Moved

We are now in our house! It was a long road, but worth the wait. We couldn’t be more in love with this place. Its so perfect for our family. We’ve planted our flag and claimed the place as our own (literally – we put an American flag out on the front deck that wasn’t there before we moved in). 

We’ve been so blessed by our helpful families. We’ve emptied most of the boxes and set up most of the furniture. There’s still more to do, but for now it just feels good to be in our house and have all the waiting and prep work behind us. We are looking forward to feeling more settled.

Our first day, Saturday, was spent moving boxes in and partially setting up the kitchen. We got about half the cupboards filled. We had family over to see the new place and check it out.

Sunday was the real moving day. We called in all the family we could find and had them help move the rest of our boxes and all our furniture in here. They also stayed to help unpack several boxes and make our beds so that the house was functional after they left. Dave pulled a muscle while lifting something heavy so he wasn’t much in the mood for hanging out so we all got to bed quickly that night.

To give us time to get settled, Dave took some vacation days and had Monday – Wednesday off work. It was so nice to have that time. We set up the brand new bunk beds for David and Max, finished setting up the kitchen, started unpacking things in the master bathroom, worked a bit out in the garage, organized the stacks of boxes in the dining room, went grocery shopping to stock up on food, and changed out all the locks on the doors.

It was one of those days, Tuesday I think, that we found the cause of the stinky smell in the kitchen. We’d notice the odor right away when we moved in and thought it was some rotten food stuck in the kitchen sink pipes. We gave them a good rinsing and the smell continued. We then assumed it was a dead mouse under the house that was stinking things up. We lit candles, sprayed air fresheners and did everything else we could think of to get rid of the smell. None of it worked. While heating up lunch on Monday, we blew an electrical circuit and half our house went dark. We called Dave’s dad over early Tuesday to help look at it. They weren’t able to fix the electrical issues (though they did determine there’s 2 blown circuits, not just one) but they did discover 2 propane gas leaks in the kitchen. They tightened and adjusted all the pipes around the stove and – voila! – the smell is gone. Note to self: if you think you smell decaying rodent, first check that you aren’t leaking toxic fumes out of the stove.

I’m so thankful for the Lord’s protection. If it weren’t for the electrical issues, we never would have found the gas leaks. A minor inconvenience saved us from something so much more harmful.