It is done.  And just begun.  We sold a house and bought a house.  The limbo, the not knowing, the stress of moving is behind us!  Today, officially, we became the proud owners of this, our new home.  (I’m sorry I don’t have good pictures yet; will try to post next week).

I could bore you with the details – the last minute demands our buyers made, the work that still needs to be finished at this house, the negotiating, the ups the downs, etc. but let’s just focus on some highlights, shall we?

• Memorial Day weekend – we happily vacated the world of moving/selling/buying for a couple of overnights at my parents’ beach house in Port Ludlow.  While we did have to go to the beach club a few extra times for internet access (to sign post-inspection papers), we were able to enjoy a serious (though brief) get-away from it all.
• Moving Day – the kiddos stayed with my parents Sunday night and first thing Memorial Day/Monday morning, Mike and I went down to pick up the ginormous truck.  In the POURING rain I managed to help Mike back the truck into the driveway (we’ll pretend that the whole getting-it-wedged-in-the-street thing and taking out one of our rhodendron bushes in the flower bed never happened, shall we?  Or when I called to order our appliances and found out that the fridge we wanted wasn’t available for 3 ½ weeks.  We ended up getting a different one on Wednesday).  Thankfully, many of our friends and my fam arrived to help, the rain let up and, I kid you not, the sky cleared just as we pulled up to the new house with the first wave of fully loaded cars (yes, in addition to the huge truck…me thinks we have TOO MUCH STUFF).
• While our new house isn’t on the top of a mountain (like previous dream “Mountain House”), it is, indeed on the top of a pretty GINORMOUS hill.  We’re located four houses away from a golf course, the neighborhood backs to a 3000 acre regional park, and our property is ¼ acre including a big ravine/green space in the back.  It’ll be a PROJECT once we get around to clearing out the overgrowth but for now, it’s our ‘natural’ wooded sanctuary.  We’ve already seen 5 deer (or the same couple of deer a few times…) in the neighborhood!
• The kiddos took right away to the new place.  Kayli is THOROUGHLY enjoying the big carpeted staircase and her freedom (we haven’t gated anything), and she knew right away where her room was.  After picking up the kids and bringing them here (Moving Day afternoon), I asked Matthew what he thought of our new house.  His answer: “It’s lovely.”  I’ve never heard an 8 ½ year old boy use that word before – especially not mine!  So, yes, the boys love it and are adjusting nicely to having their own rooms, though we’ve heard plenty of arguments about cleanliness already.  (This is primarily because Zach goes into Matthew’s room to play with the Legos, leaves a huge mess and then attempts to pull a, “It’s HIS room, HE should clean it up!”)
• WORK: while this house is newer (to us!  Built in 1989, whereas the last house was ’77) and the previous owner did TONS of work here (new granite counters, sinks, shower, carpet, deck, etc.), there’s quite a bit of it that was done, shall we say rather quickly or not so well.  We’re starting to learn all the little quirks and it’s kind of fun (and annoying) to discover a new one (‘Oh, this outlet doesn’t work if that light is turned on…’ etc.).  So, not only did we spend COUNTLESS hours on projects at the old house to meet the buyers’ post-inspection list of demands, we now look forward to some big projects here.  But you know what?  That’s home ownership for ya, and I keep reminding myself that they don’t all need to get done right away.  We’re hoping to be here for a L-O-N-G time, so we may just take our time getting it all done.
• Closing: We officially sold our first-ever house yesterday, though honestly until the 11^th hour, we weren’t sure if/when it was going to happen.  The buyers were demanding that we do things that we never agreed to and were basically just having a hissy fit for no reason. Argh.  Thankfully, we got a phone call in the afternoon from the title company saying the sale had, indeed finalized, and that today our purchase would be final.  I asked the lady if that meant I had to wait on having champagne until today.  “Oh, no way,” she said, “You need one bottle today and then, I’m thinking two more tomorrow.”  When I told her that she’s my type of girl, she said, “Hey, that’s …Title.  It’s how we roll.”  So, I took her PROFESSIONAL advice and brought a bottle of champagne to Matthew’s baseball game last night.  We shared a cup ‘o bubbly with several of the other parents.
• Fatigue: Yeeeeah, so it’s finally caught up to me.  Obviously, the boxes needing to be unpacked, the address changing, the appliance-buying, the resituating of life in general is rather overwhelming and daunting, however, until yesterday I was still on a bit of an adrenaline high from it all.  I was being stupid and staying up WAY late to get more done but still getting up at 6:30 every morning.  So, yesterday it hit and the most major way it hit was in the form of SPACINESS. 
• Trevor – the man who sold us this home – had a few things left on HIS post-inspection list, so he sent a general contractor, Jordan, to the house to do the job.  My mom was here shortly after Jordan arrived and to quote her, “Ooh, he’s young and cute!”  (Yes, her words for the record, not mine.  Not that I necessarily disagree).  Anyway, all day, whenever he needed to ask me a question or tell me something, I sounded like a COMPLETE moron.  I could list all of the things but I’ll just stick with the best highlights. 

There was a broken hot tub in the deck that needed to be removed before the deck could be finished (that’s happening tomorrow).  I knew this was the plan (as we requested it). So, in the afternoon, Jordan comes up and taps on the kitchen window.  I open it and he says, “I’m going to go ahead and demo the hot tub now.”  To which I immediately reply, “Um, uh, OK.  Like you’re going to get IN it and show me how it works?!”  Wow.  Wishful thinking? Maybe.  But he looked at me like I was the biggest ignoramous and said, “No – demo – as in DEMOLISH.”  Oh, right.  Of course.

A bit later, I was trying to get the kids ready and out the door for Matthew’s ballgame.  We were running late, Kayli was throwing a fit, Matthew was starting to melt down for some reason and I kinda sorta lost it…like more than just a stern mommy-voice, I yelled a bit.  Right afterwards I hear a timid knock on the door.  ‘Oh, crap’, I thought.  ‘I hope that’s not a neighbor coming to introduce themselves…or now they’ll be calling CPS.’  I open the door and there’s Jordan who, quickly takes a couple of steps back.  Yeah, I mean, I DID basically ask him to get in the hot tub and then he hears me losing it with the kids.  I’d be scared too.  He needed to explain something about the garage doors.  He starts explaining the intricate details of garage door mechanics.  Kayli is on my hip shrieking.  The boys are bickering in the background and I’m pretty much just staring at him blankly.  I bet I was drooling too.  After a bit, he said, loudly and slowly, “DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I’M SAYING?” Uh, no, I don’t understand much of anything right now.

Yeah, so I’m definitely exhausted and the thought of getting everything unpacked and all just-so is way daunting.  There’s so much to do and I’m having mover-inner-unpackers guilt (yet another guilt to add to my buffet), but tonight we rest and relax.  I couldn’t be happier.  From the moment we got here, it’s felt like home and that, my friends, is a really good feeling!