In and out

We're in the new house and completely out of the old. The process was long and arduous but we had lots of help. Settlement went through yesterday so we will never go into our old house again. At the moment I feel perfectly fine about that, it being the scene of lots of hard work of late, but there are lots of lovely memories associated with that house so I might feel sad later.

Now, what is preventing me from taking lots of photos to show you our new life is not unpacking, though we are certainly still doing that, it is marking. Marking that should have been done during the move. Brilliant timing. So, with a few very late nights I should get through this and come out the other side ready to enjoy our urban lifestyle. Until then, here is one of Bethany's drawings. I especially love the reflection in the mirror.

On the edge

It isn't often that I think we ought to be a defence family. Right about now, however, I very much like the idea of somebody else packing and moving our house. It isn't a lot of fun but we are ploughing on. We have a room full of boxes.

Can you see Milo at the door? I wonder how he is going to cope with the move. Look up so we can see your eyes!

Looking up makes no difference, he really needs a haircut.

It's has rained a little bit over the last two days. Rain on Saturday would be extremely inconvenient. The leaves are pretty though.

Tomorrow afternoon we pick up the keys and then spend our last night in this house. We have been here for nine and a half years. We're all excited about a change and I am hoping that excitement will get us through the next few days.

Explanations

It was a bit rude of me, at the end of my account of our brilliant holiday at Easter Convention, to casually mention that we have sold our house and are moving when we have not mentioned this on the blog before. It is such a slow market at the moment that we were concerned that it might take ages to sell and we really didn't want the pressure of even more people asking "Have you sold yet?" So we put it on the market at the beginning of February and, thankfully, it didn't take all that long for us to receive an offer we liked and we settle next Thursday!

We aren't leaving Wagga! We love it here and, in fact, are not even leaving our suburb in the long term. We are building a house not far from where we are now,  but far above the reach of the river. We have discovered the joy of living close to something we do every week day. Joss has been riding her bike to school this year and it gives her so much more time in the day! Toby will follow her to high school in a year and a half and Bethany later on so, given that we also have friends in Estella and have always loved the outlook of the suburb (it is less than 10 minutes to the centre of town but you drive through countryside to get here), we decided to build a more teenager-friendly house here.

Of course, it takes a long time to build a house. The people who have bought our current house are moving in to it so we can't rent it and stay. Rental houses are in high demand at the moment because there are many uninhabitable houses around thanks to the flood. We are very thankful that our good friends have a house that is being vacated by long term tenants this coming Thursday and they are willing to let us rent it and bring our dog!

The house is in Central (Wagga's CBD) so Andrew and I will both be able to walk to work and we'll all walk to church. It has only three bedrooms so Toby and Bethany are going to share. It will be snug but there are lots of advantages to it. This time next week, we'll be there!

For a while now the kids have been heading off to play at the ramps. I knew that someone had built some ramps in the reserve in the middle of our suburb but I hadn't seen them.

Wow, they are serious ramps! Bethany ripped her pants sliding down that one.

There will be busy roads to cross on the way to any park in town and we will be far less keen on the kids just heading off on their bikes. I'm not sure I'll be happy to walk late at night like I currently do either. We have that lifestyle, sadly old-fashioned and rare now, where our kids can just go out and play for hours, in the parks and riding around the streets of our suburb. We'll be keen to get back to that. In the mean time, we'll enjoy having cafés and shops within close walking distance. I wonder what impact the McDonalds around the corner will have......

Recharging the batteries

We're back from Katoomba Easter Convention! It was, as always, absolutely wonderful. Excellent teaching on the theme of Christian character in an age of image, fun and relaxing time with family and friends and the beautiful Blue Mountains. Joss, Toby and Bethany all love the kids' programmes and playing with their cousins. We go every year and look forward to it so much. Thanks to the Davidsons for having us to stay!

Toby and I went for a walk one afternoon when it was still hot. We were surprised that it was so warm, even though we knew it had been unseasonably warm at home. We had bought new winter clothes specially! Thankfully, the weather did settle into more typical mountain temperatures and the new clothes were needed.

On Sunday afternoon we had our Easter egg hunt. Bethany and Huw were almost incandescent with excitement, running everywhere at top speed. Bethany had five plastic eggs, filled with bits of paper she had written and drawn the story of Easter on and she read them out to us when all the eggs had been found. Actually, there are still two larger eggs and three small ones we couldn't find!

On Monday morning we skipped the last session (we're downloading the talks) so we could pop down to Sydney and see Andrew's parents, whom we haven't seen since last year some time, and Sare, Ty and the kids - including our newest nephew! I let go of him long enough to let Jossie have a wee go and take this photo.

We got home around 8.30 last night, weary but full of joy. We'll need it to sustain us over the next few weeks as we have sold our house and are moving...... very soon!

Visits

On Thursday morning I finally made the trip out to Old Junee to visit Kristy, Jack and baby Sam! Sometimes, when you visit a new baby, you are allowed to tiptoe into the nursery and view the sleeping baby for a minute. I got to hold Sam for an hour or so! He chatted to me, gave me very serious looks, thought about crying but gave it up as too much effort, fought sleep and then conked out. He really is a beautiful baby. Kristy made delicious cheese and chive scones and it was the perfect way to spend a morning in the country.

The day got even better when Mum and Dad arrived. They are visiting us before they head off on their overseas adventure.

They're going to blog about it which means that we can go too (sort of)!