We are continuing to slowly make progress on getting settled. Earlier this week, for the first time since we moved, the kitchen counter was clear (if only briefly). We have finally installed a baby gate at the top of the stairs, which has proved to be more difficult than it should have been. It seems like things are always more complicated and always take more time than we plan for. But it is definitely feeling more like home here, and most of what is left is low priority from a functional standpoint and will get done eventually :-)
The weather here has been exceptionally nice. Yesterday and the day before it got up to about 30°C/85°F. Yesterday and today we barbecued - yesterday with three other families that we are friends with, and today for the first time in our own backyard. It is supposed to cool off but still be quite nice. Summer has finally begun :-)
And no blog post would be complete without a video of Maren:
We are settling into the new house, but are not really settled. The kitchen is fairly functional, and really our day-to-day stuff is fairly functional, but there are still many boxes to unpack. The most exciting development for me this week was the installation of the stair chair lift. I can now move freely from upstairs to downstairs and back again without completely tiring myself out. Maren loves the stair chair, and wants to ride it up and down the stairs often (sitting on my lap of course). Here is a video of the chair in action:
We moved! Things are in a bit of disarray, but fortunately Maren has been very happy. She loves the new house, so much that when I said yesterday that we were going home after a shopping trip she said "No! No home! New house!" I had to explain to her that the new house is home. Just before we moved all of our furniture she spent some time exploring at the new house, and was totally delighted. Here is proof:
Of course there is some adjusting to do – she has had a little bit of trouble falling asleep in her new room, and has been super tired. But I think overall things are going really well :-)
We are moving on Friday, and I have been sick for the past week or more. I now have a sinus infection, and have been feeling pretty terrible. So things are busy and stressful - since we are trying to sell our current house while still living in it, we are constantly cleaning. We have to do our best to make it look like no one lives here when we obviously still do. I guess that is my excuse for not blogging last week, but I have too much fun Maren material to ignore, so in spite of stress and busyness and sickness here are some fun videos and pictures :-)
On Friday we took possession of our new house. Today we dealt with the details of putting our current house on the market. The time in between has been a lot of hurrying and scurrying around to get things in motion for the new house to be ready for us when we move, and to get this house ready to sell. There has been a lot of moving stuff from the old house to the new house just to get it out of the way, and make it look like we are minimalist. We are not.
It is a busy time, but also exciting. We move in less than three weeks, and I am so happy about the new house - the extra space, the location, and how many kids around Maren's age there will be in our neighbourhood. I didn't take a single photo this week, but I will post a couple of pictures of the new house (from the real estate listing):
Now that the snow is melted everything looks a little different, and I will post more (including the inside) when we actually have our own things there!
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