Our Ship Has Come In

I've always wanted to say that:) Unfortunately our ship did not contain money BUT it did contain our life's belongings which is just as nice!

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WoW! What to say about move-in day? Let's see, Ethan's into everything, some boxes contain items from three different levels of our old place, I have a LONG list of things that we still need, Ethan's driving me crazy, we still don't have the promised patio furniture (I think that we're back to looking for it ourselves), the movers kind of dumped things out of boxes, and Ethan systematically broke glass on the marble floor.

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We are slowly getting unpacked - the kitchen is done, the laundry room and maid's room (storage room) are done, the dining area and living room are unpacked although not entirely put together, and I'm working on the office. The three bedrooms still need to be done but it's easy to just shut the door. I'm getting everything into closets and off the floor and than next week I'll work on organizing everything.

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We had an interesting experience the first night in the condo. After we went to bed we starting hearing a clicking noise - like the noise a barbed wire fence makes, or when you click two fingernails together. We turned on the lights and started rustling through all our clothes on the floor but the noise continued and we never saw anything. We went into the hallway next where we also heard the noise and figured out that it was coming from the floorboards. Our next thought was that we had some kind of pest living in the wood floors and were worried that our furniture would be next. There are a few of you who we called that first night that are going to laugh when you hear what we have learned that it was! Since the condo hadn't been lived in for awhile the noise was being produced by the wood floor because we had turned the air con on...:) Yep, it's from the air conditioning! I guess it was drying out the floor boards which had been recently varnished and causing them to shift and "click!" I'm just thankful that it wasn't the death-watch beetle...or geckos...or cockroaches!

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Anyway, today was another Singapore day but I'll save that for another post - some day I'll laugh but not today! Thank you to my friend who prayed for me at lunch:)

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Kaitlyn came home early from school with a 103 fever - stay tuned! Hopefully it is viral and will clear up soon. OH, YEAH! While I was picking her up from the nurse's office they were checking a class for lice...say a prayer that it avoids us!

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On Sunday we brought our first load over to our "new" place and Ethan kept climbing into the suitcases with the toys and playing:)

This is part of the kitchen. I will post a link to a podcast with a video tour once we've finished unpacking and everything is set up.

This picture is a little dark because of the windows in the background. The back wall is all windows and off to your right behind the screen are sliding glass doors leading out to a patio.

Another view of the living room. It's starting to look like home! We have a 2 hour free handyman service through our moving company that will come and hang pictures and my clock.

Boxes, boxes everywhere! This was the beginning of unloading us:) Here you are looking towards the front door on the right and the kitchen straight ahead. It's our eating area and the living room is directly behind me.

PS: I was having some trouble with formatting paragraphs so therefore the "*****" between paragraphs. Also my spell check isn't working so hopfuly i din't spel to much rong!! Better go save my things from ETHAN!

Yuuummmm! - Oh and Brian's back!

I discovered tonight that if you take Australian beef and add salt, pepper, onion, lots of cream of chicken soup and sour cream you hide the taste of the beef:) I suppose that also defeats the purpose of eating meat but it worked for me! The twins kept saying, "This tastes like Kansas!" I also found out today why it tastes different. I met someone from Australia today while the kids were swimming that told me the beef is grass fed instead of grain fed...she actually doesn't like the taste of grain fed beef...imagine that! :)

One thing this woman also clued me in on which I had already seen to some extent is how the Asians will stop in the street to touch and talk to your baby. She said they especially like little boys. BUT, it's not okay to do the same to their children! She said that sometimes you need to ask them to back off. She also said that they have ended up in a lot of pictures with Asians as they seem to think that we are something to take a picture with - like a scenic view! So different than back home! Can you imagine walking up to someone who looks different than you saying, "Can we have our picture taken with you?" Puts you on celebrity status, I suppose!

I got a "hand phone" yesterday evening so now I can call Ryan when I'm out and about and I'm lost! It's cheaper than the US even though they charge extra for caller ID and voice mail. I've already got about 5 people in my address book:)

What I have to say next will only mean something to those of you who were at our wedding when I almost married "Brian"! The flowers we received the other day were addressed to "Brian and Becky" and our Realtor sent an e-mail earlier to "Brian" - So I've concluded that it must have been "Brian" that I moved over here with! He has popped up every once in awhile during our (almost) 10 years of marriage!!

Phase 2 - Completed

We are safely in Illinois. We had a LONG, uneventful trip out here with lots of traffic. Pretty much from KC all the way to Chenoa exit there was constant, steady traffic that we aren't used to seeing. It took 9 hours instead of 7 due to 4 stops and being at a stand still in traffic twice around St. Louis - in the middle of the afternoon. BUT we are here safe and sound and I've done NOTHING all morning in an attempt to relax a little before the holiday rush begins tomorrow:) My next job this afternoon is to go through all of our bags and clean out and reorganize since we just threw things in them while packing at 3am last Monday!

The twins had a fun Holiday party on Thursday - the class had made a really cute scrapbook that they gave to them to remember all their Kindergarten friends. We tried getting out of town Thursday after the party but ended up leaving yesterday morning instead. It worked out better that way as it gave us time to visit Don and Eileen and Gene and Mary before we left. Plus, most of our trip was in the daylight which was a plus since we kept running into fog.

Anyway, once my camera battery is charged again I will post pictures of the twins last day at Blue River...

Ethan Update

Since I'm so bad at keeping up with Ethan's baby book I thought I'd write some things down here so I don't forget when I finally do get around to updating his book:) (It's on my list of things to do while in Singapore!) He has started saying "na-na" for night-night and points to things that he's looking at. The other day he sat down in front of an outlet and shook his head no:) He popped a 5th tooth sometime over the weekend and had his first ear infection this week. He has started becoming a daddy's boy and cries whenever Ryan leaves the room. He usually tries to walk after him but he's too excited and falls down. Speaking of walking - his equilibrium must have been a little off on Monday due to his ear infection because he was trying to walk to me and kept going in circles. You could tell that he was frustrated that he wasn't going anywhere! The twins have learned how to make him laugh and it's so fun to see him being entertained by them.



Well, Phase 2 of our move will be complete by 6pm this evening and than it's on to Phase 3 - Illinois. We have a few people to see on our way out of town and than it's on to spend time with family. We've enjoyed our week with the Fehr's although it will make it harder to leave. I called into Robeks this morning and told Kirk that I wanted one last Rejuvenator with soy:( I'd better savor my last Robeks smoothie for awhile! Anyway, I'd better go and get the van cleaned out and start packing up our "things"! Boy do we have a lot of that!

Phase 1 - Completed

Phase 1 of our move is officially over. The movers showed up at 9am this morning and by 5pm they had everything loaded on a truck and ready to be put into a shipping container. We are staying at Joe and Joan's until the twins are done with school on Thursday and than on to Phase 3 of our move. (We are currently in Phase 2 which consists of finishing up loose ends here in KC before we head to Illinois.)

I'm pretty sure that if you could put Ryan's car on auto pilot it would go from our house straight to Fehr's:) I made many trips back and forth today including a last minute trip to the dentist for a root canal - YEA! Merry Christmas to me early, I guess!