Settling In

After Christmas, we really focused on unpacking boxes and figuring out what would go where. It can be really stressful to realize that nothing is fitting easily or feeling like a completed job! We did not remember much about the house, so we kept finding out fun things like (off the top of my head) there was no full-length hanging space in the master closet, zero towel or TP holders in Hadley's bathroom, broken closet doors, drafty windows, evidence of rodents, numerous burned out light bulbs, overgrown landscaping, lumpy carpeting, no vent in Owen's bathroom, yard drainage issues, sketchy garage door opener, polka dot paint touch-ups, dated master bath, and no proper shelving in the garage or in any closets above the rods. And it was just dirty, having been unoccupied for at least two months. Hello, spiderwebs and numerous trips to our local home improvement stores! Oh, and in the middle of it all, we had a city water leak under our driveway. Talk about a massive hole! We have our fingers crossed that our sprinklers come on with no issues later this spring...

One of the most frustrating home discoveries were these tiny uncovered windows in every room on the front of the house. Apparently, they were hidden under skinny curtains during showings, and when the previous owner finally sold the house they took those with them, leaving two skinny, single-pane, gaping panels in every front room open to anyone passing by. Hello neighbor! At least the cats liked them.

Luckily, one of our neighbors is full of advice, so we asked her about her solar screens. She recommended a place, and within about two weeks we had custom screens on all the front windows (which face southwest), so that should feel nice in the summer and gave us a quick privacy solution.

The previous owners also apparently purchased two vats of beige paint (one light beige and one more adobe colored) and painted everything one of those two shades. It was too much tan for me, so I decided to let the kids pick a color for their rooms. This delayed fully unpacking their rooms a bit, but I felt it would help them to own their rooms a little more. They were eager to help, and we only had a few minor paint clean ups.

Here are the after pics (that is, after painting, furniture shopping, and much unpacking). Hadley wanted her room to look as much like her Idaho room as possible, while Owen opted for a primary blue color. Since their rooms are bigger (and we sold most of H's furniture), we got them desks too. Much improved over the beige, in my opinion!

We broke up the home chores by getting outside on sunny days, visiting friends around town, and making a trip to the ranch. I guess we did acclimate to the north, because it's still jarring to see blooming flowers in the middle of January. 

It's also jarring to see warnings posted about alligators on a bike path not far from your house! Though the flooded bike path seemed all too familiar.

We explored a local STEM center that had a free day for the kids. We had a great time making art, building popsicle stick catapults and towers (they won kudos for building the tallest tower that day), and making oobleck (kind of like slime).

Big city = big team sports! We made it to a free Dynamo scrimmage game on a cooler night with Uncky Dan and family.

Finally, school was approaching, but we were all sick! Owen had double ear infections and was deaf as a post for the first week of school. I had to assure his teachers that he wasn't ignoring them. What a first impression! But, at least he was fever-free and got to go the first day. Hadley came down with the virus later and had to miss the first day of school with an ear infection and bronchiolitis with a cough to wake the dead! But she got to go the second day! So I didn't get a cute 'first day of school' pic of them... Dad missed a lot of the excitement by healing enough to fly to Boston to start his new job training for a couple of weeks. I escorted the kids to and from school for a couple of weeks until they felt comfortable to be on their own. It's about a 5-minute bike or scooter ride from our house, and the school dismissal is very well organized by directional groups, crossing guards, and walkers separated from wheelers. Overall for school - so far, so good. They like their teachers and are making friends, but the day is noticeably longer (by 1.5 hours!), and they have to get up earlier. But, they have much smaller classes (18 compared to 28 in Idaho), science instruction every day, and paid, dedicated specials (art, music, and PE) teachers. Seems like a trade up in my book!