moving house

Yesterday the M family moved away from Covenant College.  We are sad to see them go after 5 years of faithful service here, but it will be exciting to see what new field of service the Lord leads them into.

Our family has now moved into the M's previous house.  It is such a stark contrast to where we have been living that it is hard to describe!  We have at least quadrupled our living space.  This house is large and sprawling.  There are 4 bedrooms plus an office/library which could also serve as a bedroom.  This is the first time since David and I got married nearly two years ago that we are living in a house with more than one bathroom!  We've really moved up a step in the world!  :)  The kitchen has floor-to-ceiling storage cupboards which make my heart sing after the previous kitchen's storage difficulties (total storage: two small drawers, and four cupboards.  For everything, including food).  It is nice to have space for things like my slow cooker and lots of other kitchen items which had to stay in the boxes until we were in a larger house!

It is SO nice to hang pictures on the wall!  We have a lot of family photos which we wanted to frame and hang so that Elijah will learn to recognize the faces of his grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives.  Plus it just adds such a lovely homey touch to our new place to have items of personal significance and sentimental value hanging up.  :)

We were very thankful for the other house, which we had settled into quite nicely since our arrival in February, but this house suits our growing needs even better - and then some!  It has such potential for hospitality.  And Elijah now has plenty of space to roam to his heart's content.  For an 11-month-old who is showing great interest in walking, that's a dream come true.  He also now has a sandbox to play in, which has already been a huge hit!  (For Mommy as well, because it meant a few minutes of peace and quiet. . .)

There are extensive flower gardens which will need a lot of upkeep, but I will have help from the M's gardener.  There is also a small vegetable/fruit garden but not much is growing at the moment - there is a papaya tree, some pineapple plants, and some strawberry plants which might yield fruit in August or so.






The Ms have kindly left some of their furniture (sofas, dining table and chairs, kitchen stove) out so that we can use it for the next couple of months until they return with a moving van to take away their things.  This also means that we can buy our own furniture gradually over the next couple of months instead of having to furnish a whole house at once - I think anyone who has moved knows how expensive that can be!

We moved all our belongings yesterday, which meant that today we could start unpacking and locating specific items we need.  The house is a wreck, because we have reached the "worse before it gets better" stage!  But tomorrow we will need to pack for our upcoming camping trip, so the rest of the unpacking and organizing will have to wait until the end of the month. 

The kittens (which after much thought, have been named Shasta and Aravis) were terrified when we first brought them to the new place yesterday evening, but they are already growing in confidence and happily exploring the whole house.  We will leave them inside the house while we are traveling and have arranged for someone to come and leave food and drink for them and change the kitty litter.

And a note on which to end: so far, the internet is working SO much better over here than in our previous house!  What a treat!  We were able to load a bunch of photos on Facebook today, so if you haven't seen them yet, head on over and check them out.  After our trip I will hopefully be able to post a few on here.


Postscript: as I was about to hit the 'publish post' button, Elijah came crawling up to me. . . and his diaper fell out of his shorts as he came!!  It was quite wet but as I've been using the lower-quality diapers (all that's available in Petauke) they obviously don't hold up as well as the name brand diapers!  But what a hilarious incident!  Thankfully it's bath time so he has already been scooped up and rushed off to the bath.  Never a dull moment. . .