Week 2 in Michigan

On Sunday, a week after arriving in Michigan, the movers arrived! It was SO like Christmas (especially since the kids hadn't seen their actual Christmas gifts since Christmas). As soon as the stuff started coming in I got in my crazy, must finish EVERYTHING NOW mode! I know I drove Tyler crazy and I am pretty positive I drove my mom crazy too. By the end of Monday, we had literally unpacked everything but 2 boxes. If you had seen how many boxes came into this house, I guarantee you would've been impressed.

During my unpacking frenzy the weather turned cRaZy cold, temperatures dropped into the negatives with wind chill dropping it even further into the negatives. This meant that school did not start for Steven on Monday (or Tuesday, or Wednesday). It also meant that when we got cabin fever Monday night we had to endure freezing temperatures to get out of the house. And oh. my. goodness. was it it cold. I about died when we got out of the car to go eat at Guernsey's Dairy. Yet, for some reason we still all enjoyed a bowl of ice cream there. We are crazy, no lie. 

And here's a picture of a giant icicle that formed on our house during the crazy cold:

Tuesday I spent cleaning the house (lots of snow tracks all over our wood floors), and Wednesday & Thursday I spent attempting to decorate. It was one of the worst decorating experiences of my life. I'm not going to lie, a lot of potty words escaped my mouth as I attempted to hammer nails into what felt like brick walls (but are actually just super hard plaster walls). Here are a few pictures of our house. Still not perfect but getting there:

My favorite room is Lucy's though. Check out little Lucy in her reading nook/closet. She absolutely loves going in there and playing with her dolls and pretending to read books...

Thursday & Friday were not awesome days for me. Thursday the oldness of our house came through big time as about half of our electrical plugs stopped working. And of course it was all the important ones, the one that our kitchen appliances were connected too, the ones that were connected to our computers and the ones connected to our TV. It made for a yucky day for me.

Also Thursday, I attempted to make chicken alfredo using one of my cans of chicken. Unfortunately it must of got unsealed in the move. When I removed the ring, the lid popped open and rotten chicken juices spewed EVERYWHERE! It was the worst smell in the world.

And on top of that, my mom went back to AZ. Need I say more!?

Friday, Steven was finally able to start school. I was super excited about only having 2 crazy kids to deal with during the day again but then I backed out of the driveway. And I made it all the way down our long driveway without hitting anything, only to turn my tires right into a snow drift. It was awful! I had no idea how to get unstuck! But the lady across the street took pity on me and got her husband (who had a broken ankle!) to try and help me. Unfortunately he was new to Michigan too and wasn't quite sure how to get me out. He tried super hard though!

After about 15 minutes Tyler arrived (they let him leave work to save me) and he decided he needed to take Steven to school first (so he wouldn't be too late) and then he was going to come back and save my van (which was still sticking most of the way out into the street). Right when he left these 2 guys pulled up and in less than 5 minutes they had my van out. It was miraculous! 

But I was still traumatized, and am now terrified of our driveway. Ridiculous I know. On a brighter note, it was about 30 degrees out and it felt wonderful, I wasn't cold at all. And on another bright note, here is my studly boy all ready for his first day of school in Michigan:   

So as I sit here and try to think positively about these rough, last few days...here are my thoughts. When the electrical thing happened I kept praying, please let me be able to fix it by resetting the circuit breaker. And my prayer wasn't answered and I was frustrated and downtrodden...BUT when the electrical guy came he pointed out that this house is not wired properly to handle all our gizmos. And he contacted our landlord who is now working on fixing that problem, so in the bigger picture, it really needed to happen. We needed the electrician to come see that.

And in the bigger picture with the stuck van. It gave me a reason to meet my neighbors and now we've been properly introduced. And maybe these kind people who also have little ones, might become our friends, thanks to me getting our van stuck. Who knows?

And as far as the rotten chicken goes...well that was just gross. But I know that our life here in Michigan is not going to be easy. The path will be bumpy but I know God has a plan for us and I will try my best to find the positive in all the frustrations that come our way.