We Bought a Farm: From here to there

Two days ago we lived in Spring Hill, TN. Here is a picture of the kids in front of the house during the last hours of packing.

We decided to do the move ourselves to save money. But we had a few items that we were concerned about. We were a little undermanned. We ended up only having Dad and JB here to do the heavy moving. (Mom was on Hannah duty and I was only a third-string qualifier for heavy moving.) Desperate for help on our 500 pound slate table, we enlisted the forces of a neighbor who showed up with the most awesome moving equipment ever. He and JB strapped this rope system onto their shoulders and that table was in the van in no time! Even better, he let us borrow the equipment to return to him later so that JB and Dad could get the table out when we arrived on the farm. How awesome is that?

By lunchtime, we were on the road to our new farm in Eastern Tennessee. Isaac wanted to take a picture by the apple tree he planted last time we were here.

I took a picture of the family on the front steps -- so hard to believe that this is the LAST TIME WE WILL MOVE. (At least that is the plan!)

Moving went pretty well. The most complicated part was removing the old fridge and putting in our fridge. The old fridge is TERRIBLE. You can't even fit a pizza box in it. I love our fridge and really wanted to use it. Everyone agreed. But getting it in was not as easy as we would have hoped. Firstly the old fridge was very cumbersome and VERY heavy. It took Dad and JB almost two hours to get it unhooked and out of the house. And then our fridge didn't fit through the kitchen door. No problem. We can take it around the porch to the front door. But it was too wide to go around the corner on the porch. So down the steps it went and then back up the steps to go through the front door (which had to be removed from its hinges.) The fridge couldn't fit through the side kitchen door so they had to bring it all the way through the living room and then -- craziness -- it was too wide to go on either side of the island! The only choice was to put it OVER the island. What a nightmare. (And to put some of you at ease ... newer refrigerators can handle being tipped on their side unlike old ones that have coolant issues if you do this.)

Two days later and I am about 60% unpacked. I definitely have 1-2 more solid day/s before things are at least "okay" around here but thanks to a great team of grandparents and husband, we are well on our way. It will of course be weeks before we are really settled, but things are looking good. I was pleasantly surprised how nice our table looked in the dining room. I really thought it too big and modern for this old farmhouse, but it really does work! A little cozy but acceptable.

And here are the kids enjoying some wrestling book reading with Grama on our set up furniture!