Moving, Covid, and the house with the unpopular trees

 Monday and Tuesday we did all of the kid's school for the week to get ready to move. We went to sign the papers Wednesday afternoon, and the check engine light came back on again, even though we just got it fixed. We ignored it and went to the closing, which went fine, and then asked the agent if we could get the keys. He said that he had an appointment in Park City, and so he texted the sellers' agent to see if we could get them.

The house that Amy is moving into had an excess washer and dryer that they were willing to give to us, so we moved them out of the house so that we could get at them once we got our moving truck. Getting the washer out of the basement was difficult, and unhooking the dryer required borrowing a tool from Amy, but we got it eventually.

By then, it was almost 7pm, and everyone was very hungry. The kids had gone through the coupons from the mail and created a meal plan for us from Wendy's, which fortunately turned out to be very near our new home. We went through the drivethrough and took the food to the park around the corner from our new house. The park has an excellent playground for being so small, and we had fun until it started to get dark and cold.

We were thinking we might have to give up our plan of camping on the floor of our new house, but we texted the agent one more time. He said he was just leaving Park City, but he could come let us in in about 45 minutes. As we discussed the news, he forwarded a text he finally received from the sellers, letting us know how to get in.

So after 8:00 at night, we finally got into our new home. The kids ran around like crazy as we looked it over and talked about how excited we were. It was 10 before everyone was settled in their sleeping bags in the new family room, and our kids really complained a lot about sleeping in sleeping bags. Their hammocks have spoiled them.

Thursday Mike had off work, and Amy offered to take the kids, so we planned to spend all day loading a truck and then unloading it at our new house. As is so often the case, everything took longer than anticipated. Luckily, Grandpa Craig and Chauncey came over after work, or we never would've gotten the truck returned on time. We got all the furniture and food storage moved, but we didn't get to the bikes and large camping gear. We also didn't get hammocks set up, so the kids were on the floor in the carpeted bedroom that night. Gideon got up and wandered the house in his sleep, and Timmy didn't sleep well either.

Friday we prioritized getting the kids' hammocks up and getting a new fridge. They finally had beds to sleep in! The fridge couldn't be delivered before Saturday, but we took a cooler of food and lots of our dishes to the new house, so we were starting to feel moved in. Then we finally called the mechanic. He said he would take it back in and work on it for free to see if he could solve the underlying problem, but he could only do it on Wednesday, and he wanted us to not drive it until then. So there went Alison's plan of moving a little bit every day.

Saturday was General Conference, but before it started we got the downstairs bedroom set up as Mike's office and the library. It's completely full of bookshelves, closing off one corner for Mike's desk. He's pretty excited to have a dedicated workspace. We decided to cover one wall of our bedroom with shelves for the kids' school supplies, since that would make them accessible during school time. Between sessions we got the kitchen boxes emptied, although we think we'll have to do an Organized Simplicity in a week or two and decide where we really want everything in that room.

Saturday afternoon Timmy started getting sicker and sicker. Gideon and Baby have had sneezes and boogers for a few days, and Saturday Timmy seemed to be starting the same way, but by the afternoon he had a fever and was laying around exhausted.

Sneezes are not a sign of COVID, but fever is, so even though we're fairly sure Timmy got the same cold but had a bit harder time fighting it because he was so tired, we tried to take him in to get tested on Sunday. The lines were insane, and they recommended coming back Monday. He was totally better on Sunday, but we'll get him tested just to be safe. So now we can't go meet our neighbors yet. It will take most of the week to get the results, so we're staying home until next week. It will give us time to unpack, I guess.

The worst part of this is that Grandpa Craig and Grandma Julie were going to spend this week helping us move, and now they can't, because we don't want to risk them getting sick. We're all pretty sad, but Grandma promised to come back in a few weeks when we're all better. In the meantime, we've changed our plans: we will take the car to the mechanic on Wednesday and spend all day packing boxes (Mike will take a few more days off work). Then we'll rent a truck again on Thursday and move all the boxes to the new house, leave the old house a few days to let the germs die, then hire a cleaning service to come in Monday and clean it. Then we can put it on the market the next weekend.

So it's not how we planned it, but the move is still going on. Today we made a curry for dinner with vegetables out of our own garden ("Mine by purchase" - if you recognize the reference, you get all the internet points), then had celebratory root beer (curtesy of Grandma Julie) and homemade confetti, and then held a dance party to celebrate our new home. We also have met several neighbors on walks (before Timmy got so sick) and there are lots of kids in our new neighborhood. The kids are excited to have lots of friends within walking distance. All of our neighbors dislike our big trees, which were one of our favorite things about the house, so we'll see how that goes. But other than that, we like the neighborhood.