We're alive

Things  sure got crazy after we left Washington.  We had 2 days when we got home before we got the keys to the new house, so we could just chill out, grocery shop and hang with friends.  Then the packing continued and continued and the work on building closets and getting the house ready began.  It was exhausting, but we are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel :o).
I will blog later about the rest of our trip (thankfully, I wrote the text on the drive back, so I just have to get the pictures together).  It was a new record,  14 hours and 2 minutes.  We had to stop 5 times, 3 to visit the bathroom, so there’s still room for improvement.  The best part was pulling into the driveway!  The kids went right to bed and we put things away.  It went pretty quickly and even enjoyed a little Olympics before bed.  The next day, the kids were up early and I was starting to have a plan for packing.  
We picked up K Tuesday morning and had him for 3 days.  He returned home for a long weekend and then was permanently with on Auguest 14th.
Looking  at the bright side, all the busyness is great for weight loss, which is good because a summer at the lake is not good for weight loss!!!We officially moved on August 19th and I'll be sending out an e-mail to everyone to update their records.  We rented a truck and had 4 guys and we were done in about 5 hours :o).  Thankfully, I had done all the car trips back and forth the previous 10 days and had most everything in its place.  All we had to do was put the beds together.
Later that day, I was doing a load of laundry and checked to make sure things weren't leaking and unfortunately, there was water on the ground.  Ryan had just tightened a bolt in the yard because it was emitting a poop smell.  It seemed that the 2 were related so I asked him to loosen it and water started seeping out.  The bathtub was also a little backed up.  I called a friend and he said it sounded like their was a  block in the sewer line from the release to the road and suggested we take the cap completely off to release the pressure and clear the line.  That was interesting.....nothing like a poop geyser in your front yard draining all over the driveway and into the grass.  The cable guy got more than he bargained for as he was trying to "save" his drill bit from the flow and ended up tipping over our swing and crashing on the grass-but not in the poo :o).  If only we had been smart enough to grab the video camera we would be $100,000 richer, no doubt!!!
We had just gotten the mail and the home warrantly info. arrived, so we gave them a call and they sent someone the next day who broke 5 blades trying to get through the tree roots, but there were no trees in yard!  He said we needed to get the camera down there to check it out.  The camera couldn't even fit through the pipe, it was so clogged.  Thankfully, the camera guy had bigger, stronger blades and was able to completely clear the block and give us 4 inches of diameter.  I pulled up an old picture on Zillow and there was a tree about 5 feet away that was cut down, so we are hoping the problem is solved (gotta love the internet!).  If not, we found a great plumber from our church, who will help us fix it.  We are lucky that the problem is under the grass and not the driveway :o).
So, the week went buy and we continued to cross things off our list.  The house feels like a home now and we just have to hang pictures and empty the garage.  It has a nice flow and feel and we are really enjoying it.
We did have a surprise a couple night ago when the carpet near my closet was wet.  We knew it must have been coming from the shower, so Ryan headed into the crawl space (truly a crawl space) and barely made it over to the problem.  Huge leak in the pipe to our bathroom, so we called the Home Warranty again and someone is coming today.  We knew the pipes were old and going to be an issue eventually, but we were hoping later rather than sooner.  I am very thankful we have 2 bathrooms and a Home Warranty!!
Welcome to home ownership!!!  The good thing about moving is you never sit down and I managed to lose all the weight I gained over the summer at mom and dad's.  It is all about focus and we are choosing to focus on the positive, despite these problems and it has helped lighten the mood.
Oh, I almost forgot....in the mix of all this, we added K back to our family 2 weeks ago and he has been adjusting well.  3 is a challenging age as he knows everything and wants everything on his terms, but we are working through it and coming to an understanding :o).  The kids have been great despite the craziness and being passed around to friends.  We have such good friends and could not have done the move without them!  Not only did we move, but we had to clean the rental house and return it to its original condition.  We did it in a day and it was worth it because we got our full deposit back :o).  I'm glad that chapter is over......