Goodbye, home.

We sold our first house very quickly.  So quickly that we had nowhere to live.  Na and G graciously offered for us to stay with them while we continued our house-hunt.

We packed up all of our things....

....left our house empty....

....loaded it all into a great big truck (provided by Gary Aye, the rest of that story in another blog)...

...all of it....into a great big truck...

...Not without tons of help from a great cast of characters....

G (Ed L.) is a master packer.  He made a house full of stuff into that great big truck.  No way I could have made it all fit.  No.Way.
Thanks for your awesome skills, Ed!

The muslce: Adam, Aaron, and Grandpa Dennis.
I had a thought that we might have not needed them.  Boy-oh-boy was I wrong!?!  It would have taken G, Derek, and I a week to load the truck without their help!
Huge thanks to them for waking at 3 am to help us! Thank you Aaron, Adam, and Dad.

and.....the "Forearm Forklift."
I got so darn excited every time they used it.  It looked as fabulously easy as the commercial!

Take a bow, all.  We are so grateful for your help!  It would have taken approximately 1, 349,984 trips without your help.
Thanks family.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

Now, lets refuel with Uncle Bills!

Welcome back. Here are some flowers.

compliments to G's landscaping magic

Doh!

We were missing for a while....

We feel real bad about it....

...but we will fill you in on all that you missed!

In one week's time

Our nice house, seen here last week in lovely, fine form has turned into this...

Enough blogging! Back to packing...

Tuckpointing Terrors featuring Steve

Four photos of our tuckpointers for the Four days that they were doing the can can on our roof.

One of the things from the buyers home inspection was some tuckpointing work on the stack. 
We assumed this would be an easy fix since we could just hire someone to do it.
Derek made some calls and got this guy, Steve, out within an hour of calling.  And Steve quoted a reasonable price.  Derek told Steve that he had some nice reviews on-line.  Steve liked hearing that.  Derek agreed to have Steve complete the tuckpointing work on our stack/chimney.  Derek told Steve that he would write him a great review for great work!

Day One: Steve worked until dark to get a good start so he could finish up early the following day. As he left he said that he would be back at 7 am the following morning.  Derek said, "great!  g'night Steve!"

Day Two: Steve showed up sometime in the middle of the day.  He worked with his buddy on more tuckpointing stuff....Steve let a stray brick fall over the side of the roof.....and into our neighbors window. 
And then Steve lifted out the flu of the chimney and it fell apart.  cha-ching. cha-ching.  Steve says he has to come back the following day to finish up a few things.  Derek talks with Steve about timing and asks Steve to call if he is going to be late again.

Day Three:  Steve showed up around two after I called Derek asking where in the #$&* dickens Steve was.  Steve admitted to Derek that one of his buddies "fell off the wagon" the night before. Derek has another talk with Steve.

Day Four: Derek (and family's) nerves are shot.  Steve shows up several hours after telling Derek that he will be by in "five minutes."  After several hours, Steve states that he wraps up.  Derek tries to wrap up with Steve.  However, Steve will have to fix the neighbor's broken window the following week. 

Please let this Steve drama be done soon!