Colwyn turned 11 and we spent the day in the Beverly area, hung out at Bonkers with my family, at had dinner at Sylvan Street Grill. The next day, my mom threw us a going away party with our family. We got to see my aunts Sharlean, Gail, and Asta; my cousins Sam and Alexander; my cousin Ashley, her mom and two brothers. My great aunt Grace and her husband came by, too. And of course, my parents and my sister. Then the next day, Doug left to go to Florida for a week, from 10/26 to 10/31. Let's just say that I am not meant to be a single mother. That week was hard. My parents came up one day to hang out, then on Thursday, we spent the day in Beverly, ending with the downtown trick-or-treating that all the businesses do. We got home pretty late and I baked cupcakes for Colwyn's party. Then Friday was co-op; after which we went grocery shopping, then ran home to clean and bake two cakes. We rushed down to Beverly to have dinner with Mom and trick-or-treat around the neighborhood with Kristine, then picked Doug up at Logan. We didn't get home until about 10:30pm, at which point I just crashed. Saturday was Colwyn's party, so we hurriedly decorated and cooked and decorated the cake and cupcakes. Whew. In all that was a lot of decluttering, packing, and freaking out about the house hunt.
While Doug was in Orlando, we kept trying to set up showings of rental houses, but apparently the type of home we were looking for just flies off the market. He ended up seeing three places, two of which were furnished. Thankfully, we got the call this past Monday that we were approved for our first choice!
It's 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, and just shy of 3000 square feet. Considering that we live in a 3 bed, 2 bath, 1400 square feet, old farmhouse, this is going to be a huge change. Here's a picture of the kitchen:
But the best part is the back! It has a lovely, caged pool with a big covered lanai. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am about this. There's even a ceiling fan out there!
It's in Davenport, which is both a plus and a minus. On the good side, it's very close to shopping and most importantly - Disney! But it's about an hour commute for Doug, which is the same as what he was doing here. I know he was hoping for a shorter commute, but we just weren't finding anything in our price range with a big pool out back closer to where he's working.
The only thing I'm really concerned about with this home is that it comes furnished. On one hand, it's good because we were planning on leaving a lot of our furniture behind, so now we won't have to buy a lot of furniture when we get there. But it's really not my style, so I'm worried about it not feeling like home, you know? I'm sure we'll box up most of the decorative stuff and bedding, but there's only so much you can do about the clunky tables and headboards. I'm pretty sure we'll go out and buy slipcovers for the couches pretty soon, too, 'cause they're just plain ugly. But I guess ugly (but clean, in good shape) couches are better than only having one small couch and a rocking chair for the living room and massive family room, right?
Our house is about half packed. Maybe more, but it's hard to say. A lot of it is just hard to pack early, like clothes and the kids toys. A lot of the kids toys we'll just move right in their storage shelves like we did last time, so I go back and forth between feeling like it's almost done and freaking out that there's so much unpacked still.
Between the logistics of the move and the sadness at saying goodbye to our friends and family, I'm so incredibly stressed out. Doug and I are handling it relatively well, all things considered. But it's so hard saying good-bye. We're trying to see as many people as we can and do as many of our favorite things one last time. We had a great last park day yesterday and saw some of our favorite friends (though some were sick, boo!). I just hope that between Facebook, emails, and regular visits home, we won't totally lose these friends that we've had since our kids were babies.
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