The movers worked until long past dark (remember, this was around the summer solstice, so it really was late!) We grumpily paid them for way more than we were quoted, in addition to wanting a tip, but once the sting of that wore off, we were fine. There may have been tears about later that night when all the things piled up, but mostly things went off just fine. The piano movers actually made it to the new house first, despite not getting to our Saratoga house until around 5. There were three of them, and they thought it was really funny that the 12 movers couldn't move the piano.)
The day before, Brian and our friend Patrick had picked up our fencing and dropped it off at the house. Brian spent some time on moving day picking up an auger for Cal and Ethan to start working on digging fence posts. The auger ended up being useless, unfortunately, and Cal and Ethan dug all the posts by hand. We got beds set up so everyone could sleep. It was nice not having to worry about kids, which meant Mom, Cal, Cassidy, Ethan, Brian and I all got to sleep in beds and couples/individuals didn't have to share rooms.
The next morning, we all got to work. Mom made us all pancakes, and I was impressed that she was able to find our boxes of ingredients.
Cal and Ethan worked on the fence, Mom, Cassidy, and I headed to the store to get supplies, and Brian did stuff. Important stuff. Then, we came back and Cassidy and I unpacked all the stuff for the kitchen. My mom helped work on kids rooms. Kirt and Julie arrived later with the kids and also helped with things.
Progress!
Saturday was the first night the kids got to sleep in their new rooms in our new house. Julie had just finished quilting this quilt that I made (and she finished) for his bed.
Michael felt like his photo needed to be in black and white.
The next day was Father's Day. Brian got snuggles
and I totally surprised him with his gift, thanks to Lea and Shayne. I knew I could never hide it from him during the move, so they let me ship it to their house and brought it over on Father's Day. They even wrapped it and had the kids write messages on the paper.
Even though there was lots to do in the new house, we still had popcorn.
Gracie wasn't too sure about what was going on. She started having accidents again, and I was ready to leave her to the wolves! (Gracie, I just had these carpets cleaned!)
The kids loved exploring the new neighborhood. Michael found this treehouse in the scrub oak preserve.
Rachel meeting her new coach and teammates on her new dance team. We enjoyed having it less than 10 minutes away.
Gracie loves all the windows in the new house.
We sold our table to the new owners of our house since we'd had it custom built for the dining room there. Until we got our new table, we were back on our tiny table that we had in Wymount.
Don't worry though, we still did normal things like reading.
We bribed Taryn's family to come help with promise of a dip in the pool. The kids had fun running amok around the house
And we put David to work figuring out how to add feet to these cupboards we got from IKEA. I'm pretty sure I put Taryn to work helping me put the cupboards together in the first place.
We made sure to go to the pool after cracking the whip on Taryn, David, and Brian all day.
And we fed them dinner after swimming.
He was pretty excited to have a joiner for his new third car garage woodshop!
We had dinner at Nana and Papa's, and Rachel had a loose tooth
Which she pulled out.
Our realtor gave us this pencil sketch of our old house. It was so thoughtful, and we love it! Now to find a place to put it.
Even though there was so many things to do with unpacking and settling, we knew we all needed a break, and we were all dying to check out our new pool. We all agreed that it is awesome.
We just need to work on not throwing fits when it is time to leave.
Cassidy got me these pretty quartz trivets for a housewarming gift, and I love them!
Unpacking was exhausting.
Apparently moving and unpacking brings out our sadistic side.
See the little feet on the bottom? They're so pretty!
Just over a week after we moved in, a Facebook post from a friend led me to look out my laundry room window, and I saw this:
We stayed up really late worrying about this fire. The next morning, things were pretty under control. Apparently, at some point, the winds miraculously just died so that the firefighters could put this out.
Cal and Cassidy came for a little bit the next day. It was good to see them and relax with them a little bit.
One of us got a little too relaxed.
We busted out the fine linens for dinner that night.
Then we discovered that there was another raging fire in the county, this time threatening our old neighborhood. The fire went so fast and had even jumped Redwood Road. Our old neighborhood, along with 1/3 of Saratoga Springs's population got evacuated. We offered our home, and Serene and Dustin's family took us up on our offer. It took our friends 2 hours just to get out of there due to traffic and only one main road out. We felt pretty validated and grateful to not be living down there any more. The kids enjoyed their "sleepover", and we had fun playing games with Serene and Dustin to help distract them from worrying about the fire. Miraculously, the only home that was lost was a vacation home, and though many fences were melted/destroyed, nobody was hurt. At some point, the winds turned and blew the fire back on itself. Grass across the street from our former meetinghouse was burned. The fire came right up to backyards in multiple places. We watched several videos of the racing fire, and it truly was miraculous that nobody lost their homes.
I spent a lot of my time trying to figure out where to put things. We left a lot of built-in storage in our old house. Before we moved, I spent a lot of time on KSL trying to find a good china hutch for this space in our dining room. It was a tricky space with the stairs and light switches, so I finally decided to wait until we were in the house. Brian and I found the perfect hutch at a store in Gardner Village. This is the new home to our table linens, chargers, goblets, and pretty serving bowls. I love it so much! It makes me feel so grown up!
We spent the last part of June planning our landscape, fine tuning our basement plans, unpacking, buying shelves and furniture, and swimming in our new pool. We had so much work to do!