Week ending 6-13-21 Week at the Mizelle's and moving in!

 

I need to do a proper photo tour of the house and yard, but these are the ones I took Monday when we came to get the garden ready. These are the grapes in the back yard. I think they are muscadines.

The blueberry bushes in the front yard. We have 100+ in a berry patch by the road.

The grapes in the side yard. I think these are scuppernogs.

I came to the front yard and saw Tilly happily singing and sitting in the cool shade.

The kids taking a break from pulling weeds. There's one pretty high up there. I think this is a cherry tree.

Two kids still working hard to pull weeds from the 9 huge beds we have.

I was looking for other disappearing children when these 3 came out of the woods. It's so fun to have property to explore! Even though we haven't moved in yet and were just here for an hour to pull weeds before lunch.

Makenna and Kaitlyn tackling the tomato beds. Luckily the ground is so soft from all the rain and the weeds came out quickly.

Our blackberries.

When we were done pulling weeds we got school lunches and then came back to the house to learn from Brother Sloop, the owner, all the ins and outs of stuff around the farm. Then we went to the library in North Carolina to get library cards. Wasn't sure if they'd let us since we aren't NC residents but it's the closest library and they had no problem with it.

There weren't a lot of books though. I'm so glad libraries allow you to order from other libraries and put them on hold. We'll be doing that a lot.

New library card owners!!

We hit an awesome thunderstorm on our way home.

Tuesday: To save gas we didn't go to our house 45 minutes away today but stayed at the Mizelles and played. Melissa let the kids dye shaving cream and play in it and also homemade play doh. She was awesome!

Then we went to Madison's track meet and cheered her on.

Wednesday: We went back to our house to plant our garden. Here Anderson and Alexis plant tomatoes.

Melissa bought Tilly a pretty dress for an early birthday present and she wore it for 2 days.

Thursday: Melissa let the little kids draw on her dishwasher.

The kids spent an hour running around catching a jar of fireflies.

Friday: Coming out of the title office where I just signed the closing papers!

Can't believe I'm the owner of 36.7 acres and a 1936 farmhouse in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

It's a dream come true.

We drove straight to our house to unpack the boxes we had stuck in the sheds. 

While I was talking to Brother Sloop the kids were goofing off. I came in to find Andy and Sam climbing from their bedroom into the sunroom via a window.

Not a great picture of Brother Sloop but it was awkward asking for his picture. He loves Tilly and the way he treated her made me think that's the way my dad would treat her if he were still alive. He died before Tilly was born. 

I couldn't get this picture fast enough but the Elders came and helped us move things from the shed to the house and set up beds.

At 6:30 we left to go to town. I grabbed a picture of the cows the neighbors keep on our property.

My good friend, Patricia, gave us a gift card to Little Richard's BBQ. We were so excited to use it to celebrate we finally closed on the house. Here we were waiting for a table big enough for us all.

Thomas, Makenna, Kaitlyn, Samuel

Me, Alexis, Anderson, Talea

Dirty and sweaty from unpacking in the humidity but so happy to be celebrating.

Unpacking the kitchen.

How things looked as we were going to bed.

Kait, Kenna, and Tilly will share this full bed.

Sam and Andy will have Spencer and Thomas's bunk beds.

Thomas will have the top bunk from the girls' bunk beds in his own little room (that you have to walk through to get to the girls' room.) I get a bed the Sloops left here. Alexis has Kylie and Madalyn's bed.

Saturday: The little kids grabbed the sunroom for their playroom.

Unpacking the kitchen. Everyone helped and it got organized pretty quickly, making it feel like a real home.

The empty boxes piling up.

We'll probably knock out that wall to make it a great room.

These cupboards are annoying with the bar in the middle. Hard to get anything in or out.

These cupboards are super shallow.

First lunch in our new house!

My bedroom getting put together.

It poured for awhile so the 5 little kids ran around in it.

I can't believe this is the view from my front porch.

Kaitlyn, Makenna, Samuel, Anderson

Ages 11, 9, 7, 5.

You can tell Kaitlyn is going through a growth spurt.

Looking off the end of the porch to the grape vines and blueberries.

At 5 Alexis had a backpacking activity for girls camp to get them ready to go backpacking next week. When she signed up for all the girls camp activities we thought we'd be settled in and bored and ready to go do something and make friends. We didn't think the first one would be the day we unpack so I was proud of Alexis for still going. The actual high adventure overnight backpacking trip is next Thursday and Friday in North Carolina.

I took Andy and Tilly with me to take Alexis to the activity in Winston-Salem, an hour away. Since it's a big city we did the Sam's Club and other grocery shopping to stock our kitchen. Tilly ate a lot of cherries and 2 miles from our house said, "Ahh!" I said, "What's wrong, Tilly?" She started crying and said, "I need a bag!" Alexis was driving and slammed on her breaks in the middle of our country road. I tried grabbing a grocery bag but was too late. Talea threw up all her cherries all over herself.

Cleaning the shelves that will be our pantry and storage.

Today: Talea picked out birthday ice cream last night but the older kids got into it and soon everyone was having a cone. It seemed like the perfect afternoon for one.

We had scripture reading outside and then the kids spun, twirlled, talked, and played together for awhile before I could get them to come in for bed. I stood and soaked it all in and took some videos. I'm so happy to have a parklike setting for my front yard to enjoy a Sunday evening in.

Andy and Tilly were playing with the cat that came with the farm.

We had fun watching the cows go home. A neighbor keeps his 44 cows on our property behind electric fences and they help keep the pastures mowed for us. Someday we'll have some of our own.