We Moved!

Well, we have been in our house for about 17 days now. 14 of those days we have had guests! The move went really well. We had several people help us, I didn't get a head count. We got everything out of the old place and into the new place in about three hours I think. Our house has felt like home from the very first minute. The day after we moved in I cleaned our apartment. I talked with our land lady this week and she said that they have never had the place left so clean. She said that she cried when she saw it. I was a little surprised because I didn't feel like I cleaned very much. I guess we're just clean people.
Anyhow, James' mom flew in on Saturday (July 25). Sunday after church I headed out for Nashville with our youth group on a mission trip. James and Sandy survived with the boys for a whole week without me. Asa, Judah and Sandy took turns throwing up. I think Asa had the worst of it. The other excitement of the week was the refrigerator's slow death. They ended up taking the frozen items to a friend's freezer and putting the food from the refrigerator side into the freezer side. Other than the puking and broken refrigerator, everything was great! (I'll write about the mission trip later.) When I got home Saturday evening Asa was really excited to see me. Judah acted confused. He seemed to prefer James that evening but Sunday he clung to me. I can't believe that he survived in the church nursery without me.
My mom got here Sunday afternoon (August 2). We all drove up to the airport to drop Sandy off for her flight home. We didn't do much exciting during my mom's visit. She helped me clean and organize some things. The boys sat and listened to her read books for what seemed like hours.
Wednesday morning my sister Melinda and her family came. We all went to our favorite local place for lunch: Neighbor's Cafe. After we got back to the house, my mom headed out. The Stonebrakers went to the Royals game while we went to a meeting at church that evening. Thursday we took the kids to the park.

Friday we went to Fritz's train restaurant at Crown Center followed by frollicking in the fountains for a while afterwards. Let me just say that Melinda's kids enjoyed it more than my kids did.

Friday evening we went to Blues and Jazz Fest in downtown Lee's Summit. We didn't last very long with the kids. Once we had all the kids in bed we were free to do our favorite thing: play cards and eat snacks! When we all lived in Oskaloosa we played cards all the time. I really miss that the most. The Stonebrakers left Saturday after lunch.
As I look back on all of our guests, I didn't feel very stressed. It was great to have so much family here. We have the house to ourselves for three days before James' sister gets here! I don't know what we will do in September with an empty house!