. . . . Ricks Extra Long Summer . . . .: It is broken, but it will be fixed....eventually......probably...we hope.....

This post was started a couple of weeks ago.... The weather is not quite as good, but is still above average!

I may start with more news about the weather...... quite simply it's amazing - normally this time of year the average temperature over 24 hours is somewhere between minus 10 and minus 20 degrees C. That's average - so it gets a lot colder than that quite often.

However, at the moment it's T-shirt weather. It's above freezing and what little snow we had on the roads and sidewalks is melting away. There is no snow on most rooftops and that is great. Yeah, the car is really really dirty, but I don't care because my toes and fingers don't fall off or die when I go outside!

Anyway, the nice weather started last week which coincided with getting possession of the new house. Did I say house? I meant 'building site'.

We got keys on 22nd Jan and had been warned that the inspectors had been pretty strict with the builders who had renovated this 115-year-old house and there was a 'bit of work' to be completed. But when I walked in at 7am on that day I didn't expect just so much work! There was dust everywhere, builders ladders, and huge big holes in walls, roofs and floors. The stairs to the 4th floor (yes, we have 4 floors in our new house ain't we something special eh!?>!?! :-) ) were open to the bedroom and the kid's closet below and have open walls to the side too. In the basement, the old stairs were still there but we had been told that they were due to be removed the next day and we actually put a ladder in there to allow us access to the basement without having to go through the attached garage to eth 2nd basement stairs in there (yes, we have 2 sets of basement stairs and an attached garage in our new house ain't we something special eh!?>!?! :-) )

There was electrical work to do and some plumbing before everything was going to work correctly so we were basically moving into half a house.

We had been packing up and tidying the old place for a couple of weeks though and did have a few days extra to get things moved. We had actually been packing up pretty much since we got the house back in mid-December so were ready to go once we had possession. We even roped the kids in to help tidy the old house and paint their old bedroom walls!

We started to move our boxes in on Monday when we got the keys but planned to actually move out of Westminster and into Aubrey on Thursday, with an overnight at Grandpa and Grandma's place to ease the burden of packing up and moving stuff in one day.

It got a bit more hectic when Buffy went to fix the old bathroom sink which wasn't draining very fast and she broke off the entire drain pipe! Luckily we know a good plumber and it was all fixed up again a day or two later.

Here's the initial look around at the new place on day 1...

We had been told that there might be building work ongoing until the 29th Jan, but today on Feb 1st we have been told that it will be another 2-3 weeks of drywalling, taping, mudding, painting and flooring before the house is actually 'ready'. Luckily, Paul, the guy who did the reno, is a nice bloke and has been great about listening to us and our input, keeping us in contact with all the contractors, and letting us know what's going on.

Well, anyone who has moved house knows what the score is and it's been a long 10 days. We still have a few boxes left packed as we don't want to get everything out whilst the building work is ongoing, but we have made a lot of progress - New chairs for the living room, a desk for my office, Buffy's office is set up in the attic. We put extra hidden drawers inside the big drawers in the kitchen to make more storage space and also added 2 slide-out bins for rubbish and recycling. The shed has been tidied so that we can move a lot of the outdoor stuff in there (yes, we have a shed in our new house ain't we something special eh!?>!?! :-) )We have a new doorbell, a new kitchen cart, a new dinner table and chairs and new shower curtain and rail and a new set of 4 counter stools for the breakfast counter (yes, we have a breakfast counter in our new house ain't we something special eh!?>!?! :-) 2 new bookcases and a huge 3 metre 5 person sofa for what will become the attic TV room and lounging area. (yes, we have 3 sofas in our new house ain't we something special eh!?>!?! :-)We have been really busy and spent a lot of money but it will all be worth it in a few weeks when we are settled.

As for the old house, just 24 hours after we left we did a walk round with our new tenants and they moved in last weekend, so now someone else lives there and we are very happy for them! The old house on Westminster Avenue is the 5th member of our little family. It is a great house and we really do love it, but this move was the right thing to do. Not only for the extra space in the house but for the extra area outside, the park across the road and the school so close by. In truth, this move was for the kids - not only so they have more areas to play and on a quieter road, but also financially for them in 20 years, they will benefit from the 2nd house and income from the rental. They might even choose to move out and into the old place as their first home if they want! They have both told us that they love that house and miss it, but they are also having so much fun playing in the new one and that will get even better for them when winter ends!

Here's a quick look around the old place after it was cleared out..

Now here's a look at the new place with some actual furniture in - the kids are having fun trying to make the place messy while we are trying to make it tidy - just the usual things like putting all their cars in the fridge and turning the upstairs room into a pretend car wash.

Well, there has been much much more going on as well - family therapy sessions, gymnastics lessons, registering Ollie to start nursery in the fall and lots of running and illnesses! But I will leave you with two more photos - one of my teeth that cracked and fell out two days ago and one of the weird rubber hammock thing they put in my mouth to stop me 'drowning at the dentist' that being an actual quote from the dentist himself, who looked like a child, but did a good job. I have never had anything like this from a dentist before, but it was great and I actually nearly fell asleep while having my tooth fixed -

The tooth and its repair feel to me like a small metaphor for the move and the new house.

'It was broken and it got fixed and I actually enjoyed it while it was getting done! '

Update 13 Feb...

Well we still have builders in our house - to be fair, we actually don't have builders in our house because they keep not turning up. It is now starting to get a bit frustrating. Our 'bedroom' is in a shit state - ladders and dust everywhere while the drywall gets sorted out. The kids can't use their closet so still have some stuff boxed up. The basement stairs still need some work and then to be painted and tidied, as do the stairs to the 4th floor. Buffy and I are currently sleeping on an airbed (we have a good one luckily which is really comfortable) and haven't slept in our own bed for nearly a month. It's been a mattress on the floor or an airbed. After the walls and stairs get done and painted, we then have a carpet fitter coming in to redo the carpets that had to be removed. I don't think it will get done before we head off to Florida on holiday soon.

Here are a few updated pics...