Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We certainly did. Although it was quiet, it was a nice couple of days to spend together as a family. Plus I now have three kids who are quite spoiled! lol

Christmas 2011 - Online Slideshow Maker

As you can see, the kids are pretty happy! lol Santa brought each of the boys a huge Lego Harry Potter set, and as of this morning... December 26th for cryin' out loud... they are both completely done! OMG! Natalie's having a lot of fun with her baby dolls & "sale-ing" us all of our stuff with her cash register. Pretty cute. And yes, I did get all of the boxes in the house cleaned up just enough that I could breathe for the holiday season lol. All in all we had a pretty great day. And plus, a perfect Vermont White Christmas to boot! :)

Hope you all enjoyed your holiday too!

My PTSD

Before I type this out, please understand that I fully realize that I'm being an idiot. I completely understand that there are much much MUCH bigger things in this world that people worry about on a daily basis than our (former) problems. But hey, I call this blog my "diary" for a reason, so forgive me while I vent my feelings for a moment. ;)

Over the last 20 months I've been swallowing issue after issue. Problem after problem. Drama upon drama. Just handling it as it comes because I had to to survive it. To be the strong one for my kids and help my little family through it all. People would ask me all the time how in the world I was able to take it all, and I would just laugh & say "We're fine! It's just stuff. We'll get through it all & be stronger in the end." And I truly felt that at the time. Hell I still do, and I was right for the most part. We are fine. It was just stuff... Four of us are stronger because of it...

So why the hell am I falling apart now??

On one side of it, I am so blissfully happy. That part of our life is over. We are living in this beautiful place & I really do love it here. It feels more like "home" than anything else ever has. I have my perfect little family and because of that have more to be thankful for than many people in the whole wide world. But now that I don't have to "deal" with it all day after day I find myself completely freaking out at the littlest things and I fully know in the back of my brain that #1 it's all of that stress just now coming out & #2 that I really am being ridiculous.

We have been through entirely too much in our thirteen years together. More than most couples go through in their entire lives. The tragic & traumatic loss of my husband's father, the transition & ultimate loss of our family business, the loss of four pregnancies, a year & a half of fertility treatments to have our daughter, and then the whole losing our house to natural disaster- insurance being a PITA- robbed four times- moving across the country to escape fiasco. After all of that (and that's just a brief sweep over the stressful craptacularness that we've had to deal with) we have always come out of it with our heads held high & kept on going. So what the hell is my problem now? I think it's because now I have the breathing room to stop & think about it. I'm finally allowing myself to grasp what's behind us. It's like I realize now how much we have completely lost control over in our life & I am desperate to grab ahold of control over something & I can't.

It first was coming out in little spurts here & there. Freaking out over a mess in the kids' room. Getting thoroughly upset when the papers would pile up on the kitchen counter. New shower curtain in the bathroom caused this weird claustrophobia that I never knew I had & I freaked... Little panic attacks here & there that I could get over & move on.

But now? Now we have our stuff back from Kansas after all this time... & I have completely lost my mind. It's gone. Bye bye. See ya. Admit me to the looney bin & throw away the key.

It took three trucks *and* two u-haul trailers behind them to bring all of our stuff. (*vomit*) So much of it was either severely water damaged from the house (and they still gave it back to us so we could relive the awfulness of it. Awesome.) or it got irreparably damaged in the 1500 mile trek.

The rest was in 750 boxes of fun for us to go through. 750!!!! (Again, dry-heaving). It was unloaded in a matter of a few hours & we managed to fill three storage units and *still* had to bring 20 boxes or so back to our tiny rental house. (Commence panic attack!!) I felt like I couldn't breathe! Stuff was everywhere & I couldn't even so much as cook dinner because I couldn't get to my stove or my sink! AAAHHHH! Calgon take me away! So Mathew to the rescue starts to open the boxes and start to go through them. I feel a little better now because from the very first box we opened we could tell that we didn't have near as much junk as it would seem. In one huge box there was two cereal bowls and a saucer. That's it. (Plus a half of a trash bag full of paper). Oy. So even if we didn't get rid of a single thing (which we totally will) we still could downsize a ton just by consolidating the boxes. But we have to actually do that & doing that equals a huge mess in our already tiny house. Matt has gone through 100 boxes so far (I say Matt because I haven't been able to even go near them yet without my heart beating out of my chest) and has eliminated at least 40 of just those. But that means a) we have all of that trash to swim through with all of the paper to recycle and all of the broken down boxes and b) we have to store all of the boxes to keep until we can get through enough of a storage unit to start to reorganize it. So my reaction? I simply want to crawl into a corner until it all goes away all by itself. I don't want to deal with it anymore! Can't I just wake up one morning and it's all already done for me?!? No of course not. I know I need to suck it up and just deal with it. Just power through it all like I've always been able to do and get over it. It's just hard!!!

But I do know that we're in the home stretch. We just need to get through all of our crap & get rid of a lot of it and wait until we can move into our beautiful home & just live a normal life again. Once we can do that we'll be beyond perfect, I just know it. Now, if my heart could just tell my brain that so I stop freaking out I'll be all set...

One Step Closer...

As I type this message, our belongings are traveling somewhere across the United States toward Vermont! After 6 months notice of our move and a LOT of fighting with the insurance company to give us our damn stuff back, we're finally getting our wish! HALLELUJAH! I haven't the slightest idea what we're going to do with it all until we get to move into our house, but we'll figure it out! lol

Thing is, we've got a LOT of crap. A LOT. We had a 5,000 sq foot house prior to our farm home that was destroyed (only 2800 sq feet give or take), so a lot of stuff stored from that. Plus we had an office that we closed down, so a lot of stuff from that too. It wasn't that big of a deal living there at the time. A little cluttered, but not awful & a lot of the stuff was stored in the basement that we rarely looked at. But cramming it all into trucks has proved to be a bit overwhelming. We have THREE trucks coming with our stuff!

Oh. My. Gawd. I think I may be sick.

It's a little comforting to know that they were extra careful with how they packed our boxes (assuming from the few possessions we were initially given back so that we could function). The boxes were only packed 1/3 to 1/2 full and stuffed with paper, so I'm certain that we can pare down the amount by condensing some boxes right there. But rest assured, we are going to sell and/or donate probably 1/2 that crap. (Plus I have no idea if they are tossing or giving back the stuff that was irreparably destroyed. I think it's coming too, so there goes those things). We most definitely weren't hoarders. But we did collect a lot of things over the years & weren't great about getting rid of what we no longer needed. If we've learned anything at all from this whole ordeal, it is that we don't need near the "stuff" we thought we needed just two years ago. We've learned to live without & function just fine.

So tomorrow we will meet the movers at the storage unit & sigh a tiny sigh of relief. One step closer. One more step toward having this whole nightmare over with. I don't think I'll feel like it's really done until we're able to move into the house, be able to actually have all of our furniture & use our belongings again, let our kids have their own rooms again & have our whole life back. We're getting there, and we're about a billion times better than we were. But I just don't feel whole yet.

One step closer.

But hey, as of tomorrow, we will have a couch again! WooHoo! ;)

We Really Are in the Paper!

You all thought I was making it up didn't ya? lol Hell, I would. Who writes a whole article about a family renovating a house? Well apparently this town does! lol Page three of the local paper with a color picture on the front leading you to it. Honestly, we're pretty excited about it. Makes us feel special. :) We've always loved this house, and I guess the rest of the town does too. It's pretty front & center in a major part of town, so a lot of people have been sad to see it fall apart over the decades. Here's hoping we can live up to their expectations now! :S

So I'll type out the article here for you since it's only available online with a subscription to the online paper. And I know that the vast majority of you know exactly who we are & where, but this blog is public & I do see some random readers on my stats (who the heck is reading about me from Russia!?) so I have blocked out our last name and other information for privacy. I haven't named our city up until this point, so for the sake of the article, in the spirit of the holidays & having recently watched White Christmas, we'll call it Pinetree, Vermont. ;) lol

Midwest Couple Plans to Restore Historic Area House

A Pinetree family is embarking on a "brave" adventure, restoring a Mansard-style home at the corner of (~) streets.

Mathew & Stacia G purchased the five bedroom home from Thelbert & Marjorie Brown. The faded yellow building, which sits next to the chinese restaurant parking lot, was purchased by the Browns in 1979.

According to the G's, they've been told the house was likely built around 1860, based on some interior design features common to that era, but they've been unable to locate a complete history of the home.

For the past 20 years or so, the home has been a curiosity, with local residents wanting to know who owned it, what the owners' plans were, and whether the dilapidated building would someday collapse or be torn down.

Mathew G said he has heard that the home was built by it's owner as a home for his mistress, but he makes no claim for the accuracy of that report.

The G's, along with children Mark 9, Gavin 8, and Natalie 3, moved to Vermont from Kansas City, Kan.

The couple began touring northern Vermont on vacations, primarily visiting the Lake Placid area and the Adirondacks. They became attached to the northeast and continued their exploration of Vermont into the Northeast Kingdom.

On a drive through Pinetree in 2000, the G's saw the house for the first time and it was love at first sight, according to Mathew. Mathew sent a letter to the Browns in 2002, and over the ensuing years, sent additional letters expressing interest in purchasing the home.

The couple connected with Maurice Chaloux, a Pinetree Realtor, who indicated the Browns held onto the home all these years because they wanted to sell the house to someone who would preserve it, not tear it down.

There's a happy ending to this story. After loving the home from afar for the last 10 years, the G family bought the house in August and have moved to the area. They are at work restoring the home to its former glory.

They know what they are doing. Mathew G is a real estate broker and has purchased and restored 40 properties since 1998 in St. Louis, MO and Kansas City. He's used to dealing with mold in the Midwest as well as lead paint and all the other hazards that come with saving derelict properties.

He's used to working with state agencies and historic preservation groups. He's gotten advice from energy efficiency organizations while renovating buildings in Missouri.

In Pinetree, he's already been up on the roof of his new project and has found it surprisingly solid. He's made it water tight and is going to replace the brick chimney.

With help from Stacia, who is a registered nurse in the bone marrow transplant program at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH, renovations are under way. The home will be the first renovation the G's have done entirely on their own and they hope to have it done in a year.

They'll keep the home true to its original design, but hope to make it energy efficient. The family will live in the home. The two oldest children are students at (~) School in Pinetree.

A search of the Pinetree land records the house was sold to Julia Johnson Nov 3, 1913 by John & Bessie Gale.

On Feb 17, 1941, Bernard and Julia Johnson deeded 8 feet along the front and side of the home to Pinetree. The town used the land to raise the sidewalk level 8 feet and built the retaining wall along the front. The construction was part of the construction of the Memorial Bridge on (~) Street in 1941.

On Feb 11, 1960, the home was purchased from James Campbell "for less than $100 consideration" and included "all of the household furniture, household supplies and equipment, also all tools and other personal properties kept on premises."

On May 3, 1974, the home was sold by B. Clark Johnson, executor of the estate of Julia Johnson for $22,500 to Leland and Diane Banister. Passumpsic Savings Bank foreclosed on the Banisters March 19, 1979 and documents stated the bank was owed $22, 329.

The bank in turn sold the home to the U.S. Veterans Affairs Administration. Max Cleland, with the VA, is listed as selling the home to Thelbert & Marjorie Brown Dec 3, 1979 for "$10 and other valuable considerations."

On August 8, 2011, the Browns sold the home to the G's. According to Pinetree records, the home, which was most recently listed on the Pinetree Grand List at $xx,xxx, was sold for $xx,xxx to the G's. The property tax bill was $x,xxx in 2010. (yes they really printed that!)

The home, according to a listing sheet, has 11 rooms with five bedrooms and two baths with a detached garage.

So that's our story! Pretty cool huh? Matt looked up the daily circulation info on the paper in which it was published. It goes out to 50 communities and is read by nearly 10,000 people each day. 93% of of our town itself is said to read the paper. So... basically that means that now eeeeeeverybody knows our business! lol We went to the Christmas Bazaar at the kids' school yesterday and already people were coming up to us saying "Hey! I read about you in the paper this morning!" lol And so it begins. Ha ha.

Santa Train

Okay, if I haven't said so already about a million times, I love this place! We're discovering more & more fun family things to do every week and the holidays certainly are no exception. This past Sunday we decided to take a little drive to a town called Rutland, VT where they held a Christmas train ride. So darn cute!! We sang carols & danced with elves & had cookies & milk. And we took a trip to the North Pole to visit Mrs. Claus. Then back we went to the train station where we got to meet with Santa & tell him what we wanted for Christmas. (Definitely made up for the first attempt at seeing Santa... yikes!) So instead of posting a bunch of pictures, here's a short slideshow of our fun day!

The Santa Train 2011 - Online Slideshow Creator

Super fun. Natalie was all jazzed up to see Santa until she saw him, then got crazy shy in her normal fashion. Oh well. Every kid needs a pouty picture on Santa's lap, right? lol At least she talked to him! :)

In other news, I know there are most of you that I "talk" to on facebook or may have talked to you since I've shared, but I just *need* to share it here too. I got a new position at work!!! When we moved here I applied to the Heme/Onc Special Care Unit and the PICU. Unfortunately for me as an RN, kids who have cancer around here and need intense treatments & bone marrow transplant (the kind of practice that I've always done) they go all the way to Boston. (A bit too much of a commute for me!) So HSCU hired me & I've been working with adults. I've learned a ton & the people I work with are *amazing* (Seriously. I could go on & on about how fabulous they are!), but I still feel sad going to work. I miss taking care of kids so much it hurts! So on a whim I checked out the jobs board & low & behold they had positions posted for both the peds unit and the PICU (that one I applied for over the summer never got filled). Well I talked to my supervisor and begrudgingly asked if I could apply. She took one look at me and said, "I just knew it was coming!" with a smile. She's wonderful. :) So I applied for both & was interviewed for both on Thursday. (PICU said they never got my application this summer. Weird). Anyway, oddly enough I got a call from HR on Sunday morning offering me the choice of either position!!! OMG! After meeting with them both I decided I felt PICU was the better fit for me, so that's what I chose. AHHH!!! I'm so unbelievably excited! I'm nervous because I have so much to learn, but I'm super stoked to be taking care of little ones again. With med doses I understand. With cartoons, and baby dolls, and child life, and toys, and... cuteness! And for some reason, in my twisted little head, taking care of really sick kids is better than taking care of really sick adults. With adults, they just seem sad. And they suffer so much and to me it feels like it's all futile. We do all of these awful things to them to save their lives & more often than not it feels like we just cause more suffering until there's no more that we can do. When kids are really sick, I still always feel like there's hope. That they have this potential full life ahead of them just waiting until they get over this hurdle that they're going through. No one wants to see a child hurt, but I always took pride in being a part of what made them better! I can't wait to be a part of that again! :)

Happy Turkey Day A Little (okay, A LOT) Late!

Oh my gosh it's been so long since I've updated!! Things have been so terribly busy I haven't had much time to sit in front of a computer. (And frankly, when I did have time, I didn't really wanna! lol) But, the good news is that we haven't had anything majorly dramatic to report. (I know, right? SHOCKING!) We've gotten nowhere with the investigation into our most recent theft, so that still hangs in the balance. But we will more than likely not be covered for our loss. There's not much more to report on that front. We've been having some difficulty with time & weather (and pain where Matt's concerned), so we don't have a whole lot more to report on the house either. We're pretty much in planning mode right now. (Should we put in floor heating? Where should the skylights go? How about a fireplace?... that kind of thing). So... blah. I'm boring right now. Which I think is totally a good thing! :) How often does that happen for us?? ;)

So just like everyone else, we celebrated Thanksgiving last week. Bittersweet day. SO very wonderful to have a day to spend together & reflect on how very grateful we are for what we've been blessed with. But even in Kansas City I don't think we ever had a holiday where we didn't at one point get to see at least some family. So all that food just for the five of us was a little sad. :( It's worth every sacrifice to move our lives here, but that's the one thing that bothers me the most. I miss having family (relatively) nearby! Maybe next year. But we did have a great day together, and Matt & I slaved away at a wonderful delicious meal all day long that the kids barely ate... just like every year! lol ;)

I did have to work the day after Thanksgiving, which to me is a holiday in and of itself: BLACK FRIDAY!! I love it! I'm a crazy person, I know. But it's fun for me! lol So whereas I thought I was going to have to miss out on my shopping, I was super excited to find out that WalMart had their sales beginning at 10pm on Thursday. Yes, I tucked my kids into bed, then went out to brave the crowds. Again, I admit I'm a crazy person. So there are two WalMart stores relatively nearby to us. One is 15 minutes away & smaller, and the other is 25 minutes away & huge. I went to the big one. Holy Cow! The Vermont/New Hampshire shoppers are just as crazy as anywhere else. It was super busy & I underestimated them by arriving at 10:01 instead of waiting by the palates ready to pounce. Lesson learned. lol But I had fun & got nearly everything on my list and was home and asleep by midnight! :) Totally unfair though, my dear sweet husband got to relax & sleep in, make the kids breakfast & head out around 10 AM, and decided to check out the smaller WalMart just to see what they had left. They still had everything!! People were still walking out with the doorbuster TV's!! SO uncool! lol Again: lesson learned! But hey, the good news is, for a totally broke couple with three kids who moved halfway across the country, my kids should still have a good stash of fun under the tree this year! ;)

And... speaking of the tree! :) We put up our first real tree this year. When in Rome, right? First of all, the rental house it pretty little, whereas our house has some pretty grand ceilings, so we didn't want to buy a new artificial tree that didn't work in the space (our previous tree was a KS casualty). Plus, a family from the kids' school was selling trees from their farm to benefit the school, so win-win! :)

Turns out, I'm probably allergic, but now that I'm not touching it anymore the welts have healed so no big deal! lol ;). We had a lot of fun decorating it (it only fell once! lol) and taking our family picture under the tree. We still don't have our stuff from ServPro, so we don't have any of our family ornaments or household decorations this year, but we've gotten pretty good at dealing with what we have & I think we have a pretty cute tree. Next year will be amazing & beautiful, (that is if they ever do finaly give us our stuff back! lol)but this year? This year we are going to focus on each other. We're going to be so happy to have a home to celebrate in & each other to hug that we are so not going to care that we don't have the perfect lights or if we're swimming in ceramic Santas. Plus, we'll have the most beautiful winter wonderland of a view that who cares what's in our house!

Goofballs. ;)

Tomorrow we're going to try again with visiting Santa (if you're a facebook friend you totally know what I'm talking about. If not, I'll explain later!) I'll do my best to update sooner! Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving too!

Karma

Reading back on all of my blog entries it almost seems as if I'm bipolar. "My life is great" entry followed immediately by a "my life sucks" entry. Annoying. But it really is that way sometimes & there really doesn't seem to be any inbetween. The weird part is it's geographically related. Ever since we moved to Vermont everything has so far been running smoothly & going great. Things seem to just fall into place for us here. But everything related to Kansas for us has just been awful. Even after we're gone. I don't know why!! For the other 2 million+ people who live there, Kansas City is a great place to live. But for some reason, for us, ever since we moved there 10 years ago things seemed to spiral downhill. And once we moved to the Paola area? Forget it. It's unbelievable how bad it's been. It's almost as if God has been telling us this whole time "That's not where you belong!! GO!" and when we still weren't getting the picture He broke out the big guns with the storm & following insanity.

So many of you are friends with me on facebook & saw my post the other day eluding to more drama. Not exacty more drama, just more information to the story. And it was certainly the last straw for us because Matt & I both decided to cutt off ties to Paola entirely no matter who we thought we could still trust because of it. It's just not worth it. It's just been that painful. So here's the deal: (Feel free to read a few posts below to catch up if you're not familiar with my most recent robbery story. It's ok. I'll wait! ;))

Ok. (It's hard to figure out where to start!) Well you guys know that this was the FOURTH time we were robbed since the whole damaged-house story began. (Just typing that practically gives me a panic attack). Well we got a call from the auctioneer telling us that he was being grilled with questions from a guy from Nationwide Insurance. As it turns out, we're being investigated for insurance fraud! !##%$*!@^&*!! I know we should've seen this coming. I should be surprised that it hasn't happened sooner. But once again it's our nature to trust & expect the best in people, and for some goddamn reason that includes our horrible excuse for an insurance company. What really pisses us off is that we would have no reason to have ANY of these issues if they would've actually shown up to our house to assess the damage & give us money to start fixing it as soon as it all happened in April 2010. We wouldn't have needed to move out, we wouldn't have needed to gut the whole place & we wouldn't have left our home unattended. If they would've given us the money we needed, we would've been able to fix our house in a reasonable amount of time & move back in & again not have these claims. But alas it is our fault of course. Oh, and also it looks like they finally dropped us. Shocking.

So that's the beginning of the crap we've been handling lately, not necessarily where the "I'm sick of Paola" stuff comes in. It just has our nerves standing on end giving us that victimized feeling again. No, the story continues. I don't want to get into too much detail regarding the back story on this (because let's face it, I drone on enough as it is! lol), but basically there have been very few people in that town who have been the good people we thought they were. So many people have lied to us, taken from us, and taken advantage of us with no regard for what we are already going through. It's so painful to have to endure that from people you thought were your friends! And several times!

So what happened now? Well, do you remember our friend "Joe"? It turns out he's taking advantage of us too. We got in touch with the police department to make a report regarding the robbery, and it took them a long time to get back to us. Come to find out, they had to find an investigator who wasn't biased and there was only one guy in the department who didn't already know "Joe" that they needed to take on the case... everyone else there basically hates the guy. WTF!! So is there something about this guy we don't know? We always thought he was a nice guy. He was even the soccer coach for my kids. We gave him a couch set & a new trundle bed set, and gave his kids rides home from school, gave him work & money... all because we always had the impression that they were a nice family that was just down on their luck. But an entire department of police officers can't stand him to the point where they won't take on a case that he's indirectly involved in. But is he indirectly involved? Or directly? The officer speaking to my husband seems to think it's the latter, and in retrospect probably the last person we should have trusted to watch our stuff. WHAT!?! So we gave the investigator any information we had and still felt in our own hearts that this was just an unfortunate coincidence. No no. We got a text from him. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense & doesn't exactly "confess" specifically to anything,but he does say that a) he "feels responsible for the stuff being stolen" and b) he owes us $2500 and he will try to pay us back when he gets his tax return. Really!?!? WTH! My interpretation of that is that he really did sell a bunch of our stuff & pocketed the money, essentially stealing from us after all we did for him. And he wouldn't have said anything if we didn't have the auctioneer there to question what was missing. (And you know as well as I do that there is no way in hell that we'll see that money come tax return time). And I personally don't feel like the first part says he stole anything, just that he feels bad because he was supposed to be watching it & dropped the ball, but still. So we had to give that to the police department & don't know where things will go from here. And being the wonderful person he is, my husband is still worried about what this will mean for "Joe." He agonized over passing the text onto the police because he's worried about what this would mean for Joe, his job & his family. Of course we knew that passing that on was the right thing to do, but it still sucks. As much as we've been hurt, we don't want to hurt anyone else, and we don't feel like it's up to us to decide who deserves it.

So on that note, it brings me to my most recent feelings regarding all of this crap. Do we deserve it? Are we really horrible people? Is karma just out to get us for something we don't even realize? I just don't get it. And it hurts. A lot. And I can't say the same for my husband, but I myself have felt for most of my life like I was subpar. Like I was never deserving of love from family or friends. And all of these things happening to us over the last year & a half have (plus a lot of other misery my family has had to endure in our life) made me feel like the universe is punishing me for something and my poor family has to be drug through it too simply by proxy. And maybe I'm selfish for even thinking that. But I can tell you that I'm certain my husband doesn't deserve any of it. And it goes without saying that my beautiful amazing, wonderful children certainly don't either.

So now, all of the stuff from that house is gone. There's nothing left to take. We're already prepared for the bank to take the house back, so we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But with the exception of dealing with this latest investigation, we are now completely & utterly FINISHED with that part of our life. I've probably said it before, but we really aren't looking back anymore. It's nice to have a little more finality to it. So now we're going to try our best to focus on how great things are here. No one is trying to steal from us here, take advantage of us, or judge us. My job is going well & I am appreciated for being good at what I do. We love our town & what will be our beautiful home. Our kids are so genuinely happy with school & their new friends, and we're making new friends that really do seem to genuinely like us for who we are. We're happy. It's the way it should be. Maybe we're not so deserving of the drama after all.

Local Celebrities

I've eluded before to the fact that it seems everyone in town is excited that we're rehabbing this house. It really does seem that everyone we speak to has just been waiting for someone to bring it back to life, so it seems that we're already loved around town! ;) But I guess we really didn't realize what a big deal it was until Friday, when just across the bridge a photographer from the local paper was covering the Veteran's Day ceremony. Instead of continuing to photograph that event, he stopped and came to talk to Matt! He took some pictures & was very interested in what we were doing. Weird. So Matt talked to him on the phone today: it looks like he's going to do a full article on us & this house! Crazy right? So we are going to meet with him on Monday. (I promise I'll share the article with you all when it's published!) The only problem is, there's all this pressure now to do this house just right because everyone's watching now!! lol :S But anyway, we've all been working hard. Especially Matt. He's almost literally working his fingers to the bone! Poor guy! :( But the good news is he finished the roof today! Woohoo!

He he! Even Natalie's been a big helper. :) (Don't worry. We'll keep the kids far far away whenever we go anywhere near touching the old paint. Promise!)

So my title was really in jest. Of course we're not really local celebrities. Just kinda interesting for the moment. But as it turns out, there really IS a local celebrity! I was grocery shopping today and ended up picking up a box of clementines at the same time as this guy who looked really familiar... like famous familiar. But I thought I was just imagining it. Surely he just looked like the guy in the movies... but nope! It really was him! His name is Luiz Guzeman, (I had to ask the checkout lady! he he!) and apparently he lives right in town! It's the guy who was in Boogie Nights, Anger Management, The Taking of Pelham, & the show Oz. Crazy right??? So I got all poparrazi-like and nonchalantly took his picture in the checkout line:

I know it's fuzzy. I suck at being nonchalant. But do you recognize him now? See! Totally cool! (okay, maybe it's just me that thinks it's totally cool. I'm easily amused. Just humor me okay? lol) But it seems like he's a pretty nice guy. He told me "Hi how ya doin'?" and he even bagged his own groceries. He must be a good guy, he lives in Vermont! ;)

Stupid Kansas Drama

I swear to God there must be a big black ugly cloud over that horrible place we used to call home in Kansas. And apparently it doesn't have anything to do with us because it continues even after we've left. (Thank God at least it doesn't seem it has followed us here. Please please please stay away black cloud!!!!)

Anyway, here's the story as much as we know. When we left, we left a lot behind. We packed up as much as we could, but knew we couldn't take it all, nor did we need to. So we walked away from the rest & we were okay with that. HOWEVER, everything we left behind had value. Tons of building materials & nice things we planned to put back into our would-be beautiful house that never was. So before we left we did three things:

1. We tried to sell as much as we could putting a ton of things on craigslist. Lots & lots of people came & we did sell quite a few things.
2. We did several favors for a friend we'll call "Joe." Joe felt he owed us, so we allowed him to help us sell a few more things for us at the house after we left & he'd also be able to keep an eye out on the house for us. Joe is also a police officer, so we felt comfortable with that.
3. We contacted an auction company to sell off everything else we had stored in the house. We were hoping to get a few of the dollars we hemorrhaged out into that house back by doing this.

As it turns out, all three of these things were a big mistake. Time & time again we trust people, and time & time again we get bit in the ass. I'm not really sure what it's going to take to learn our lesson.

So what exactly happened? One guess...

Of course we got robbed again!!!!

#1, the people we sold things to saw us moving out & therefore knew the house was unoccupied & soon to be unattended. #2, Joe was really helpful at first, but then we come to find out he sold some of our stuff & pocketed the money. We called him on it & he owned up to it, but I doubt we'll see that money ever. #3, Auction guy is probably very good at what he does, but overestimated the integrity of the people he marketed our auction to. He posted the ad for our auction in the paper & posted our address.

According to both of our neighbors (who called long after we could do anything about it) said it was like Grand Central Station at our house all day Saturday. Problem is, the auction was supposed to be Monday. People were driving around the locked gate & into the corn field to get through to our driveway. The first couple of people, neighbor A actually stopped and asked what the hell they were doing. They apparently had been before because they both knew to say, "It's okay! Joe told me it was okay to come." After so many, neighbor A gave up.

So then Monday comes around & we get a call from the auction guy not long before auction time. He informs us that over half of our stuff is gone. We're talking like multiple thousands of dollars worth of stuff. I don't even know what all was taken. We have to review some photos to get an idea. But now we have no way in hell to know who was there & when & what they took. And let's face it, when we filed reports for the first THREE robberies & gave the police a list of a concise 3-5 possible suspects, even then no one was ever arrested. Rural cops are awesome.

So now we have some really weird mixed feelings about the whole thing. I mean, really, it's not like that was our belongings from inside our living room that we used everyday. It was stuff we never planned to see again. We walked away from Kansas & didn't look back. BUT, that was money we were counting on to fix our house here. That's gone, unless for some bizarre reason our insurance actually will cover us again. And then, even 1500 miles away, there's just this feeling of being violated. AGAIN! People came into our property & unlocked our storage, & took our stuff. Repeatedly. Regardless of the circumstance, that just sucks.

So instead of typing my happy-go-lucky, "look what cute kids I have on Halloween" post I had hoped to make, I posted this. Stupid bad guys. Well, I won't let them ruin it for me entirely. I covered my ears & did my best impression of a stubborn four-year-old (la la la! I can't hear you!!!!) and ignored what all was going on in Kansas long enough to enjoy Halloween with my adorable kids. Meet Avatar, Blueberry Muffin (the Strawberry Shortcake character), and GI Joe!

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween too! :)

Walking in a Winter Wonderland... Oh wait, isn't it October???

Whomever it was who told me that we still had 6 weeks till snow a couple of weeks ago LIED!!! There's snow on the ground & we haven't even Trick or Treated yet. Holy cow! It sprinkled a little dusting where we live earlier in the week, but when I got to work they had a prettier scene. This is what I saw on my walk from the parking lot into work:

(And yes, I do get to park in the parking lot right outside my unit. No more shuttle busses for me! WooHOO! lol) Pretty right? So no problem. It melted by the afternoon. But THEEEENNNN... I guess this massive "Nor'Easter" came through last night & dumped a lot of snow all over the northeast. (I still have to figure out what the heck that means!) So as I was leaving work last night it was already snowing like crazy & I had at least an inch on my car. Forecast said about 5" was projected for my area, and about a FOOT for where I work! OMG! I mean, don't get me wrong. I knew we chose to live in Vermont & I knew the snow was coming sooner or later, but C'MON! It's October! Anyway, when I woke up this morning, there is mayyybe 2" on the ground outside. So hopefully there really isn't 12 in Lebanon. (But I don't have to go to work again till Thursday, so I don't really care! lol)

So our plan for the day today? Play time! :) We haven't decided yet if we want to go sledding, or what, but I'll be sure to share pics later. :)

Last weekend, though, we had a lot of fun. The town right next door to us has a really nice indoor ice arena and it just opened for the season. So we decided to go ice skating. Can you believe Mathew has never been in his whole life?! That's just wrong! And though Kansas City has a really nice skating rink downtown, we never were able to go because it was not at all convenient for us living an hour away. So we went last Sunday & it was so fun! The boys were a little apprehensive about it at first. So they held on to some milk crates for stability. Looked kinda silly, but it worked! Little Gavin? Oh my sweet man. Ugh. He doesn't take on a challenge very well. He tends to think he needs to be perfect at everything the first time he tries it. So he got really pissed off when he wasn't immediately gliding away like Brett Hull. But he finally got the hang of it & then I couldn't keep up with him! lol Here are a few pics:

Sorry they're a little blurry. As it turns out, iPhone pics aren't made for action shots! lol

And, (if I can get it to post correctly) here's a video of Miss Natalie giggling her way across the ice:

(Woohoo! I did it!)

Pretty darn cute. So that's all I've got for now. Hopefully I'll have more progress to share with you on the house before too long. (This snow though is going to make that part all the more difficult! Yikes!)

Starting over sucks

Now that I am halfway awake I can update this blog, hopefully completing a coherent thought. You see, I had to work two night shifts the last two nights. Haven't needed to do that in over 6 years. I tried doing nights for exactly 6 months after graduating nursing school and it did not go over well for me. I'm terrible at it. Granted, now that I'm a little older & have dealt with sleep deprivation on a more regular basis out of necessity as a parent, I'm handling it a little better than I did back then, but it still sucks. More power to you guys who choose to do nights regularly. Seriously. I applaud you. But me? I'll just whine. I had been at my job for almost 10 years in Kansas City, and with working on a big unit, I was almost eligible for some pretty major perks given my tenure there. No more weekends, no more holidays (as long as staffing permitted of course, but still). And being such a big unit we were staffed as either a day shift nurse, or a night shift nurse. Some of you know this already because, well, you work there too! lol Buuuutttt... it doesn't exactly work that way here. I was hired to work on the bone marrow transplant unit only. 9 beds. That's it. So we share the love when it comes to staffing and there's no such thing as seniority. Everyone has to do their share of nights, everyone has to do their share of weekends, & everyone does their share of holidays. Thankfully there are a few wonderful nurses who choose to staff themselves exclusively on the night shifts, and that helps a lot. But we're all still required to work at minimum of two nights shifts a month.

Did I mention I suck at it?

I worked Tuesday night and Wednesday night. I wish I could just reverse everybody else's schedule just because mine is for the moment, but life goes on despite my sleep deprivation. Thursday the kids had off of school and our schedule was packed because of it. No sleeping for momma.

So we've chosen to live in a place that's both very convenient and also very far away from civilization at the same time. This town has a lot more right in town or right next door than I was used to in Kansas, so in that sense it is so much better. (Movie theater? Got it. Grocery store? Right up the street. WalMart? As much as I hate to need it, it's right across the border in NH.) There's not a major hospital anywhere nearby, so my hour-long commute to work is no big deal. I'm used to that from KS. But sometimes traveling across these mountainous states takes a little longer than a 60 mile drive would take anywhere else, so heading to a "nearby" town can sometimes be a big deal. Which brings me to our schedule on Thursday.

My work is 60 miles from home. It takes me one hour (North to South). So when I agreed to take the boys to their first orthodontist appt in another town 60 miles from home in NH for Thursday I didn't think it would be that big of a huge ordeal. Ummm... wrong! 60 miles from home, across NH to almost the Maine border = an hour & 45 min! 60 miles from my work to said town = two and a half hours!! So instead of meeting Matt there after I worked (my original plan) I decided not to commit sleep-deprived car-crashing suicide & headed home first. So this is how my day went: worked all night until 7:45 (which just had to be a crazy-busy, patients crashing & heading to ICU, exhausting night) and drove my hour drive home where I picked up my family. Then Matt drove the hour & 45 minute drive to the orthodontist where my plan for a little nap in the car was totally foiled. Hour long appointment. (Thank GOD this guy has several offices & we can do the rest where we actually live!) Then the hour and 45 minute drive back home to make it 5 minutes late for Mark's parent-teacher conference! Holy mother of pearl I was tired! I hope his teacher and orthodontist didn't think I was a total mess of a mom. Yikes. Then I finally got to go home where I was worth nothing more than a lump on the floor. (Yes the floor. We still have no couches. Thanks ServPro, you're awesome. Another story for another time).

Anyway...

I survived & got a great night's sleep last night & all is well again. And the bonus to all of our driving all over God's creation yesterday? We got to see our first MOOSE! :)

He he! We're dorks, I know, but we were very excited! :)

Okay. End whine. I'm going to enjoy my three day weekend with my beautiful family now! :)

Happy Birthdays!

So I feel like a really crappy mom that I wasn't able to share the boys' birthdays on this blog. They both unfortunately fell during our move (Mark's right before and Gavin's right after). So I didn't have the access to internet to share the details. But rest assured we made their days as special as we possibly could. Mark got to have a day with a friend from KS & we went to Dave & Busters. He elected to not have a birthday cake, but a birthday apple pie instead! lol We had a great time & he got the iPod he has been wanting. (I don't think he's put it down since!) Gavin's birthday was a low key day at home. That's actually what the poor guy wanted: just a day at home with all of us hanging out. (I guess he's been getting sick of all the running around we've been needing to do). But he had a nice day and got this massive Lego Harry Potter set he's had his eye on (of course!) (and then he set the whole thing up in about an hour. lol!) Oh, my crazy kid. :)

So fast forward to now & it's Natalie's turn! My little baby girl turned THREE this weekend! Holy cow where does the time go? It was a bittersweet day because especially as the kids have been little, we always make time to have a big family party for each of them. Of course, being so far away from family that just wasn't in the cards this year. But we had a beautiful day to work with and we let her choose what she wanted to do. First we went to the farmer's market where she got a bag of kettle corn as big as she is!

Then we went shopping for a little bit and we came home for lunch where she ate some Dora soup. Yep. That's what she wanted! Then she got play at the park for a little while (daddy took the pictures there. Sorry! I don't have them right now!). Then home for dinner & cake & presents! Overall, a pretty good day for a three year old!

(And yes, I have this incessant need to draw with icing on my kids' cakes in an attempt to make them special. This year: Hello Kitty! :) ). All in all I think we had a pretty good day. Though I wish we could've had all of our family around to make it that much better.

With every passing year, celebrating Natalie's birth, I am reminded (as if I could ever for a moment forget) what a true miracle she is. With everything we had to go through to have her, she has taught me to appreciate that much more what blessings all three of my babies are. I don't think we exactly took that for granted before, but I guess we didn't realize it as much as we should have. She gave that gift to us and I will forever be a changed momma because of it. Those who have never been through it would see infertility and loss as a horrible curse. Now that we're on the other side of that tunnel, we choose to see it as a blessing. With our losses & struggles to have our baby girl, God showed us how truly special each little life truly is and what a gift we've been given in each of our kids. And let me tell ya, we've got the three best kiddos a couple could ever ask for! :)

TAWANDA!!

Ok, so that's not me, that's Kathy Bates, but "TAWANDA!!" kept running through my head the other day while I was working on the house! lol (Oh yes, I just made a Fried Green Tomatoes reference. Yes I did. lol) There's not a lot I am capable of when it comes to fixing up a house, but I can be pretty good at tearing it apart! The other day, while Matt was on the roof putting all of that back, I got sick of standing around babysitting him & decided I could still hear him fall off the roof from inside the house just as well as from the outside, so I gave myself a job. ;) Knocking out plaster can be therapeutic sometimes, as Evelyn here clearly agrees. So I did knock out the walls in one room, but then got bored with the sledgehammer & decided to tear out some stairs instead. From where the ceiling was already crumbling apart, the stairs were covered in so much crap you could barely walk up them, and it really bothered me. So it took me 10 trash bags to fill plaster and old carpet from the steps, but now we've uncovered a beautiful staircase! It really shouldn't take much to revive. (Plus the house doesn't smell so bad anymore either! Eww! lol) I have a before picture, but I should've taken an after. I'll do that soon. I do love how doing little things in this house makes such a huge difference in uncovering how beautiful it can be. Hopefully it won't take long! :)

So, small world moment I've got for ya. It entertained me anyway! lol So this past weekend the boys' school had an apple event in their cafagymatorium. (another one of the words from Stacia's made up vocabulary). It was this really cute little party where they had apple snacks & apple shaped cookies to decorate, apple art activities, face painting (because no kid's activity is complete without face painting), and an apple cider press. The kids all got to participate in making their own apple cider by throwing in the apples & turning the crank and seeing how it all works. It was very fun.

(Oh yeah, the kids all got a little silly with the face paint and wanted scars & mustaches and dripping blood... ignore my son's beautiful face! lol)

So anyway, very cute & very fun. We got a whole pitcher of our very own apple cider to take home. So where does the small world part come in? Well I'll tell ya! lol I don't think you can zoom in on my pictures very well, but you'll notice a silver plate right next to Mark's hand which tells where the cider press was made. Well wouldn't you know, way out here in rural upstate Vermont, this cider press came from the one & only Happy Valley Ranch that sits right next door to our former home in Kansas!!! No I'm not kidding! How crazy is that! The press belongs to the man in the picture, & he knew all about the company & where it was. Turns out they're one of the major cider press manufacturers in the whole country. That little ugly blue building next door to my house with the cranky old man who hates my dog. Who knew? lol

Oh and PS: my patient told me yesterday that Moose hunting season has officially started. Aren't you glad you have me to let you know? lol ;) (Though we are all really excited to see a moose in real life. We haven't yet. Though preferably I'd rather not meet one with my car...)

The Best Laid Plans...

Something that is not at all news to me, but may be news to you all, is that my dear sweet husband underestimates the time it takes to do things... by a lot. All the time. Like, always. I'm completely used to it, so when he planned to have the roof pulled off & put back on in about a day, I nodded & smiled, but secretly tripled that in my head. Funny thing is, he's always surprised that he wasn't all that accurate. ;) lol Anyway, we were able to get most of the roof off in one day, but the last little bits took another day (they were really really stuck). And then I had to work the next three days, so he lost his "call 911 if I fall off the roof" person and had to stop. So we still have no roof, but hopefully will at least get the felt rolled this weekend. (There was metal underneath, so it's at least as protective for now as it was at first). Snow should be coming to the mountains this weekend, and people here tell me that that means it will be here in the valley in about 6 weeks. That means we have six weeks to get the roof done, the siding replaced, and new windows in or we're screwed! :S We'll see how this goes! lol

So I've never been the kind of person to hide things about myself from most people. You could call me an open book. So please understand that what I'm about to tell you is really embarrassing! To the point where I almost didn't share it. But, it makes for a good blog entry, so I will. But promise you won't judge ok? lol Let's just say it's a not-so-mighty-mom moment...

Okay. So I just told you that I have been at work for the last three days. Mathew doesn't want to go a single day without doing at least something on the house, so even though he wasn't able to do the roof while I was gone, he did go there while I was at work and get other things cleaned up, planned out, torn out, etc. So seeing as it's gorgeous outside here lately, he naively allowed the kids to play outside while he worked.

Well,

One of the things that bothered us about our life in Kansas, was that our kids were slowly turning into wild animals before our eyes. We didn't live in a neighborhood, we lived on 120 acres. So the kids could run around as much as they wanted & it wasn't a big deal. They didn't learn common sense rules especially well, like keeping your volume down around others and their homes, & maybe watching out for cars while in a parking lot or crossing the street. See where I'm going with this??? Ugh.

So right across the street from the house is a restaurant. The house that was next to ours was recently knocked down & has become the parking lot for said restaurant. Well, apparently the kids were playing in the parking lot while Matt was in the house unaware of what they were up to. I'm not sure what they were doing, but apparently they were being so rowdy that one older woman (well intentioned I'm sure) thought they must be unattended by an adult and called the police!!!

OMG the police were called on my obnoxious kids!!!!!!!

(Hanging head in shame).

The officer came & spoke to Mathew. Didn't give him any kind of ticket or anything (not really sure what kind of citation that would be, but anyway) but he did take down his name & number. Now we're freaking out that we're going to be in the town newspaper! Seriously! Everything is in this town's paper! There was actually a police report in the newspaper that someone filed a claim that their Huggies were stolen from their house! lol It could totally happen! How embarrassing!!! To her defense, the house has been vacant for a very long time, and I'm sure she had no idea that any kids had any business playing around it. And Mathew wasn't in view, but still!! OMG!

We've been trying to teach the boys to become civilized human beings again, but apparently when our backs are turned there are no holds barred. Holy cow. No idea what to do with them at this point other than take every privilege away known to man.

Anyway, if any of my readers are mothers (which most of you are), I'm sure you'll understand what I mean when I say I feel like a complete failure as a parent right now. I wasn't even there, but I'm totally blaming myself for not teaching them well enough how to behave in public. I swear, I used to get compliments from strangers at how good my kids were. Now I hang my head & hope there's no one around that I know! lol We're trying really hard, and I know that the life we had to lead this past year and a half did not help things in the slightest bit. It'll take time to get them to be the great kids I know they are again. But I'm really hoping it'll be sooner than later. And I'm really praying that at least they're decent to their teachers! :/

My Favorite Time of Year

I wish I had a camera that could do this place at least some justice this time of year. This picture I tried to take with my cell phone, so I apologize that it's really not all that great. But I can't even tell you guys how unbe-friggin-lievably gorgeous the trees & mountains are right now!! It's seriously leaves me speechless... and we all know how nearly impossible that is! lol ;) At any rate, the leaves are changing & Fall is here. It has always been my favorite season, so it's only fitting that I get to spend it here in Fall Wonderland! :) And it seems I'm not alone, because this town seriously knows how to celebrate this time of year. There has been some type of festival or parade, or celebration every weekend this month! Makes me fall in love with the adorableness of this town even more. (Dontcha love how I seem to have made up my own vocabulary? lol) And aparently, we're not the only ones who love this place. I've recently heard that Michael J. Fox has a place in town, & was here last weekend for the Colors of the Kingdom Festival! Holy Cow! (And no, before you ask I didn't get to actually see him. Damn it. lol) But that's pretty cool though!

So, speaking of the parade, that one was last weekend. The kids' school had a float in the parade & we didn't feel like we should join in since we weren't available to help decorate. So we went to watch... but one of the teachers saw us on the roadside & made us jump in! So the kids (and Copper!) got to be in the parade after all. They felt pretty special. It's so great how welcoming everyone is here. Seriously. I don't think I've seen my boys this happy in a long time. I really think they are loving their new school! Mark tends to get a bit grumpy sometimes, but I think that's just part of being a 9 year old boy. I also haven't seen him smile this much like ever, so I'm taking that as a good sign. ;)

So we've been enjoying some play time on the weekends. We've been heading to the farmers market every Saturday.

(And yes, they're all homegrown, & organic, & very Vermont ;) lol)

And we've taken the kids to all kinds of activities & booths & fun. They got face paint:

And jumped in bouncy castles:

And made pasta necklaces. (This one I pretty much only included so that I can prove that indeed Mark was present for all of the family fun. He just refuses to let me take his picture like it's going to steal his soul! lol That would be him in the hoodie.. still hiding... sigh)

So anyway, we've been really enjoying the beautiful weather & getting to know our new home!

As far as the new house goes, I can't even tell you how busy poor Mathew has been. I've been at work all day every day, and when the kids are in school, he's there. He's been hauling load after load after load of crap out of the house. These people left so much worthless stuff in there it's unbelievable. And it seems like it's multiplying! lol But he's managed to get most of it out. I think the guy at the city dump knows him by name now with all the loads he's dropped off. Plus he's been trying to recycle everything he can & scrap whatever metal he can find. He's already pulled out some godawful drop ceilings & knocked down a wall or two, so we're making progress! :) Tomorrow will be the fun of fixing the roof. We're hoping to take advantage of a beautiful day & get it torn & put back all in one day... wish us luck. We're gunna need it! :/

Welcome to Vermont!

It's been a busy week! Amazing how I've really just begun this blog and already I'm so attached to it & sharing with you all that I was going through blog withdrawls before we got internet installed! lol But it's in now & we're settling in, so now I can back up a bit & fill you all in with our adventures.

We left Kansas for the final trip on Wednesday afternoon. It took a lot longer than we expected to load up the trailer of tools & building materials & last bit of things we needed to bring, so that meant a later time to leave, a lot more stress for me in particular, & missing out on saying official goodbyes to some really good friends. Not at all the way we wanted to leave. But it's amazing how once we set out & got a good distance away, we really didn't look back. Not just Mathew & myself, but I really feel like all five of us can feel the stress fall off of our shoulders with the more distance between ourselves & that chapter of our life. Yes, we still have things to deal with there & it's not truly gone away, but it's no longer the center of our daily existence. Our family is. Can't complain about that! :)

So anyway, our trip up was looooooong but went just fine. We stopped for a couple hours in St. Louis to see a few family members for a quick hug, but other than that we drove straight through. For thirty three hours. Oh yes. Thirty three hours! It took that long because a) this trailer was smaller, but heavier, so it didn't really like going up mountains b) add three kids & a dog to the mix & you add a lot more stops! and c) the middle of Vermont is pretty much completely impassable right now thanks to our friend Irene, so we had to take a roundabout way. BUT, we got here all in one piece and the kids didn't kill each other on the drive up, so I'd consider that a success! lol ;) (With the exception of Mark puking all over the place at one point. Thank you motion sickness. But we'll just choose to forget about that part...)

Anyway, next came the ridiculous task of fitting a 3500 sq foot house's furniture into a 1000 sq foot rental house. Didn't really work. So some things will stay in storage until our house is done & that's ok. But still we need to figure out where to put all of our stuff! We have a lot of clothes! And sheets! And towels! And toys! And stuff!! And practically zero closet space. Looks like we're going to have to find a Bed Bath & Beyond or something somewhere in VT to get organized. But in the mean time I think we're doing pretty well getting settled in & unpacked.

I can't tell you how excited we are to have the little things back in our life that we used to take for granted. First, we were so happy just to have our own beds back. We haven't slept in our own beds since December. And with Matt's back injuries that was such a blessing to have back. And the kids were certainly happy to have their own space again instead of sharing a hotel bed that's for sure! ;) I was super excited to have a washer & dryer again. When you're used to having that in your own house for forever, it's so hard to rely on going to friends houses or laundromats to wash your clothes. It's so nice to have that back! And a kitchen... oh my god it has just killed me for the last several months to not be able to cook anything for my family. And being on a restricted diet myself made it super difficult to eat out for every friggin' meal. (Not to mention how expensive that gets!). So to have a kitchen & my cooking utensils & food to prepare makes me SO very happy! (Now all we need is a kitchen table that fits in this house to eat at... ahh. Details. ;) lol). And now, as of today, we have TV complete with DVR and an internet connection! Things we haven't had since moving out of our house! We're super excited about that!! So if you haven't gathered, we are so happy to just have our life & some normalcy back. We can tackle anything life throws at us now that we have that.

Other than unpacking, we've been staying busy with taking advantage of the perfect weather God has given us since we got here. It's been a perfect 70 something degrees each day while cooling off to the 40's or 50's at night. And the leaves are starting to change too so being outside has been amazing. We've gone to the farmer's market on Friday & got a bunch of organic Vermont grown veggies, and we also got to go to a fun Fall Festival. The kids really enjoyed that: they got to play in a bouncy house & get face paint, & pet bunnies, & all kinds of fun stuff. We've gone for walks nearly every day & are just enjoying our time together as a family. Believe me, we're not naive to the fact that the beautiful weather will be short lived & the cold is going to hit. Soon. So we're taking advantage for now! lol (And hey, the cold & snow can be pretty too!)

Finally, to complete my update, I started my new job at Dartmouth- Hitchcock Memorial Hospital this Monday. I really think I'm going to love this place! :) I will be working in the Hematology/Oncology Special Care Unit (HSCU for short), and though I'm really nervous about caring for adults for the first time in my nearly 10 years of nursing, I am really looking forward to all I get to experience & learn! The campus is *beautiful* and absolutely everyone I've met so far has been super nice. This week & part of next week, along with the typical auditorium lectures about hospital policies & benefits & such, they have what they call an Experienced Nurse Orientation where they take us to a complete high tech simulation lab to practice scenarios & get familiar with equipment & hospital procedures on some of the most sophisticated mannequins I've ever seen! Super cool! Plus, New Hampshire is just as green & "crunchy" as Vermont, so it's right up my alley ;) lol. I'm really excited to start this new chapter!

Sorry that I had so much to share. Now that I am able, I'll try to update a little more often & not have so much to talk about! lol Hopefully I'll have more to show you on the progress of our house! (Matt's been working hard already cleaning up! :)) Talk to you all soon!