PA to CT

This week it's my sister's turn. It's her turn to finish packing up her house (again) and shove all her belongings and her husband and two kids onto a moving truck (again) and move to a land far, far away (ok, it's not really that far) to CT.

Each summer we seem to take turns moving. We both have basically made a vocation out of packing up our homes and moving. To be fair, she's the one who's actually moved to various states (and another country) while I've just hopped around MD suburbs. Like I said before, since moving to MD in 2002, I've lived 8 places. Yes. Eight places in nine years. My sister has lived in about that many places, too.

My poor parents. They've helped with almost every move. If you count all the times they moved us in and out of college dorm rooms and apartments each semester, that's a lot of lifting and back aches. They deserve some kind of award...or at least a day at the spa.

In honor of my sister' big move, here are some pics of our move from May that never got posted...

we survived!

We are now officially all moved into our new home! No more running back and forth between the rental and the house. No more dividing and conquering in the evenings to try to get the house painted while someone stays at home with the kids. No more packing boxes. Just lots of unpacking.

Gene got a grill last night. He's been waiting so long for a grill. We've been using my grandparent's old grill for two years now. He's extremely happy. All he needs is a packet of ground beef and a can of RC to drink and he's good to go.

Callan's been adjusting to his new "big boy" bed, too. After his first night's sleep in a bed, we found him laying on the floor with his pillow in the morning. Then this morning we found him asleep on his "sit and spin" toy with his head laying on his pillow beside the toy. I have a feeling that this is only the beginning of finding him in odd positions.

More blogging to come from our new home!

Update

HOME UPDATE:
We're moved in, the boxes are basically all unpacked except for a few stashed in the basement, and it's all thanks to my mom who stayed for an extra four days to help unpack and watch Callan.

BABY UPDATE:
I'm almost out of my first trimester already, and I'm happy to report I haven't been nauseous for the past week and a half! Most foods actually look good again. I also already have a little baby bump that showed up at about week #9. I'm just entering into that "my-pants-really-don't-fit-all-that-well-but-it's-still-awkward-to-do-the-loop-thing-with-the rubberband" stage.

CALLAN UPDATE:
May was a busy month for this boy! While we were visiting his new cousin, Caitlin, in State College on May 28th, Callan decided that he wanted to learn to walk on his own. He had been taking 3-6 steps by himself for a few weeks, but while away he learned how to walk all over the place. Of course he had to do it while carrying a toy golf club and a little Fisher Price "popper" toy in his hand. We told him it was easier to learn to walk without the extra baggage, but he had to keep carrying the toys in his hand.

His current vocabulary has expanded to include: MaMa (he only says it when he wants to, though), all done, Dada (he loves to scream this in a high pitched girlie voice when Gene comes home from work...so cute!), and last night he said "rainbow" after he heard me read it to him in his book. So random.

Oh, and the newest "action" that he loves to do is wave like he's in a parade. My mom was waving like this to him last week, and he just picked up on it and now that's how he waves (side to side instead of opening and closing his hand like babies do). We were at a picnic the other day and Gene had Callan up on his shoulders. Callan started waving like that. It was so funny! We call it his "queen" wave.

Pictures to come at some point. We still don't have internet, so blogging is not a regular thing yet.

It's Time

Well, blogging will be taking a back seat for a few days while we move and figure out what internet provider we'll be going with in our new neighborhood. I'm sitting in a mess of boxes right now waiting for the moving truck to arrive at our front door. It's time. It's time to load up. It's time to unload. It's time to unpack, and unpack, and unpack, and unpack...

I woke up to the sound of rain this morning. That put me in a panic. I ran to check out weather.com. It's supposed to be sunny by 8am. Whew!

Next blog post....from our new home!

Happy Moving Day!

A new toy

Callan's new toy. I wonder where he found a box to play in? It's not like our whole house is covered in them or anything.

A Hop, Skip and a Jump Away

A lot of people have been asking where we are moving to at the end of the month. Well, we are just moving a hop, skip and a jump away from our current house. We are discovering our neighborhood is not the safest, plus Gene got a job at a brand new school in Germantown for the fall. It's being built in a nice neighborhood just a few miles from where we live now. We found a townhouse to rent just .5 miles from Gene's school. He'll be able to walk to work instead of making the 30-45 minute commute that he has now. He's very excited about being close to his new school, and I'm very excited to get out of our neighborhood. We'll be moving May 31.

Almost done...

The unpacking, rearranging furniture, hanging pictures, painting, and rearranging furniture AGAIN is almost done in our new home. Gene has been SUPER diligent this past week. He had two days off of school this week (one due to power outages in the county), so he used his time to help unpack all of our boxes from the move. Things are looking really good! He's at home right now finishing painting Callan's room while I try to catch up on emails at Panera (no internet yet at home). We've had an interesting first week in our home. After two scary trips to D.C., we finally got hot water on Friday. That tale deserves a full blog post by itself (I'll save that one for later this week). Callan seems to still be adjusting to his new environment. I don't think he knows what to do with a WHOLE bedroom to himself!

Well, not much time to blog today. Daddy's at home keeping Callan happy until I get back, so I better get going. More fun stories about our move later this week...

Boxes and Smiles

Just taking a break from the crazy mess of boxes that are piled EVERYWHERE in our apartment. There is a high risk of stubbing your toe when you walk into our place. Just a few more days until we'll be able to spread out in our new place!

Here's a picture of my happy and content little boy. He is smiling all the time now, which keeps me pretty entertained. I keep telling him that he'll have his own room soon and won't have to sleep in the living room anymore. He doesn't really seem to care, though.

Let there be light!

And God said, "Let there be light in the Huston's home," and there was light.

Isn't that what Genesis 1:3 says? Ok...so maybe those aren't the exact words, but Gene and I have been very excited that God has provided a townhouse for our family which means we'll be moving out of our basement apartment. Since September of 2005 we've been living in the Tolker's basement apartment, which has no windows (except the window well in our bedroom where a dead bird found a nice place to land and the window on our front door which looks out to a cement wall....nice scenery, huh?). Mr. and Mrs. Tolker have been two of the kindest landlords ever! From letting us paint our kitchen bright purple, to fixing our cars when they broke down in their driveway, and (the biggest surprise yet) yesterday saying, "We'll just leave it as a reminder that the Huston's used to live here," after Gene asked Mrs. Tolker how we should fix the hole in the wall that Heman ate through. They have been too kind to us!

Despite living in the dark for the past 32 months, we have loved our little underground home (well, I have had my moments) because it helped us save money to pay off all our debt. God graciously provided this home for us so that we could use our finances to better glorify Him. So, moving into this townhouse is just another gift that God has provided to our family. Pretty soon our little guy will have his own bedroom and we'll have plenty of space to host Care Group and summer picnics (yea!). We're very excited to have more room to roam around and use to host family and friends....a desire of mine for the past three years!

Well, it's time for me to get back to the chaos of boxing up all our possessions. Moving day is the 31st. We'll post some pictures after we move in.