Three princesses and a toad: June 2008

So I thought I would add a few pictures of our humble abode...

These are our stairs...they are really steep and the wood is too damaged to re-finish but my friend who works in construction suggested that we paint it just darker than the trim and put a runner up the middle--so thats what we are going to do!!!

This is the kitchen. It doesn't actually have any cupboad space. That is a bit discouraging.

This is the bathroom. It is really cute. Cyrus put in a new toilet.

This is my bedroom. It has a nice walk-in closet.

This is the front door. I think it is cute.

This is the outside from the west. I love how the house is painted the same color as Grace's diapers.

Despite my love of the color and my desire to hold on to lead-based paint, we are painting the house. It will be red where it is currently yellow or gray, and it will be white where it is currently green.

When we get stuff done, I will publish before and after pics so you can see what we have done!!!

So Cyrus did it...no, not running for President...he graduated from dental school and passed the boards so next week he will officially be able to drill people's teeth. We are now Oregonians.

Our move was the worst in history. First, I had to bid farewell to my best friend and jogging buddy Lainie. I cried. Then we had dinner and loaded up the car and headed north...When we finally got to Sacramento, some idiot shot a cop on the freeway and they wouldn't let us through. We had to sleep in our car in a gas station parking lot. I cried again. There was a perfectly good hotel across the street but they wouldn't let us go there so we spent the night in the car with our five little ones and my parents slept in the moving truck. We didn't get enough sleep. They still hadn't opened the road in the morning so we backtracked and went around...we trucked along for a good amount of time until a truck carrying cardboard spilled its load all over the freeway so we parked on the freeway again. We finally arrived at our house at 7:30 of day 2--the kids were still wearing the clothes they wore to graduation. Luckily we moved into the nicest ward in the universe and there were like ten people here to unload the truck. Un-luckily, not only was the house old (which I knew) and needing a lot of work (which I also knew) but it was FILTHY!!!! I mean disgusting. Like the toilets probably hadn't been cleaned in recent memory. The floors made the kids feet dirtier than camping does, it smelled bad and made me sneeze. I cried again. I didn't want my baby anywhere in that house.

Alas, after a few days of hard work and scrubbingm the house is livable and I am so excited to work on it. Cyrus is hard at work trying to fix things up and I am making plans, plans, plans...if you go to bluenightmoon.blogspot.com you can see the project we are attempting. It is fun and stressful to fix up an old house...but this house really is fabulous. The ceilings are 10 ft high and the rooms are beautifully large. The wood floors are beautiful and the woodwork thoughout is fabulous.

A few quirks about the house:

1. In 120 years, no one put in a phone jack. There was telephone interface but no jacks so Cyrus learned to add them.

2. The wood planks go all the way across the rooms. Some of the boards are probably 20 feet long. It is amazing.

3. The rooms are enormous. The kids are all in one room while we finish the girls room upstairs. So there are three beds, a crib, four dressers, an tremendous number of toys, and a few random storage shelves in one room and there is PLENTY of room to play and run around. I can't beleive how big the room is.

4. The back yard is a huge hill. The neighbors back yard slid down the hill into our yard some time in the 70s. The kids love to climb the hill and pick wild flowers and explore. VERY FUN.

5. We live right across the street from the Kindergarten cop school and down the road and around the corner from the goonies house.

6. In the morning you can watch the sun rise over the water through our east windows and the sun set over the ocean through our west windows. It is fabulous.

It has been so fun to make plans for the house and work on it. Here is the blog address where the house pics are... I will post before and after pictures once we actually get stuff done.

bluenightmoon.blogspot.com