We discovered a large colony of bumblebees living in the mulch at the back of our house. I’ve spotted other ground hives before (e.g., yellow jackets) but never bumblebees. The picture doesn’t include any of the drama, but there are numerous entrances hidden in the bark. They depart to visit the flower garden and return visibly laden with golden pollen on their rear legs.
Grandma Pam spent the day with us in the new house today. She was a godsend, bringing us some delicious food, helping to unpack boxes in the kitchen, and spending hours rehabilitating our mangy couch.
Maggie is getting rather clever. Conversation this evening, starting with my question:
“Should we go exploring after dinner?”
“No!”
“We can walk down the sidewalk and see where it goes. There are some trails in the park up there.”
“That sounds long.”
“Not too long!”
“What about ticks?”
“The ticks won’t get us.”
“Hmm. But don’t you think mama would want to be with us for our very first hike at the new house? I think we should wait until she gets back on Friday.”
Our first full day in the new house was focused on our movers. They unloaded our 13 crates of stuff and hauled away a moldy piano left by the previous owner. Our spacious, spartan new home has become a cardboard labyrinth. It’s a bit overwhelming.
In the midst of the moving chaos, I found many moments of joy today playing with Piper and the kids in the back yard.
As posted previously, we received the keys and moved into the new house this morning. In short order, Sarah headed up north for her new job. She’ll be back on Friday, returning with Griffin. Until then, Oliver, Maggie, Piper, and I will hold down the fort.
Despite the many tasks we needed to tackle today, we had a lot of fun in the new place. My favorite part was throwing the ball with Piper in the back yard. She loved that she could sprint!
Maggie and Oliver, I suspect, had their best time when our friends came over and they played some epic games of hide-and-seek.
A few more first day pics below.
We’re all a bit ragged, but thrilled to be in the new house. Now we begin the epic task of unpacking, and, more importantly, finding all the things we need in the interim.
Clearing the fridge feels so good.
Of course, that’s nothing compared to the probiotic packets we found at the back of our highest cabinet. Expired in 2006. Our best guess is that Sarah bought them at the little health food shop on Lakeshore in Oakland before she moved in with me. They somehow survived three subsequent moves.
But not this one. 😎
What was originally to be our closing day yesterday became the movers day. We were up until the wee hours of the night Wednesday night (as the timestamp on my last post attests). We awoke at about 5 AM to continue packing. And, we were still packing while the movers were here. (Despite purchasing 40 more boxes in the past 24 hours, we eventually ran out and had to stop.)
Fortunately, I think, for us, the movers underestimated how much stuff we had. They did a virtual walk-through with Sarah last week and determined that we would likely require eight “vaults.” Each vault is a crate on their truck. The truck holds five vaults which can then be offloaded into a storage facility until they can deliver them to the new house.
After a long, sweaty day, the moving team ended up filling 13 vaults. (I like to think that one vault was dedicated solely to my collection of roleplaying games.) We still have piles of junk to sort through, but it feels pretty good to have made it over this hurdle. We’ve got a few days to sort, clean, haul stuff to the dump, and get ready to hand over the keys on Monday. Until then, we’re sleeping on the floor. I’m writing this while sitting on the steps, since we have no chairs.
I’ll post a few pictures below.
Addendum: We went to bed early and slept long and hard. (My Fitbit says that I got almost nine hours, which is unheard of.) Feeling good today!
Closing will happen on Monday the 21st. We learned late this afternoon, however, that our movers couldn’t change their date. So they will be here at 8:30 tomorrow (actually, later this morning—I’m tapping this out at 1:00 AM). This was our original plan, but we lost many hours of packing time making urgent phone calls to keep the sale and purchase on track. So many things to sign!
The long and short of it is that we’re not ready for the movers, but hopefully we haven’t missed anything big. We’ll be counting on our friends to load up a lot of the remaining stuff on Sunday so we can clear out on Monday morning.
We never would have made it if Sarah’s mom didn’t join us for the last 36 hour push. Thank you, Pam!
Last night in a bed until next week. Too bad it’s only for a few hours. Clock is ticking!
We received bad news this afternoon about an unexpected hiccup in the sale of our house (outside of our control). Closing has been bumped from Thursday to Monday (the 21st). This caused a cascade of issues, not least that Sarah was supposed to be up north for her new job on Monday but she has to sign the documents in person at the closing.
In any event, it’s been a stressful afternoon, but we think everything is ironed out and we’re on track to move on Monday. Fingers crossed!