Moved in, Lolo, and Beard

We are moved in but not feeling settled yet. It's going to take a while but we knew that. We made mistake #1 when moving into a house with small children.  Do not leave them unattended with open boxes while doing something else.  In the span of about 15 minutes, they were able to empty the contents of every box all over the upstairs.  This included boxes I was going to donate and boxes I so nicely organized before the movers packed them with hope to make the playroom unpacking a little easier.  It's mayhem in here with boxes and disorganization of stuff but I love it.  I just love being in our house (aka The Beast).  It's been full of small moments that are so cool.  Reading books to my kids on the window seat, watching them ride their bikes around the playroom track, and being able to wake up before the kids get up and do whatever without running the risk of waking them.  Elise woke up one morning and said "Elise Happy" out of the blue and Paul blurted out during lunch the other day "Paul loves Mommy" out of the blue (and yes, I cried).  It's already been a memorable first week.  Paul riding his tricycle down the stairs and Elise writing all over the freshly painted stairwell wall with crayon also helped make it quite memorable (side note - Paul is ok besides a couple of little bruises) but we won't dwell on that.

What's made it especially memorable though is my sister's visit this past week.  We all love spending time with Aunt Lolo.  She helps add even more silliness to the house.  Within all the mayhem of stuff to do this week, having Aunt Lolo here was not only a great help but also a great way to keep the laughter  alive and well.

As I sit here on the couch that didn't fit up the stairs to its anticipated destination in the loft, I stare at boxes of books for shelves we do not have, Nate sitting on the window seat catching up on work email, tucked in under a blanket because it's a lot colder in this house than I'm used to, I feel good.  I know Nate feels good too.  I feel a little bit like the beginning after the twins were born.  Haggard and happy.

Speaking of haggard, I wanted to note a big change to Nate's look….he shaved his beard.  Yea!!!!! Lily wants him to grow it back and I do not.  Wife wins this round.  He didn't plan to grow a beard, it just kinda happened.  He stopped shaving on my Birthday which was also the day we decided to put an offer in on the house.  So, it was decided he'd shave the beard when we move into the Beast.  It was pretty fun to take some pics of a few looks before he transformed from mountain man with axe to so young looking and clean cut.

Here are a few pics and video from this past week

Holding Pattern

We are in a holding pattern.  In the short term we are effectively snowed in and have been since Thursday.  Only around six inches of actual snow, but since Portland doesn't have much infrastructure for snow removal the streets are a mess and it's best just to stay in.  We've made the trek on foot to the strip mall up the hill, but that's about it.  Definitely getting cabin fever, thank God the Olympics are on to distract us a bit.

In the longer term, we had been expecting our container to show up yesterday but it appears it will be at least a week later than we thought.  Apparently "arrival in Portland" just means that the container arrives on a train… then it needs to go through customs (3 days to 2 weeks) and then to the logistics company warehouse and a moving team needs to get scheduled.  So there's still hope it will happen late next week, but we'll see.  The train was supposed to arrive yesterday but who knows if that actually happened with the snow.

All this means we haven't been able to move into our house which at this point we are very much itching to do.  All the painting and contractor work has wrapped up and the house is just waiting for us.    It will be at least eight weeks between shipping out and arriving… and it's feeling every bit that long.

So we've basically hit pause.  Nicole snagged us a big outdoor play structure on Craigslist,best part is it's free. I broke most of it down Wednesday and planned to move it to the house Thursday until the snow hit mid-day.  Now we need to wait until we can safely drive the borrowed pickup truck over the hill into the city… and I guess also until we can see the play structure parts through the snow.

Putting on a show with her friend Liana (there were lots of costume changes)

Playing drums with paint brushes

 Like checking out an animal at the zoo but in this case just watching Lily climb a tree in the snow storm.

 Say cheese

 Paul needs a haircut. : )