Explanation

After reading some of the comments on my House Things post I felt like I should explain a few things about our house. Answer some questions so to speak.

No, this is not the house we lived in before we moved to Turkey. We sold that house when we left. This is not the house we lived in when we were back in the states for 7 months in 2006. That house is basically a family house, and it is being lived in by someone else.

When we knew that we would be coming back to the states for some amount of time we started looking at housing options. When we were here last we had issues registering the kids for school. I wrote about that here. Because I was already feeling quite a bit of stress the thought of house-hunting and living with family until we found something just stressed me even more. I didn't want to have to live with my parents and put the kids in school only to have to pull them out if we found a place to live in another school district. I wanted to make the transition as smooth as possible for all of us. With that in mind Brian and I asked my parents if they would be willing to house hunt for us. We are fairly easygoing and had no problems with moving into a place that we hadn't ever seen before. We did it when we moved to Turkey and ended up living in that apartment longer than we had ever lived anywhere. My parents have moved more times that I can count and are expert house pickers. They agreed to do the shopping for us. I didn't care what color the house was or how big it was. I didn't need fancy flooring or fancy anything. Just a simple house. Our only request was four bedrooms in the school district that we lived in before. The district is huge so that wasn't a big deal at all. Four bedrooms because there are 6 of us and the boys can share. If a four bedroom wasn't possible I was ok with the girls having to share, but it certainly wasn't ideal. A messy 16 year old and a strong-willed 9 year old don't make for good roommates. Trust me. We've done it! So my parents set out to find a place for us to live. They narrowed the field down to 2 choices. They were able to send us pictures of both houses online so we could see what they found. Still we didn't have a preference. We told them that they were there and could walk through them. We told them to just pick the one they thought was best. They did.


This is that house.

Before we arrived from Turkey my parents moved all the furniture in. They made the rounds collecting the furniture that belonged to us from the family members who had been storing it. My siblings and parents threw in other things that they didn't need or that they thought we could use. The people they bought the house from left a few pieces of furniture which helped as well. Sheets, towels, kitchenware, and other necessities were put in closets and cabinets. A new mattress was purchased, and a sprinkler system was installed. A new kitchen sink, a new oven vent, and new bathroom faucets were added to the house. My mom didn't like that there was carpet in one hallway so she bought tile and had it installed. So much was done to make it move in ready. More than move in ready.

I arrived from Turkey on a Monday night to freshly made beds and food in the refrigerator. I woke up Tuesday morning ready for a shower and realized there was no shampoo. I had to run to the store to get shampoo and ended up getting toothpaste as well. Later that day my dad called to check on us. He asked if we had been out so I mentioned running to the store that morning. Then my dad, my sweet dad, apologized for forgetting to get shampoo!!! Shampoo...good grief! The entire house was more than I could have ever dreamed of, and he felt bad because he forgot to get shampoo. I love my dad!