Warm Welcome

Our house is a disaster.  All of our large furniture, including table, couches, and bed frames are all out in the storage unit.  The floor space is covered with boxes and rubble.  (That terrible stuff leftover from packing that you can't quite bring yourself to throw away. )

And I don't like to do that kind of cleaning on Sunday.

So what could we do?  Where could we go? 

After a buffet-style dinner of chicken ranch tacos, (yes, I made that up today) I suggested we go up to the new house again. 

"YAY!"  The kids all shouted.  I was especially hoping Simon would stay awake to see it this time.  I'm really curious about how he'll take the whole thing, especially since he cheers, "Simon's house!"  whenever we pull up to our driveway.  I gave him a popsicle, hoping it would keep him awake on the way. 

It didn't.  

We decided to wake him up since he'd only been asleep for a few minutes.  He was pretty excited, but not so keen on me calling it his new house.  He was especially against that idea since there were neither toys nor lunch available inside.  He seemed to be very excited about the back yard.  He didn't have the best of luck.  After a few minutes of exploring, he started to scream.  I looked over and saw him being swarmed by several hornets.  Since I was holding the baby, I hollered for Dallin.  It seems that Simon found a big rock to throw that actually had a hornet's nest on the bottom of it.  His poor little foot was stung, but he took it like a man.  About ten minutes later, he was throwing rocks in the front yard.  He was throwing them into a big bushy pine tree.  It was funny cause some of them were actually landing on branches.  I told him to throw one last rock.  He picked up a big huge one and threw it, and apparently hit another hornet's nest inside the tree because he was once again swarmed and stung on the hand.  Very sad. 

I also have to mention that he found the armrest cover from Daisy's carseat and was wearing it as a shoe.  He likes to put stuff like that on and sing the "Wooden Shoe" song from the "Funhouse Frolick" CD's we have.  It made him look extra special hobbling over to me with his two beestings and his special shoe. 

Soon after we pulled up, Brother Simmons across the street asked if we have a closing date yet.  We met him last Sunday when we were up looking at the house.  Awhile later, when we were exploring the damage from this afternoon's rainshower, Brother Sessions came over to explain.  He said that about once a year, they get a big gully-washer up there  and all of the water from the cul-de-sac washes down into our driveway/garage.  We were thankful he could shed some light on that situation.  That will take some thinking to get a good solution for that problem. 

Then, as we were about to pull out, I was startled to see a man at my car window.  He apologized for startling me, introduced himself as Brother Weekly, and invited us to the weekly Sunday evening block party.  We went over to the cul-de-sac and met a few families, including the Weeklys who lost their home to the bank and we're buying it.  They were amazingly friendly for people who had good reason to resent us for getting their house.  Then we got invited to another party where someone from the ward was sharing leftovers from a wedding they catered.  So we went around the block to another house and met a lot of people. 

It was overwhelmingly wonderful. 

We were taken in with such warmth and eagerness.  Family after family introduced themselves and had a lot of good things to say about the ward and neighborhood.  We had some delicious crepes and enjoyed a fondue fountain.  Brother Sessions came and took Sarajoy out of my arms so I could help the other kids with their food.  Next thing I know she's being passed around by the teenagers.  She stayed with them in their little group for at least a half hour before she got fussy. 

We could have kept visiting all night if the kids hadn't started to get restless.  We had at least 10 different people tell us to let them know when we'd be there so they could help us move in.

Leaving our ward here is going to be SO SO SO hard. 

But at least it looks like fitting in to the new ward will be so easy!

What a comfort.


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