This will be a short wrap-up, but I figured I should get back into my normal "routine" of posting . . .
As already mentioned, last week was all about moving. That said, we did manage to fit in "school time" a couple of days, and we did quite abit of driving between the two houses, which gave us time to listen to Jonathan Park for science and history.
The real "school" of the week was having Papa around. The girls helped him build platforms for the washer, dryer & freezer in the basement (the basement is mostly dry, but as a precaution in case heavy rains changed that, and to make sure they were level, Dad built simple wooden platforms for them to sit on). Dad said they were better at hitting nails than I am, but that's honestly not saying much, I gave up years ago, it's just not possible! He also explained to them how the sump pump works, complete with dumping water into it and then taking them outside to see the water pumping out of it. They helped him hook up the stove, and I think the washer & dryer too. . . MiniMe was SOOO annoyed when she realized that he'd finished prying the wainscoatting (sp?) off in the bathroom (in preparation for putting the shower in) without her realizing he was doing it. Besides all the building "classes" they got, he taught them about measurements (I heard one conversation explaining the difference between the metric system and inches, miles, etc), and just generally spent the week answering the gazillions of questions. I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, them or him :) I can definitely say I didn't worry about the fact that we didn't have alot of time to sit and "do school".
Little Bit was thrilled to have my mom around most of the week. And to make it even better, while my mom did TONS of packing and cleaning for us at the old house, and ALL the cooking and kitchen clean-up for us, she still had quite abit of time to play with Little Bit while I was busy unpacking and the big girls were helping Papa.
One thing that added drama to our week was the cats. We were obviously planning to bring "our" 2 cats, Moccasin and Joy with us. After much discussion, we agreed to bring one of the strays, MiLady Underfoot (because she likes to get RIGHT UNDER YOUR FEET, silly cat!). We tried bringing her in to eat several times (at the old house ) and she would just get panicky as soon as that door started to close. So I told MiniMe (who was the advocate for bringing her) that we'd TRY bringing her, but obviously if she completely freaked out we couldn't keep her in the house, and there was a pretty good chance that if we let her outside at the new house, she'd take off. MiniMe decided she still preferred that to taking her to the humane society, so that's what we decided to do. So then it was moving day. When we the furniture was all loaded, the girls asked about the cats and I told them that I didn't want to try to bring the cats and have them here while we were unloading the furniture, so we'd go back to the house that afternoon to get the cats. Which we did, BUT we couldn't find Joy, and since I was still figuring MiLady wouldn't stay in the house, I didn't want to bring her to the new house and put her outside after dark, which it was by the time we were heading back to the new house. So, that night we just brought Moccasin. He wasn't real happy about it all, and didn't like the basement stairs, but once he found himself a safe spot under our bed, he was ok. The next day we went back and STILL couldn't find Joy. That day, since we didn't have Joy, we wanted to stop a couple places on the way back to the new house so again, didn't bring MiLady.
The NEXT morning, dh was going to stop by the old house on his way to work. MiniMe and Sassy insisted that the "only way" to catch Joy was to be there at "breakfast time" because they said that they usually bring Joy into the house for breakfast and if not, he doesn't come around the house during the day. So, I asked dh to see if Joy was around, and if so, to put him in the house. We got there before dh had left and he said that "a black cat" (both Joy & MiLady are pure black, the girls claim they can tell them apart, but the rest of us can't) was in the house. The girls went searching and found Joy in the basement. We were super careful as we loaded up another load of stuff to take to the new house, to make sure he didn't get out. Once we had everything for that trip loaded, I told the girls to load MiLady into her cage, and, once she was in, to go find Joy (whom I assumed was in the basement) and put him in his cage. Sassy went to get him, and couldn't find him. Keep in mind that by that point there wasn't ANY furniture in the house! Not a whole lot of hiding places. Mom and I went to help her look, all 3 of us searched all 3 levels of the house and couldn't find that stupid cat! We were to the point where we figured he must have somehow snuck out while we were loading the car. But MiniMe (who'd been on the porch trying to keep MiLady calm) said she wanted to check someplace in the basement, so we had her go look for him. He wasn't where she thought he'd be, but she DID find him, hiding UNDER a couple bags of trash in the corner of the basement! So after all that drama, we finally headed to the new house with the 2 black cats. They weren't thrilled to be in cages, but were just "crying" not frantic like some cats get. Once we got home, I told the girls to take the cages to the basement to let the cats out (that's where the food and litter box are). As soon as they opened the cages, MiLady beelined it for the space under the freezer platform. She stayed under there for most of the day. Joy stayed pretty well hidden too, but neither of them went nuts or anything. . . by the next day, they'd acclimated. MiLady has done fine in the house, so I guess now we have THREE house cats, sigh . . . Before the other cats got here, Moccasin occasionally looked like he was going to try to go outside, but since they've been here, he hasn't seemed to care, and neither have they. They all like to hang out under our bed. And Little Bit had already claimed the floor of our closet as her "quiet spot" and put her pig pillow there. MiLady likes that pillow, and Little Bit LOVES that she can usually find MiLady on "my piggy".
MiniMe continues to do well with piano lessons. And Sassy is patiently (most of the time) waiting for this move to be DONE so we can figure out and get her a violin and she can start violin lessons.
Another new thing, the last 2 Sabbaths, the girls have told the Bible story in the Cradle Roll (0-4 yr old) class at church. They each took a week. I gave them the teachers helps and they read through them and decided how to tell it, practiced it, and each did well. I was nervous for Sassy yesterday, usually our "class" is 2-3 kids, MAYBE 4. Yesterday by Bible story time we had 6 kids, one of whom is abit older, I think he's 5 or 6 and can be pretty challenging. But she handled it all fine.
And that was moving week.
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