Leah’s New House

What an amazing emotional exhausting weekend.

The entire Gaeddert and Clark immediate families converged on North Newton this weekend to help Leah and Dave move into a new house. I was overwhelmed to near tears almost the entire time.

The house sits on a quiet cul de sac that bumps up to woods and a walking trail in back. It has a pillared front porch, and a large garage that opens to the back, downstairs, and to a mud/laundry room. The front door has large windows on each side and above and opens to a foyer. The living room is large and light with high ceilings, large floor to ceiling windows and a fire place. It opens into the dining room large enough for a table for 8, with sliders and two floor to ceiling windows on a slant. The dining room opens into a modern kitchen with tons of storage and a large island.

Also upstairs is the boy’s room that will have French doors and eventually be an office, Eleanor’s room, and a bathroom. The master bedroom, also on the main level, is huge. It has a giant walk in closet, big floor to ceiling windows and a slider that leads onto the back deck. The master bath is huge. It has a full shower, a big jacuzzi tub with steps and a double vanity. All of the bedrooms have plush white carpeting and the livingroom, dining room and kitchen have light shiny wood floors.

Downstairs there is a large room with built in shelving, a bathroom and guest room then a giant unfinished work room that is actually four rooms, plenty of room for Lavender and Clover.

The back yard is mostly taken up by a large wood deck complete with a porch swing.

I arrived Friday at the old house and watched the kids while Leah and Dave had their appointment to close on the house. I was joined by Hannah and Joel. Scott came later. Dave’s brother Joel came to help move and later Aaron and his girlfriend and Dave’s parents came. At one point, Joel and Joel were carrying in a large piece of furniture and Emmet said, “The two Joels.”

We spent Friday tag teaming the kids and carrying boxes while the guys moved the bigger items. Hannah and I took all three kids to Hesston to the Airbnb to play for the afternoon. We thought we’d reserved it for two nights but made a mistake so ended up staying at the kids’ the second night which was fun anyway.

Pizza and beer night one, and homemade curry with wine night two, Mojo’s coffee and cinnamon rolls every morning. Lots of playing, the boys loved soccer in the house, sliding around on their new slick floors, and Eleanor crawled and pushed her walker thing. We got tons of unpacking and putting away accomplished but the kid’s messes almost caught up to the progress. I got to spend over an hour just Eleanor and I, a first. She watched me and imitated me and crawled around, surprised when I followed her crawling. We discovered a birds nest in the bush just outside her bedroom window.

It is so rare that we get to spend time with the five of us and even rarer that we get to spend time with the Gaedderts, so even though it was for a tiring purpose, it was such a treat.