along the journey

We were entirely too busy for this to feel like Christmas. Mom and Dad arrived Friday night and we worked non stop until about 9 Monday evening. We replaced the garbage disposal, floor of cabinet below the sink, fixed the fence, painted 4 rooms, replaced the subfloor in the master bedroom bathroom, repaired the heater, taped up unused ducts, bought and connected a new washing machine… various other smaller stuff I can’t remember. After retiring for the night, we were awakened by my father falling down the steps to the basement! By the time I got up my mom was at the bottom looking at my father in a ball, screaming! We called the 911 and the ambulance and firetruck came. They got home around 5am, and they had put a cast on Dad’s arm. The only thing that was damaged was his arm. Much running around ensued on Christmas. We visited with the Cullums at 11:30… then had dinner with my mom and dad, and Amy’s mom and step-dad- and some other family at 2 at our place. Then off to the other side of Amy’s family at 6. Caleb got lots of presents! We got a few. Overall it was great. When we got home from the last visiting, my father was back at the hospital. Apparently his hand had gone so numb that he couldn ‘t feel the pain. They cut their trip short. They had to leave yesterday, I called in work to help them pack. They left fairly early before 11. Caleb and I spent the rest of the day together! Just me and him! We went to lunch with a friend, went shopping, did laundry, set up the crib. Amy was impressed when she got home! It’s great to be an active father! I wish that I didn’t have to work and could stay home with him all the time!

Well with the temperature dropping into the mid 30’s, it certainly has started feeling like Christmas, making me excited, and giddy with anticipation. I love the cold, being in DC, babies first Christmas, a new house, mom and dad being in town! I feel literally ready to jump out of my skin. That might be the coffee or the fact that no one is hanging around the office today, nothing going on in the states! I want to go home, get my baby!

We go and meet with a home daycare provider tonight. Hopefully we’ll like her. Amy’s dads girlfriend had a baby this morning at 5am, and one of the girls from our small group went in this morning for an induction. I’m just praying that it doesn’t go as long as Amys!

Here’s a few links to things I worked on today….

Anns Birthday

Pics of caleb, eating

Amys brothers house

Caleb takes a bubblebath

It’s down there on the left! this is where a big one lives! I’ve added a bunch of pictures. I’ll put a link up later for them!

so we started painting our living room last night- it’s almost lime green, but not quite. It reminds me of a friend of ours living room- it’s a bright red. It looks great, theirs does anyway. we still have a coat or two to go, as well as another 2 walls, but I think it will look good. We’re at a point where we are actually able to relax. Not so much work, work, work anymore. But there is still TONS to be done. Mom and Dad will be visiting next week… they’ll arrive on Friday night sometime. We’re visiting with our friend Melanie tonight! She’s visiting her mother, from Ohio. We haven’t seen here since the baby was dedicated. We’re pretty excited.

I’ve been working on getting some pictures online. Here are pictures from the Pentagon Relief and these are of the kitchen in our new house. And these are from Calebs 4 month birthday! No we didn’t celebrate other than a doctors appointment for the next round of shots, butit’s a milestone all the same.

We are about 96% moved in. Well 96% of our stuff is in the house. It’s far from situated, or placed where we want it. Or the walls painted, or the kitchen sink working, or the windows whole. Ugh! But us and the roaches seem to have an understanding… or rather Amy and I understand that if we see a bug, we kill it. We still have some stuff that we need to get from Amy’s moms house…. we need the phone turned on…. we’re far from settled- but we’re comfortable.

In response to Dana’s bawling

On Saturday it was raining. Amy and I were in seperate cars. Me driving the pickup, her, Stacey and the baby in the car. We were driving from her moms house to our new house to do some work. I had passed them up. Then thought about it. Amy hates to drive in the rain. Man I’ve been in almost two accidents since I’ve passed her, if she got in an accident and died- and the baby! I was ahead of her. She didn’t have a cell phone to call and let me know something is wrong, I’d be at the house, thinking she stopped to get breakfast or something, and working away. How long would it be before I realized that something was wrong. And then how long before I figured out what happened. Would I be driving to her Moms house to see if she were there, would I get a call from the police. I wanted to stop and wait for her to pass me so that I could be there- IF it happened. Would I scream? Would I go back to Ohio? What would I do? I’m still not sure what I’d do and remembering it still brings tears to my eyes…. but everythings alright today. She’s called me. She’s written me. We’re blessed to have today.

It’s not often that I see something that I just have to let out an audible chuckle. I mean I smile and think, “Gee that’s funny” to myself sometimes… but today as I was walking to Union Station for lunch, I saw a squirrel off to the side of the path scratching himself like a dog would. I just started laughing. I needed to. I don’t know what it was about the squirrel, or why I thought it was funny, but I laughed out loud. Didn’t care if people saw me and thought I was nuts or not. Squirrel- Nuts! Ha! Get it!

Catching Up!

We got the loan, not sure about some of the details, can’t interpret the paperwork they sent us without explanation, but we’ve been approved!

Sunday-

Spent the day assisting Veena and family move stuff to storage.

Monday-

Spent the evening assisting Veena and family move stuff to storage. Shopped for carpet.

Tuesday-

Spent the evening cleaning the upstairs rooms, moving Veenas stuff to storage. Picked out/purchased paint. Set roach foggers off in hopes of ridding the house of bugs. The can of fogger says to make sure any electric devices that cycle power (ie… Air conditioners, water heaters) to un plug them. Blow the pilot light out. I looked at our water heater, noticed it was an electric water heater, but didn’t know if it still had a pilot or not. Didn’t know what other devices in the house might cycle power, so finally decided to just flip the master breaker after setting off the bombs. Of course it was 10:30 or so and dark. So I wanted Amy to do the two in the back bedrooms of the upstairs, and I’d do the ones downstairs. So I set off the three of the ones downstairs…. saving the last one for the room with the breaker. Made sure Amy was out of the house and the baby, and then did the last one downstairs, before hitting the switch. Of course with the switch hit, no lights in the house worked, so I made my way upstairs and realized that Amy had set off not only the ones in the bedrooms, but the ones in the living room and dining room- the rooms I had to get through in order to leave the house. I was going to do those two, so I didn’t have to run through the bug spray. It was dark, there was stuff between me and the door, and there was bug foggers going off in every room in the house. It felt like I was in a basic training Army drill or something. I tripped over the bike and leaned into the mattresses without falling, all the while covering my face with my t-shirt in hopes to not be poisoned. I managed to make my way out of the house, as the rain started to fall.

Wednesday-

We showed up at the house after dropping the Visa on some brand new carpet, with a company that could install it by Friday. I was very uneasy with the fact that we just purchased over a thousand dollars worth of carpet, but thinking that no matter how much I shopped for it, I’d still have that uneasy feeling. As soon as I entered the house I started opening the windows to air out the smell of bug spray and dead roaches, as I walked through the various rooms it appeared that the bug spray just flushed the bugs out of hiding as opposed to killing them. What to do?

I had arranged with my Aunt to have my cousin dropped by the house to help getting the big stuff to the dump. Amy went and bought more roach foggers as I loaded up the truck with the many bags of leaves and trash gathered from in and around the house. This was the first of 4 trips we made to the dump. My cousin and I were able to move the soaking wet carpet from the basement to my truck, utilizing muscles I haven’t used since my senior year in high school- Oh so many years ago- 5 to be exact. After getting the big stuff out of the house we set off more bombs and headed to the dump again. While we were there Amy cleaned up the yard some more. When we got back she had neatly arranged piles of stuff that needed to be picked up and escorted off the property. We loaded up the truck again, headed off. This time arranging to meet at my Aunts house for lunch- at 2:30. I went over the the house to air it out and noticed STILL MOVING WALKING STALKING ROACHES!!

After lunch Amy and I went over, leaving Caleb with my Aunt, and proceeded to clean up the basement. Moving trash outside the house, cleaning up floors that probably haven’t been seen in a year or so. We moved all of Veenas remaing stuff onto shelves in the storage area, and started wiping down walls, and sweeping and mopping. Veena and her boyfriend showed up some time later and I helped them get the rest of the stuff into their van, and Amy and I finished cleaning the basement. Stacey came and her and I started cleaning up the kitchen, while Amy finished up mopping the basement.

We came to a point around 8:30 or so where we couldn’t decide what to do next. We wanted to paint the rooms but most of them have holes in the wall that need to be repaired, so we can’t paint until they’re repaired. we thought about ripping up the carpet… but decided against it. Eventually after calling it a night, we decided to paint the master bedroom. The room without any significant holes. We ended up leaving the house at around 10:30. We were going to meet Stacey at Applebees for dinner and a beer, but when we got there they were closing. We went home and had Taco Bell for dinner- at 11:30!! We’re so healthy.

So our new neighbor who said he’d patch the holes in the walls for $20/hr told me later that night that he’d do it for a case of beer! I had doubts about it, but he showed up Monday and started doing the work. Yesterday after he had squared up most of the holes, and patching three of them…. told me that he doesn’t work for free, and that I’d need to get someone else to do the work or pay him the $20/hr. Ugh! He came in and cleaned up one of the holes and patched another one then told me that if I was around he’d help me out, this weekend, he’d come over and help. So I don’t know. I called my dad- he made a phone call to the Baltimore Teen Challenge and it looks like they may have some men that can do the drywall work- for lunch and a couple dollars. They won’t be able to have it done by Friday, but by next weekend.

This drywall work is what is holding us up majorly… we can’t paint until the holes are patched, we don’t want to replace the carpet until the walls are painted. And we don’t want to move any furniture in until the carpets in. We can’t sleep there without furniture. We can’t decide what to do. My head hurts from trying to get all the logistics figured out and we’ve had very little support from our cell group, who we thought would help us out…. and I don’t want to get Henry to help us, because I don’t want him thinking I owe him something. After all I would be moving out and giving him what he wants. I’m sure that he wants it more than we do.

Our plan for the upcoming week- WHO KNOWS!