Nearing the End of the Journey...

We woke up on the third, delighted to hear that our furniture was, indeed, going to be delivered that day! The driver had even called and said that he just needed the last directions to our house before he got there :)! We were so excited to be getting ready to leave and see the house filled up with the stuff that would make it "our" home!!! Unfortunately, several of us had obviously come down with colds, so things went rather slowly getting ready to get to the house, although we were all living in denial for the first couple hours. It is like everybody assumed that if they said something about it, there was no stopping it, because you could tell everybody was miserable (except Daddy, he never gets sick! Okay, well, rarely ever ;).), but nobody said anything until Andrew stated his throat hurt. After that, nobody seemed afraid to complain about anything, haha ;).

Daddy took Tori and the little girls to the house so he could be there so that the unloading process could start, while Mommy took the rest of us to the store to get some breakfast items. Amidst Andrew's falling over in the store, and accidentally supplying a group of ants some banana for breakfast, we were able to get all that we needed, and headed for the house :)! Tori had the little girls already on the swing set :). Andrew and Bethi quickly joined them, while Mommy and I started to try to make breakfast, which couldn't be fixed fast enough for Emmi, who was in a grumpy mood due to needing food, and is slightly possessive over the swing set, haha ;).

We got breakfast plates made, and sat the little ones down on a sheet to have picnic breakfast, inside ;). Daddy worked on making the first pot of coffee in our new house. You know it wouldn't take him long ;). Tori enjoyed some to celebrate being so close to moved in (after being assured that just one cup would not stunt her growth significantly. She has a self-imposed rule that she will not, repeat, will not, drink coffee regularly until she is at least half an inch taller than me ;)...).

After breakfast, we cleaned out the big fifteen passenger van, and Daddy's smaller van. Daddy's van seems really big after his old van, but the fifteen passenger van is still the hands-on winner in size without a shadow of a doubt! We call it "Van-illa", a mix of "Van" and "Godzilla", heeheehee! We ended up replacing the back seat in Van-illa (which we had thought to take out of the car before the moving van left our SC house, thank the Lord! We could never have fit everything in with it!), and piling several boxes of items that became unpacked and never repacked during the trip, in the living room before collapsing on the couch determining  to sort through and put it away later ;). Daddy was able to help a bit with moving boxes into the house from the truck, but the rest of us pretty much just kept babies occupied. Tori finished her Rubik's cube, totally flabbergasting one of the men helping unload the furniture :)! It was so funny :). 

They were done unloading early in the afternoon, and we set to work getting a few small things done. Nothing much happened the rest of the day... we took care of some house stuff, had supper. and flopped at the end of the day ;).

The next morning, Daddy had to get back to work, and the rest of us were making headway to get out of the hotel for the last time! We were so excited :)! I checked Facebook while Mommy and Tori took some of the bags down to the car, and was shocked to find many "Happy Fourth" posts, heeheehee. I got so lost as to what date it was during the move! It was kind of funny :).

We stopped at the grocery store on our way, and we also stopped to see Daddy at his store for the first time since moving :). Then we were on our way home.

We set up the beds and washed loads and loads of clothes, before making the aforementioned beds with freshly washed sheets :). We completed some more cleaning, and some of the little ones accomplished some much needed activities...

 Like sleep...

 ...more sleep...

 ...and helping clean :P.

The house needed such a cleaning before we settled! There was - no kidding- dog hair in the oven door. Just a wee bit disturbing. Haha!

Since then, we have been settling into our new life here in Virginia. We recovered from our colds, got the house cleaned, and got most of the big unpacking projects done. Mommy found out that she was expecting baby blessing number eight, little Seaweed :)!!! Miss Kathy at Daddy's store blessed us with a couple of meals, and all of his employees got together and blessed us with a welcome basket. Tori threw a big tea party that she invited me to (took six hours if you count cooking, cleaning, and enjoying- now that is dedication for you ;)!), that was absolutely beautiful. We took the little ones to Daddy's store for his store's "Kid's Day" one day, and have stopped various other times while out and about, we have greatly enjoyed being able to do that again!!! The neighbor on one side of us helped us get our lawn mower put together, the ones on the other side just moved in like us, and the lady from across the the street blessed us with some fresh corn :). Daddy has been taking us to the church that he has been attending for the past several months, and the people there have really welcomed us :). I was able to make and sell a couple of crocheted kittens, which, although they didn't get to their destination when we had hoped, was a fun experience :). Our family was able to set up a ministry table at Daddy's store's 5th anniversary a couple weeks ago, that was a wonderful blessing! Daddy gets back from his meeting tonight, and we finished unpacking this week. 

I'm going to go help give the house one more thoroughly cleaning, and then we will be done with this moving adventure. It has been a long, sometimes stressful, process. But by tonight, we will be officially settled in "home", and together.

The Lord has richly blessed us.

And I am so thankful!!!