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Friday night, I left work just a tad early and headed down to Bluffton to pack up the rest of our stuff. I crashed at Matt and Chris's. Matt helped me load the truck on Saturday morning. I think we started around 9 after running to Home Depot to get some packing rope. My folks and Jenny's got to the storage place around 9:45 or 10 I think. (My watch is currently being held by little people or either I left it in their toybag.) We got the truck loaded by noon and we were all very hungry. We made it to Columbia and hung out a little while. For some reason, even though you stay in one place, seated, with nothing to do for hours, driving were's a person out. So, after a little recuperation, we started unloading the moving van.

I think we confused our neighbors, especially those who knew we had been living here for the last month. Its nice to have furniture in the house. I told Jenny that its amazing that we still have empty rooms in the house. Enough for now.

Less than 48 hours until all of our stuff is back under one roof. It seems so exciting... to walk into our dining room or study or either guest bedroom and see furniture. We are also looking forward to having most of our family up to see where we now live. We both love having house guests and even if its for one night it will be fun to host a house full of people. Today I started gathering towels, pillows and sheets from boxes doing inventory of a sort to make sure that we have what we need, with three bathrooms I also have a few bathrooms to clean before everyone gets here too.

The girls have had a good week. Emma is working on another tooth, though I can't see it yet I can tell because of the constant stream of drool. Kate got to use her new car seat today for the first time, mostly out of mom and dad being too lazy to figure out how to put it in. I got it in the car, now I have to take it back out and figure out how to adjust the straps -- should have figured that out before I got it in there. For the first few minutes she just sat there trying to pick up the spots on the fabric, it is cow spotted. Emma's seat arrives next Tuesday courtesy of Pappy and Grammy. Her's will be Zebra print, quite fun I think.

At their first doctors appointment last week they had grown over two inches in the last month which put them well over the max limit in height for their other car seats. They had not however gained any weight. They have been on a high fat diet for the last month so I was a little baffled that all the heavy whipping cream and butter had not stuck to them, but I guess they are using the food to grow tall rather than grow fat. Their new doctor wants to see them monthly for a little while to make sure they start to gain weight soon. Right now current weights for them are... Emma 14 pounds 6 ounces, Kate 15 pounds 10 ounces.

Kate walking. She looks concerned but don't be fooled, they are not cautious walkers... if anything falling is the fun part.

I am trying to teach them to chores... okay not really but they love to help unload the dishwasher. If only I could teach them not to put clean dishes on the floor or in their mouths.

Emma walking picture. After much delay.

I realized that no where on our page have we mentioned that girls started walking. They started shortly after we returned home from Tallahassee and have not stopped since. Now we rarely see them crawl and they are figuring out running. People have requested pictures of them walking. I ask that you please be patient as this is not an easy task. I get out the camera and they walk to me, before I can take the picture they are at my feet and then it isn't a walking picture. They love being mobile and walk around the room in circles with clothes on their heads or whatever they can find and yell back and forth at each other. It is quite cute to watch and puts a smile on our faces everytime.

An action shot of the tigers courtesy of Matt the appointed photographer of the day. THey are actually playing in a little pool of water. Other than water animals I have never seen an animal at any zoo actually use the pool of water that they zoo people make for them. It was fun to watch them. Had there not been tons of other people and 90 degrees of heat we might have stayed a lot longer. Its okat though, the girls and I are headed back this Wednesday with Aunt Anna and her class.

 

 

This weekend Matt, Cris and Cotton from Bluffton came up to visit for the day on Saturday. We went to the Indian Palace in 5 points for lunch... ummmm somosas... and then went to the zoo. The girls had a great time as usual and it seemed that most of the animals were out frolicking. The tigers were especially. All this time we thought there was only one tiger at our zoo, well Saturday there were four and they were all trying to antagonize each other.

We didn't do much around the house this weekend, took it easy and recouped after weeks of working on something everyday. Update on the girls... they now have one tooth a piece. Only 7 months after most kids start getting teeth, but hey at least we are getting some. They have both grown a lot though I can't find the scale in the boxes so I don't know how much. They have their fist Doctors appt in 7 months (9 months for Kate) this Friday so we'll know then how much they weigh. They have a few shots to get so hopefully all will go okay and I won't go crazy with two very unhappy littles.

So, we got through with this room last night. Through sort of, I guess. I still have to add various wood putty to various holes in various boards. But other than that its through. I added molding around the edges last night so it look rather professional.

I haven't gotten to post in a while since the house computer has been sitting in pieces on the garage floor for the past week. The house is finally starting to feel like ours now. The kitchen came together late Thursday night. We went to push the stove in just to find that it needed more taken off the counter. So that job complete I can now cook again. Once we get new paint on the kitchen walls it will look great. The hardwood floor project went smoothly. We were blessed with hidden talents of carpentry on Friday and Saturday night and the floor looks like professionals did it. No one get any ideas about us coming to do this for you though cause our bodies are still in extreme pain from all the work. We got the dining room completed and have maybe three more rows of wood in the study. We did everything we could with the floor stapler and now are left to rows that must be done by hand. Having the floor in makes me want our furniture even more! I'm excited to say that in only 2 1/2 more weeks we will have all of our possessions under one roof again(after 3 months of living out of boxes this will be amazing).

We took yesterday evening off and bought a car. Seems strange maybe but if you knew James' truck you would probably tell us this was something we should have done years ago. His commute from the new house is all interstate and his truck likes to go around 50 mph tops, so he has been taking the long back roads way to make the truck happier. Hopefully now the girls and I will see him home a little earlier in the evenings and he will feel like we live a little closer to the office. You probably want to know about the car - it is a White 99 Camry. That seems to be a good year for us and cars as it is also the age of our van. Does anyone out there want a 1988 Ford F150? (If you don't drive interstates it really is a good truck honest.)

Thursday night, I met Jenny at "our" botanical gardens (adjacent to "our" zoo). We went to "First Thursday at Riverbanks." There was live music, food and drink. We met some folks but mostly just had fun walking around the gardens with music in the background. Then we went home for food and drink. 

Well, the fridge is in. The Lowe's guys installed that one. The washer and dryer are in. I could have done that one too but the Lowe's guys did it. The night before last, we got the microwave installed. I have never had more appreciation for those folks who install above the stove microwaves. That sucker was insane-ly hard to install even with the paper templates they provided.

Last night, I got the last bit of the cabinet cut to get the new stove in. It looks good. I sanded the corners so it really looks good. Almost looks professional. The 3 phase outlet is in and all we really have to do is slide it up, plug it in, and slide it in the rest of the way. The dishwasher has to go in first though.

The dishwasher has been waiting to get into its new home but it just seemed so simple that it had to wait for the cabinet modification. We were going to install it last night before realizing that we needed a 90 degree elbow to hook up the water supply.

We really haven't gotten everything we could from the apartment. I want our sofa in the house and after the stove gets out of the eat-in part of the kitchen, we can put the table in.

This weekend is slated for new hardwood floors.

We had a good weekend. Jenny and the girls and I went down to Liberty County Friday night for the Midway Meeting. Saturday, Jenny and the girls hung out at Cedar Hill with the women folk while my dad, Caroline, Uncle Fleming and I played golf. Golf to me is barely worth the effort. By the end of 18 holes, I'm ready to go take a nap. And I'm not even walking the course. After golf we ate at Shrimpdocks Restaurant. We took the girls to see the Conyers/Cornett clan so we got in a little late.

Sunday, we went to the church service. I worked the sound system, which still seems a bit strange for a church with no electricity. I didn't get any complaints so it must have been okay. Pastor Barnes preached and I must say that its good to hear an actual sermon at Midway rather than some diatribe about being good or honoring ancestors. And there was no interpretive dance this year either.

We borrowed my dad's trailer and put a twin bed that we had in storage at Cedar Hill on it to haul up to Columbia. We stopped in Bluffton on the way up to get some random things out of storage before Memorial Day weekend (our big move day). I think we got the lawnmower and weedeater, some Adirondack chairs for settin' by the pond, Jenny's mixer, yard tools, and some other odds and ends.

We got in late and spent our first night in the new house. Its good to be homeowners again. We are in the process of renovating the kitchen. The biggest task we have undertaken is to remove an old drop-in stove and replace it with a new freestanding. The major cuts have been made, all that remains is finish work. Thats all for now....