to show up to help you pack or clean unless they tell you that specifically. have it all packed, then the muscles and packing brains can work quickly, efficiently, and they'll still be your friends when it's all over. (which was important to us : )
good thing the move went so fast. as we walked down the ramp from the porch when we were done (and ready to return the truck then go get started on cleaning the apartment) my cramps started... tmi, sorry : ) we had to go buy more ibuprofen, then it was time to let the cleaning games begin! we had no family in the area to pressure into helping us clean this time (pressuring family is a little different : ), though we considered flying jeanette out when we remembered how well she did in utah... (shout out! : ) we wore ourselves out cleaning all day saturday, and were especially excited for our day of rest on sunday. there were, of course the other fun details like our fridge that was supposed to be delivered that day and wasn't and the landlord came to fix the dishwasher.
we ate discount (old) sandwiches we found at winco laaaate that night for dinner sitting on the floor in the apartment. the next day for breakfast we had leftover fruit and granola bars. some new neighbors invited us over for lunch. and we were so smart to get everything we needed to make dinner sunday.... nevermind we have no idea where the can opener is.... : ) hahaha luckily after so many different customer service reps, waiting on hold, etc, etc, will was able to get them to say they'd deliver the fridge the next day. so monday we were able to get all the fridge stuff out of the apartment plus some other things.
will took the afternoon off on monday (i already had it off) and we went up for our next appointment with the adoption agency. that was exciting, but we were going to need the internet for the next steps and the internet wasn't scheduled to come until friday... so we lived for a week with just our phones and 3g (i know, poor us.. : ) and couldn't move forward with any adoption stuff... we had plenty of other stuff to keep us busy, though!
monday evening we cleaned more and took more odds and ends to the house. tuesday evening we cleaned more (and will went on visits) and took the rest of the odds and ends to the house. we felt like we had done a pretty good job cleaning and were all done.
wednesday was will's birthday!!!! before he was home from work i went to have our "initial" check out check. she was happy with and impressed with our cleaning job!! though, we forgot to clean out (wipe out?) the dishwasher.... who knew? : ) ha she said she wouldn't charge us, but it was going to bother me if i didn't go back and take care of it.
starting sunday we noticed our shower didn't drain properly... that meant a lot of back and forth with our landlord neighbors. that led to the "clogged" toilet too... we're on a well. and a septic tank (oops? : ) goooooood toooooo knooooooow. and we don't have a garbage disposal...
anyway, wednesday was one thing to another and i had to squeeze in making a birthday cake. good thing i'd already shopped and wrapped!! well at this point we're still living out of boxes because we haven't had a chance to unpack things yet. so.... good luck finding a cake pan! a 9x13 had to do.... and since the kitchenaid sounded too overwhelming i mixed up that chocolate frosting by hand, baby! it only took a little while... : ) hehe.... i also had no plan for decorating or making it look like a birthday cake. luckily i knew where some m&ms were (keep track of the essentials, you know?) and i thought it was smart to spell out "happy birthday will" with a 28 on it in m&ms. yeah, maybe if i had all afternoon!! ha so by the time that was done it was pretty late - we'd already been to red robin (where they brought me the wrong burger, and i guess it was important enough to have them fix it, AND will was gypped out of his free birthday sundae... that i've gotten twice now at that location... : ) anyway, the cake said happy birthday, but anyone's guess was as good as mine as to where those darn candles might be! so i still sang, of course, and made will pretend he was blowing out candles for a picture (with boxes in the background, naturally : ) all in all, a good birthday! or as good as you can get in the midst of a move!
OBVIOUSLY WE'RE 3 MONTHS PAST WHERE THIS POST LAST LEFT OFF.... I WILL "FINISH" IT WITH WHAT ELSE WE CRAMMED INTO MAY, BUT DON'T EXPECT AS MANY DETAILS (OR AS MUCH WIT... WAH : ) ok, i guess i remembered more than i thought i would.
is it still august????? though, i will say it does feel like it was JUST barely august 1. ok, so will had a fantastic birthday, i like to think : ). i mean, when we eat burgers, fries, cake, there are presents, and i make an even bigger deal about will than usual : ) what can go wrong???
so the next day i worked at monticello and preschool. i went straight from preschool out to have a job interview at a different district. it sounded easier to just be dressed up all day. yeah, until i discover that there's a painting kids' hands at preschool project and somehow i'm the chosen one to do it!! so i'm painting hands, kneeling on the hard floor in my skirt, trying to get the kids to twist their arms around because our class had to be the one on the top of the paper (and having them dive over right side up (i know what i mean : ) just wasn't going to work - we did try! : ). so it's stressful and i'm sweating!!! not a good combo preceding a job interview! somehow i lived through it all. the job interview was fine enough, but i knew i left feeling like either way and probably not. then i go straight to the train station, get will, then we go home to change. we had to put on our spirit gear and head to stockton for the byu baseball game!! byu comes to the area, we go. too fun not to! and we love byu : ) it would have been too easy to just sit and watch the game. we played phone tag back and forth with our landlord during it about the shower/toilet/septic line clog (wooo! : ) we'll admit, we aren't really baseball lovers, but it was still plenty fun for us!
finally it was friday. i only worked half day (no preschool). that was perfect to schedule comcast's "installation" and sears' delivery. i also was expecting two different presurgery phone call appointments that afternoon. (it was tuesday afternoon in the midst of moving, birthdays, end of school year, etc that i got a call about the option to move up my surgery to the very next thursday - the 30th.) soooo..... i had myself set up for quite the afternoon. now my track record for "people" who give you a delivery, etc window is that they may arrive in it, but usually they'll arrive in the last 5 minutes or so... so, naturally, i was pretty impressed when comcast showed up right about 2! long story short, it's a good thing they did because he was there at least the next two hours!! right away i was nervous and unsure if he knew what he was really doing... eventually some of his buddies came over to help him (thank goodness!) so he's out there on a ladder hooking something up, wants to run something around the outside of the house (which one of his pals was able to snake through something under the house), testing this or that.
not too long after comcast arrived, sears showed up. the nice thing was they were very nice, respectful, and seemed to know exactly what they were doing. i probably was happier to see them anyway since they were bringing our washer and dryer!!!
let me back up, we were already skeptical of what comcast was doing because we had been given misinformation already (mabye?). they were going to send someone to drive by to see if we could have whatever hooked up. whatever it was, we clarified that they weren't going to need permission from the landlord. they said no. imagine our surprise and horror when the landlord called to say someone from comcast was out, dug a line, AND hit into something while digging..... that's a really nice way to move in next door to your landlord and make fast friends : ) luckily nothing was really damaged, but definite evidence of being dug into.
so i'm watching him either on the porch or out the window the whole time (when i'm not with sears). then i get my first surgery call. went fine (start taking vitamin d3, among other instructions). then the other guy calls. he's mostly friendly. takes a while because he's having computer issues, but it's fine, really. except for at this point somehow my phone battery is low enough that i have to plug it in while talking... still trying to watch out the window... ha. that's when we have the whole d3 question narrated in some other post earlier this summer...
it was a busy enough afternoon... then i think we went to the temple that night. so says my calendar... yes, i do remember now (because once again we made a stop at the target in dublin on the way home!)
saturday morning, may 25. our friend, annie (shout out : ) took some pictures of us that we can potentially use as part of our adoption profile. we were looking for something a little nicer than our point and shoot selfies that we've been trying to perfect. she wouldn't accept payment, as she said it was for a good cause (how nice! : ), but we paid her back by sneaking her a cold stone gift card at her graduation party that night with her other graduation gift : ) ha we felt clever... haha : ) it was too convenient that we'd also get to go use will's birthday coupon to get ourselves ice cream on our shopping outing that afternoon!
thank goodness for our day of rest on sunday! we felt good about working on adoption stuff that day since we'd been so busy, and it was important stuff for our family. we were really looking forward to it that day. and then our username/password didn't work... wah : ( so i had to wait until tuesday (because of the holiday) to call and get that figured out...
monday was memorial day (engagement anniversary! : ). we went to the stake park clean up at a park that had had an event the day before. we walked around picking up trash then got a donut! we didn't mind : ) the rest of the day must have been when we unpacked the bulk of the kitchen stuff (because, honestly, it's so painful to try and live out of boxes, especially in the kitchen!). and we barbecued something? (grilled, excuse me : ) oh, and that must be the day we picked some cherries, i pitted them using the borrowed cherry pitter (no, i didn't crack it, that was already there, apparently. thank goodness!!), and we spread them out on cookie sheets for freezing. great news: the cookie sheets were too wide for the new freezer... after all that work! we still had the apartment (and keys), so we went and put them into the apartment freezer for a day or two. we were able to use those stacking cooling racks to make a few layers - genius!! (thanks for those cool cooling racks for a wedding gift, one of will's cousins!)
tuesday i called LDSFS (hereafter ldsfs, because i'm lazy : ) to get the username/password figured out. i also got a call telling me what time my surgery would be on thursday. it was my last day of preschool - weird to think about not being with heather the next year. (also knowing julie was moving and still having no idea what was going to happen was weird.) after preschool i had to go have my presurgery pregnancy test (c'mon people, let's get serious here... as nice a surprise as it would have been : ) (and i will admit i did fantasize a little about the potential freak chance : ) then i had to race home because my wheelchair (for post surgery) was to be delivered. well that was a time the "delivery people" were early! luckily they just left the thing on the porch. then i had a few minutes to breathe, but not many before my visiting teachers came.
wednesday was my last day at monticello. i said goodbye to some people - because i was losing my job at the end of the year. sat around doing nothing... and who knows what else to fill the 4 hours : ) that evening was preschool graduation. they were cute. it was fun. i lamented once more that being my last working day with miss heather. i feel like i should write and ode to miss heather, or something. i learned so much from her and truly loved working every day with her. she was a good example, fun to talk with, and made me feel good. now, she tells me how much i taught her and how much good i did for her, which i do appreciate, but she's probably just being nice again. : ) she's awesome and so good at what she does. really! it was one of my favorite years of teaching to date, and so far she's been the best teaching match for me! **i do now refer all my preschool friends to her : )** back to graduation. it was also just that bittersweet feeling of sending another batch off to the next grade, in this case, kindergarten!
thursday, may 30 i drove myself for the last time for weeks. we went to the hospital, got all checked in, and the fun of the next few weeks and months began. (see other post).
it felt, in a way, like we went from going 100 miles per hour to a screeching halt. but post-surgery there were all sorts of other things that made us feel busy. and then throughout the summer we really did do quite a bit, but that's for another post. seriously, though, may had a lot going on, then all of a sudden i was in bed or on the couch for two weeks straight doing a whole lot of not very much : )
so... may kept us on our toes. don't you think for one moment that we sit around eating brownies and watching tv all the time. that's just sometimes... : ) with just the two of us we run a pretty busy schedule. it keeps us off the streets and out of trouble, i guess!
