New Year, New Address

    We had been looking for a house to call our own for a while. It was reminiscent of our hunt in Vancouver. That took us over a year to find our home. We hit the year mark in October, and while we had been torturing our poor long-suffering realtor, it was difficult finding the right house. Our search took us all over and in all types of houses. Nothing felt right. We threw this one in on our last house-hunting tour as a "eh, might as well." We were really excited about a different house. When we walked in I got excited, it really ticked all the boxes. Plenty of room, more bathrooms than we have ever had, and the main bedroom, kitchen, and laundry on the main floor, I mean come on!

    We held out till we had seen the one we were originally excited for, but after seeing it we knew for sure the other house was right for us. We put in an offer that night and then heard they had another offer that they were considering. Of course, there was back and forth, and in the end, we won out. Getting the house was amazing, but it means we are moving in the most frigid of months. We have been in single digits to negative 7. I am not a fan. We had snow and ice and after the winter break, the kids had an additional week of online schooling due to the conditions. Then they had an additional day off on Tuesday after Martin Luther King Day. We got up to a whopping 32* on Wednesday so they got to go the school. It's been crazy.

Heading to the bus stop.

    We're moving in slowly, we had to get the carpets cleaned, the previous owners had pets and the dander was setting off my kid's allergies just being in the house. We had a company come in yesterday since it was finally warm enough to use the equipment. He did an amazing job! 

Before:

After:

    It's hard to tell because I didn't get a great pic of the right side, but there was a huge brown stain over there that he got right out, among others. Then that night our rental had frozen pipes that were stressing out the sump pump. Luckily it wasn't really bad, but we did bail out a lot of water. Then to add insult to injury, our shower started and would not shut off! Our poor landlord, it was a lot all at once. It's all fixed now, but we think some squirrels have found their way into the attic. We keep hearing noises and I saw a squirrel with some nesting material go up our roof this morning. I'm sure it's nice and warm up there. It's always something.