Travelling: The Saskatoon To Edmonton Edition

One of the things which is really not so much fun is having all four of us sleeping in one hotel room. The kids don't settle well and Dave and I don't sleep well. However, seeing the kids all sprawled out in the mornings is pretty cute! I'd rather be less annoyed and get a little more sleep though :)

We saw the really big buffalo in Jamestown, North Dakota and then we had a really long day of driving to get to Mom and Dad's.

We didn't do much our first few days at Mom and Dad's. Rachel and Mom baked buns and Sam played lots of different games with everyone.

And we had a gathering with some of my aunts and uncles and cousins from my dad's side of the family. Above are Sam and Rachel with two of their second cousins and below is me with two of my cousins.

Last Friday we headed off for a short weekend trip to Edmonton. This is where we lived for the first years of our marriage while Dave was getting his PhD. Both Sam and Rachel were born there and we hadn't been back since we moved, which was over four years ago.

First though, we saw the world's biggest Ukrainian Easter Egg in Vegreville.

A highlight for me was getting to spend most of a day with my New Mom's friends. This group of kids has grown a bit since we all had our first (and second and third and fourth!) kids. This group of women is so special to me and I wish a couple of women who had to miss out also could have joined us.

And after finding out our supper plans for that night had fallen through, four of the five of us were able to spontaneously have a mom's night out at The Melting Pot. I love these women so much and miss them a lot.

We stopped by the house where we spent the first years of our lives together.

And we got to spend a lot of time with my cousins and their kids. Sam and Rachel loved these slightly older second cousins a ton and can't wait to see them again.

And then we were back in Saskatchewan for a few more days. There really is no other place like it. I love this view sooooo much.

Read about Days 11 through 13 here and here.

Officially Homeless

So today Dave and I FINALLY finished moving out and super-cleaning our house. Or should I say "our former house?" Yesterday and today were made a bit more insane by the fact that both Sam and Rachel woke up with colds yesterday. And Dave had an eye appointment, with minor laser surgery, yesterday morning. Yerghks :()

Anyways, Sam started feeling a little better so Auntie Marcia took him to the park with Olivia, Auntie Jenelle and Auntie Sheri. Then Sam napped there. Thank you aunties. Rachel watched Baby Einstein and napped and fussed. Dave and I packed and did some cleaning.

Then we arrived at Uncle Kim, Auntie Jacqui, Alliah and Seth's house. It was lovely to be here. We had an awesome supper of baked potatoes with toppings. Rachel ate eggs, broccoli and tomato. Sam ate bacon. I ate two helpings. Then Sam and Seth played and Dave, Rachel and I went back to our house to get fridge stuff.

The kids were not wanting to go to bed, Sam eventually fell asleep with Dave in our bed and Rachel eventually fell asleep on Uncle Kim's lap while watching election results. Thankfully the Wild Rose party did not do as well as expected. This is the only time (except when I was 18 and wanted Kim Campbell to win so she could be Canada's first female prime minister and she did) that I will be excited about a PC win.

Today Alison graciously took both our kids and Dave I cleaned like mad people. We got it all done in about four hours! Yay!!! So here is a look at our (former) house now.

I obsessively raked our lawn before we left and

Dave picked up the leaves with some gloves he found in the shed.

Here are our tulips. As usual we won't see them bloom this year.
sigh...

Here are Dave and Rachel inviting you into our empty house.
Really, I just wanted a picture of our house number.

Here is our empty living room.

Here is our empty kitchen.
With its super-clean stove and fridge.
Thanks Dave!

Here is the mural in Sam's room.
This wall is being knocked down so
we didn't have to paint over the mural.

Here are Sam, Dave and Rachel in our empty bedroom.
Sam really enjoyed running into the closets
and yelling, "Hello!"

Here is a last (sad?) picture of our empty bathroom

So that's the story of us moving out of our house. Now we are at Uncle Kim and Auntie Jac's and it is like a little slice of heaven in the midst of our moving craziness. And I need to go to bed. Tomorrow we get to resume a little of our normal life in Edmonton without dealing with moving chaos-- Kindermusik, out for lunch with Marcia, Olivia and Gavin, and supper with Twiebe.

Going More Minimalist By The Day

So today our piano and kitchen table and chairs left us. Also some very very very old letters :) We were gone for a bit this morning so I didn't get a picture of the piano movers taking our piano but it's very exciting to see carpet we haven't seen for the past four years! Ha ha ha :)

Then our kitchen table and chairs left us so we ate supper on the floor! Sam is sitting "inside" the "table area" because he was facing his place mat. We turned his place mat around (it was upside down!) and then he sat on the outside like the rest of us. Smart kid! Rachel took everything in stride and just ate about an eighth of a quiche. Sam ate the crusts and some crackers. sigh.

Tonight we went to vote. (Sam decided he was going to vote too. "Who are you voting for?" "Sam!" Good choice.) Then we came home and burned some of the many letters I have received over the past twenty-five years. This is a lot of history people!

Sam was very excited about the fire and Rachel took everything in from her exersaucer. We didn't get them all burned so tomorrow is more fire! Whoo exciting :)

And as of today all our extra food is gone, Dave is disassembling the bassinet, and we also burned our old, falling apart shoe rack. You can see the pieces which Dave literally karate kicked apart (!!!) in the picture of the fire on the left.

Stay tuned tomorrow for another exciting moving out post. I bet you can't wait!

Living the Minimalist Lifestyle

So what does our house look like now that a lot of our stuff has been loaded onto a truck and is on its way to KW? Well, as my mom put it, we're living the minimalist lifestyle. And, after a whole day of doing it, I can say, it's not really all that bad. Ha!

Our living room is spacious and has a perfect place for the exersaucer. The top of the piano is our new "office." Ha! (The big thing on the right in the picture on the right is the vacuum cleaner we borrowed from our landlords. I think our landlord took the central vac out of his old condo. Oh my...)

(For those who are curious, or for my future self reading this blog fifty years from now (!!!), the piano is going to Jason and Marcia, the loveseat is going to our landlord's house cleaner and the exersaucer is going back to its original owner or to a friend of a friend of mine.)

Sam's room is the new "playroom!" And where Sam's clothes are hanging out. Also, the diaper changing station is here. It's a multi-purpose room :) (We're leaving the huge diaper pail here and about half the toys are not coming with us. And hopefully we'll leave a good chunk of the diapers behind too! Ha ha ha!)

The kitchen doesn't actually look all the different. Although what you can't see is that most of the cupboards are empty. (Again, the shelf unit is going to our landlords, the table and chairs are going to their house cleaner, and we've borrowed some kitchen stuff from Twiebe to help us through the next week and a bit. A lot of the linens are going to ValuVillage or to cloth recycling (they're pretty old) and the Bumbo goes back to the friend we're borrowing it from.)

Our bedroom has also changed. We're still all sleeping on our normal mattresses, although Mom and Dad took our bed frame to Saskatchewan for my cousin's daughter to use. It used to be my grandma and grandpa's. (Rachel's bassinet is being borrowed from a friend, and our mattress and Sam's mattress are going to be given away somehow. Our current bedding, and bathroom towels by the way, are going to ValuVillage and Sam's bedding and Big Elephant are going in Sam's suitcase on the airplane. Although Sam thinks Big Elephant would be a good co-pilot! Ha!)

Our basement is also looking surprising empty! Sam enjoyed playing down there this afternoon and it was actually quite peaceful because the rest of our house sure does echo now! (The washer and dryer are staying here and the futon is going to our landlords.)

Although we are living the minimalist lifestyle, in some ways it doesn't actually feel all that different. Sam and Rachel's toys are still everywhere and the kitchen still has dirty dishes waiting to be washed. Some things really don't change all that much.

Ready For The Movers

So, as the title implies, we are ready for the movers to come. This morning Sam and Oma packed up Sam's room. Sam really got into packing, tossing books at Oma, "making boxes" and then throwing things into them to pack. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that when he "made boxes" that he needed to tape the bottom up so his packing wasn't all that effective! Ha ha ha!

After Sam and Oma packed up a few things, Sam and Rachel went to Auntie Sheri's for the rest of the day. Sam decided he'd rather skip Kindermusik and go straight to playing with Naden. Since it was supposed to be a warmer day, I dressed Rachel in a sweater which I wore when I was a baby. And then I remembered dressing Sam in that same sweater.

Then we really went to town. In the living room...

In Sam's room...

In the kitchen... (The kitchen looks least packed up because everything on the shelf by the stove we will be using for the next week and a half and we aren't taking that shelf or the table and chairs with us. I didn't take pictures of the empty cupboards! Also WHY do we still have dirty dishes?!?!?!?!)

In the hall closet and bathroom... (What you can't see in the bathroom is that we are using old towels (which we aren't taking with us) and there isn't a potty for Sam or a bath mat!)

In our bedroom where my dad also painted over the mural we had made for Rachel... (We were allowed to paint it with the stipulation that we paint over it before we leave. The wall Sam's mural is on is being knocked down to make a bigger living room once we leave so we don't need to paint over that one.)

And last, but definitely not least, in the basement... (The futon is staying and the stuff on the futon is mostly toys for Sam and Rachel to play with once the other stuff is gone. Oh, and bedding for us which we will get rid of before we leave.)

So yes, now all we have to do is wait for the movers. Stay tuned tomorrow for pictures of a much emptier house.

And now I need to go find Sam. Understandably, he was having trouble falling asleep and was playing quietly between his room and the living room. He moved his blanket and stuffed animals into the living room, and last I heard from him, he was playing on the couch. But I haven't heard him in awhile so I think he fell asleep. The question is where??? Let's just say, I'll be very surprised if he's in his bed! And wish me luck, our living room doesn't have an overhead light and, as you may have noticed above, all our floor lamps are packed...