More Houses

This is the house we only lived in for 9 months. We moved in the day before school started and moved out the week school got out. There is a very long story about how we got this house (I will write it in my real journal for posterity to read some day). It was a miracle in many ways. This is the house that Sam started his lawn mowing career. It was half an acre and it took him about 5 hours to mow. That is a lot of work for a fourth-grader. Sam and Megan each had their own rooms in this house. There were great neighbors for the kids to play with across the street. We loved the elementary school that we only went to for one year. It had great teachers and a wonderful principal. For years I had wanted a house with the bedrooms upstairs--I thought it would be quieter for the little ones sleeping. I finally got it! After moving all those boxes upstairs and hauling all that laundry to the basement (two flights of stairs), one day I sat at the bottom of the stairs and thought I was going to cry I was so tired. However, I got another spurt of energy and loved it even more. One funny thing happened on Christmas Eve day while living here. Dave and I ran some quick errands (this was when we first started leaving the kids alone for short periods) and came home to water running down the walls into the main floor and then into the basement. Our water bed got a hole in it and lost an amazing amount of water. I got a wet-vac for Christmas that year!