Moving Day!

So... Hi, everyone.  I know it's been a while since I've blogged -- but it's been a busy little while.  

A short time, relatively, with a lot happening within it.  So much happening that it's hard to fathom how much time has really gone by since we left Las Vegas.  We just now had a spirited discussion about that. We counted back: three Sundays of Mass at Mater Dei makes three weeks in Nebraska -- or close to it.  Though to some of us, it still seems like the big moving-in day was just this past Wednesday, time has flown by so quickly.

But Gabe says he feels like we've been here for years.  It feels that much like home now.

We're all sitting our cozy little living room this evening.  The house smells the savory and spice of the chicken soup we had for dinner and the pumpkin pie for dessert.   Dominic is here again visiting from Denver and is at the piano.  Background to the discussions of  1) how long we've been here, 2) the science of carbon dating, and 3) whether Gabe can find a print of Isengard to copy, we've heard O Danny Boy, meandering into Emma and now Cider House Rules...  I'm sitting in the comfy recliner in the corner, typing away on my laptop, and Dan looks like he's about to fall asleep in the matching recliner.  A candle is flickering on the book cabinet. Everyone's tired from a long day of work and play. Life is good.  We're glad the moving part is over.

But, for the record, here are a couple pictures of moving day.  You'll notice that there are more shots of lunch than just about anything.  Everyone was just too busy most of the time to be snapping pictures of the process, as you might imagine. 

Note Anna with the tiki torches.  Couldn't leave those behind!

Seminarians taking stuff out to the storage trailer.  WAY too much stuff out there.  Either a big garage sale or a roll-away in our future...

Stephen inspecting the "Climbing Tree"

Dominic, serving pizza to Theresa, Cathy, and Anna

L-R: Jeremy, Gabe, Dominic, Theresa, Cathy, the back of Frater Philip's head, Anna, Stephen, and Chris -- at the table before it was moved in to the house.  Everyone wanted to wait to bring it in last....

"Because this thing is heavy!"

But, no big deal for the seminarians and Dominic to handle.  They're old pros.

L-R: Jeremy, Theresa, Natha, Stephen, Frater Philip

Everything is out of the trucks, tucked away somewhere.  The big ole table is in the dining room where it belongs.  Where the table is, the children agree, that's where home is.

And we have a piano again.  We'd rather have a piano than a pool any day of the week!

Here's the happy dance:




The Basic Itinerary 

(As well as I can remember it, anyway.)

 For posterity.

* Kevvy helped pack (like a tetris master) and then drove the first 26' truck from Vegas to Nebraska, arriving after 2 1/2 days, on the last Friday of August. (Thank-you, Kevvy!  We truly could not have done this without you!)

* I followed right along behind him in the SUV with William, Gabe, and Anna (and 7 cats: 2 adults and five kittens), getting to Nebraska that same Friday.  We couldn't move into the country house yet, though, as they were finishing up some new flooring and painting over the weekend. We stayed in hotel rooms nearby from that Friday night until the following Wednesday (the "moving day" of which we speak).

* Dan had stayed in Vegas after we left on Wednesday (the last Wednesday of August), finishing up the cleaning and packing the rest of the house with Theresa and Cathy.  Sunday, the last day of August, Dan drove the second 26' truck, with the girls on board, arriving Monday evening, but we barely saw him! He still had one more week of work to finish in Vegas, and had to make an early morning flight back on Tuesday, so he dropped the girls off with us at the hotel and drove right over to the seminary to stay the night, where he was closer to the Omaha airport.

* Dominic flew out to help us, arriving late on the last Saturday of August.  He stayed in town with friends took the day off on Sunday as we all did, and joined us at the house on Monday where we  spent Monday and Tuesday helping paint and ready the house.

* The first Wednesday of September Frater Philip and the other seminarians joined us to unload both trucks.

* Having finished unloading both trucks by dinner time Wednesday, we went to get a (Craigslist) piano with one of the empty moving trucks before returning it and getting home around 11 p.m.

*  Frater Philip received permission to borrow the Seminary pickup on  the first Friday of September to help us pick up a beautiful new couch we found on Craigslist.  Then he helped me return the last big rental truck, (God bless him, and good riddance to those dang trucks.)

* It took about a week to find all the silverware, but this time around, we knew where the toilet paper was the minute we got here.

Our Thanks!

FIRST of all, to the Bishop for lending us some of his seminarians to help us unpack the trucks!  I truly don't know how we would have done it without them! (It would have taken us days instead of one afternoon!)

AND we are also so so so indebted to wonderful Frater Philip for helping out so much in so many ways it's impossible to list them all.  Not only the tools, the help delivering trucks back to UHaul, the tunes on the piano, the gifts of fresh vegetables from the seminary garden, but his dependable thoughtfulness and the smile in his eyes meant (and always mean) everything!

BUT not only all that!  If it weren't for Frater Philip and Frater Francis scouting out this house, we wouldn't be here at all! (Duh, huh, guys?)

AND our undying gratitude from all our pianists and those who love listening to our pianists to amazing piano tuner/musician seminarian, Jeremy, for helping us scout out our new piano and get it home!  It's already given us immeasurable joy!

AND, thank-you so much to seminarian Chris for cutting down the killer branch hanging over the car in the driveway.

AND, seminarian Stephen (though, technically, he wasn't a seminarian at the time...), the children are forever grateful for the bragging rights of being the ones to make you eat that worm...

AND seminarian Nathan, because you're just you -- and if we didn't have you to tease, what would we do?

AND you, Dominic...  But we're not through with you yet, so hold that thought.

BUT, most especially to our loving heavenly Father, who held His protective Hand over us through all the travels and all the moving and the lifting, and the finding and discovering and figuring out.  We're so grateful for His protecting us from all dangers - including even the ill health we deserve from all the bad eating and poor sleeping these last few weeks.

AND our thanks to all our heavenly patrons, who interceded on our behalf in so many ways. You know who you are.  Thank-you.

* Heading off to bed now. Or, well, in a minute, anyway.  Promised to rub the knots out of somebody's back after he took it upon himself to do dead weight lifts with his sisters standing on his hands a little while ago.  Show off.

More pics and stuff coming hopefully.  Hugs and blessings to any old friends who still stop by!