A 12 yr old's response to the Boston Marathon bombings

Emma's 6th grade class was given a writing assignment yesterday for homework. They were supposed to write about the Boston Marathon bombings, how it made them feel and what legal measures could be put in place to help prevent similar tragedies. This is what she wrote.....



I feel terrible. Those poor people who had to experience that.

One bomb. BOOM! Another bomb. POW!

I mean, how can someone be so cruel? How can you know there will be pregnant women, children, and so many others in this crowd and give them a big tragedy like this?

I think people need to be scanned, bags and pockets need to be checked before any big event.

Before each big event, the place where the event is should be checked thoroughly by police, because everyone needs to be as safe as possible.

In my opinion, I don't think cell phones should be turned off, because what if there's a sitter or someone watching your kids at home and there is an emergency and parents need to be reached? How can you contact them without phones?

Now because of this bomb, children go to bed, and live their lives terrified to go outside or scared to even live! People start worrying, ideas come into people's minds, and no one thinks they're safe.

We live in a cruel world.

Think.

Just stop and think.

Two bombs caused so much pain, tragedy, heartache, and fear.

Eventually the media will stop the interviews and reporting, and people will go back to their normal lives.

But, not those whose families were broken.

Permanent injuries, images being replayed over, and over, and over again in people's minds, lost loved ones, and scars, emotionally and physically.

Those memories will not be forgotten.

Those loved ones will not be ignored.

Those wounds will not heal.

Those tears will not dry.

Those lives will not be normal.

Not now, not tomorrow, not ever.

Never, ever, ever will this be forgotten.

Too many lives affected in some sort of way.

But, we have to think, have to know, we are young and beautiful. Yes, there are evil people who do something. What needs to happen now is all those good people who don't do something, need to do something.

Let good power over evil.

Be strong and courageous.

Power through the evil, comfort the ones affected by the evil, and keep your head held high, against the evil.

Remember those hard times and let righteous anger build up inside of you, beat out the evil.

Because we ARE strong, and we CAN do this.

Remember Boston, Sandy Hook, and all those places.

When you think you're overcome, beaten and destroyed, think of them, and fight on.

Because we can change the world.

One million, starts with one.

Emma's Age 12 Birthday Interview

How old are you now Emma? 12
What are you looking forward to about age 12? that I get to babysit
What grade are you in? 6
Who's your teacher? Mrs. Harder - best teacher in the world!
Do you like school? yes
What's your favourite thing about school? seeing my friends every day
What's your favourite subject? writing, gym, music, art
What's your favourite colour? blue
What’s your favourite drink? root beer
What's your favourite breakfast? chocolate chip pancakes
What's your favourite lunch? ham and cheese sandwiches (New Bothwell cheese)
What's your favourite supper? perogies or pizzaWhat’s your favourite game? Life
What’s your favourite treat? blizzards from Dairy Queen
What's your favourite snack? sliced apples
What's your favourite dessert? chocolate log cake 
What's your favourite restaurant? Famous Dave's
What's your favourite place? Disney World
What's your favourite thing to do at Disney World? all of it
What's your favourite ride at Disney World? Splash Mountain, Peter Pan, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Rockin Roller Coaster, Blizzard Beach
What's your favourite toy? iPod touch
What's your favourite book? If I Die Before I Wake (Dear Canada series)
What's your favourite sport? hockey, volleyball, basketball
What's your favourite movie? Hotel Transylvania, Flicka, Soul Surfer
What's your favourite TV show? Full House, The Brady Bunch, Good Luck Charlie
Who's your favourite celebrity? Taylor Swift and One Direction
What's your favourite thing to do? hang out with my friends
What's your favourite thing to wear? sweater and jeans or sweatpants
Who are some of your best friends? Emily, Naomi, Elora, Mackenzie, Julia, Jenny, Michelle D
Who's your favourite person? me
What is your favourite song? I Knew You were Trouble, 22 and Red by Selena Gomez, What Makes You Beautiful, and Kiss You by One Direction
What's one of the best things you've done with your family? Gone to Disney World
What do you like to do with your Dad? go out for coffee
What do you like to do with your Mom? go shopping
What's your favourite store? Hollister, Aeropostale, Bluenotes, Ardenes, Sirens, Stitches
What do you want to be when you grow up? owner of a restaurant, author
Anything else you think we should know about you? that's it

Emma's Age 11 Birthday Interview

Yes, Emma is turning 12 today.  But I totally forgot to do her 11 yr interview.  So, here it is, with her answering questions now but pretending she was answering them last year :)

How old are you now Emma? 11
What grade are you in? 5
Who's your teacher? Mrs. Kerbrat
Do you like school? not this year
What's your favourite thing about school? recess and gym and music
What's your favourite subject? writing and art and music and gym
What's your favourite colour? aquamarine
What’s your favourite drink? cream soda
What's your favourite food? perogies
What’s your favourite game? Apples to Apples
What’s your favourite treat? doughnuts
What's your favourite snack? granola bars
What's your favourite dessert? chocolate log cake or blizzards from Dairy Queen
What's your favourite breakfast? waffles
What's your favourite lunch? ham and cheese sandwich (New Bothwell cheese only)
What's your favourite restaurant? Famous Dave's
What's your favourite place? Disney World
What's your favourite thing to do at Disney World? all of it
What's your favourite ride at Disney World? Magic Kingdom - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, Snow White, Peter Pan
What's your favourite toy? DS
What's your favourite book? If I Die Before I Wake (from the Dear Canada series)
What's your favourite sport? to watch - hockey, to play - soccer or mini golf
What's your favourite movie? Soul Surfer
What's your favourite TV show? Full House
Who's your favourite celebrity? Selena Gomez
What's your favourite thing to do? hang out with my friends
What's your favourite thing to wear? sweater and jeans or sweat pants
Who are some of your best friends? Emily, Naomi, Elora
Who's your favourite person? me
What is your favourite song? Off the Chain by Selena Gomez
What's one of the best things you've done with your family? Gone to Disney World
What's your favourite store? Aeropostale
What do you want to be when you grow up? teacher
Anything else you think we should know about you? nah, I think that's it

Nathan and I took Emma to The Keg for her special birthday dinner and gave her her gift - I "published" a book she wrote using Blurb.  She loved it!

Girls singing "Glorious Day"

The girls absolutely love singing in church. Here they are singing "Glorious Day" by Casting Crowns. I'm accompanying them on the piano, but the mic doesn't pick it up very well apparently.

Enjoy!

Emma's Age 10 Interview

And last, but certainly not least, here's Emma's Age 10 interview...


How old are you now Emma? 10
What grade are you in? 4
What's your favourite thing about school? being with friends, with my friends
What's your favourite subject? writing
Who's your teacher? Miss Buffie, no that's not how she spells it, it's Ms Buffie.
Do you like school? I LOVE school! It's so educational :)
What's your favourite color? light blue
What’s your favourite drink? 7-up
What's your favourite food? cottage cheese perogies
What’s your favourite game? playing babysitter for pretend
What’s your favourite treat? going to sleepovers - that's a treat for me because I don't get to very often
What's your favourite snack? carrots dipped in peanut butter
What's your favourite restaurant? Famous Dave's in Fargo - I like the ribs
What's your favourite place? my room or Disney World
What's your favourite toy? my doll Mikenna
What's your favourite book? The Frog Princess because the Princess' name is Emma, because the book is interesting
What's your favourite sport? hockey
What's your favourite movie? I haven't seen it yet, but it looks really good, does that count? Monte Carlo
What's your favourite TV show? Full House and Wizards of Waverly Place
Who is your favourite celebrity? Selena Gomez
What's your favourite thing to do? hang out with my friends
What's your favourite thing to wear? shorts and a t-shirt
Who are some of your best friends? Emily, Madison H, Michelle D, Arrielle, Nyiah and Elora
Who's your favourite person? Other than God? Other than family? Elora
What is your favourite song? Who Says by Selena Gomez
What's one of the best things you've done with your family? Go to Disney World together and going to the States
What do you like best about Disney World? the rides and the pool at the house
What do you like best about going to the States? shopping and swimming

Code Black!

Who knew a trip to Walmart while on vacation would result in such an exciting story to tell?!

We went down south to the City for a mini family vacation this week. We like to go during the week because the cross border traffic is significantly lower which means less busy shopping and less waiting at restaurants - especially since we're a table of 6. Works out nicely that hotels are cheaper during the week than they are on the weekends too. And the significantly shorter border wait is another huge plus. Thankfully, Nathan's job (self-employed home builder) allows us to go during the week.

Anyway, it had been one of those fairly hot, muggy days that just feels like a storm's a comin'. We were finishing up our shopping for the day at Walmart and had just finished putting all our purchases in the cart and were heading for the till when we heard an announcement over the speaker system which said something like this....

"Attention all customers and staff. This is a Code Black. All customers and staff please proceed to the electronics department at the back of the store."

We had no idea what a Code Black was, but considering a major gust of wind had just blown down some displays, we had a fairly good guess.

At first the girls weren't too nervous. They were wondering what was going on, but seemed relatively unconcerned.

When we got to the electronics department the staff directed us to stand in the area between two pillars that were grey in colour as it was the most structural sound part of the store area. We had only been there a minute or two when suddently the entire store was plunged into pitch darkness as the power went out. I immediately reached out to the girls near me (Jacob was in the front of the cart and Olivia was sitting in the rear section of the cart) and said "It's ok, it's ok". Thankfully the blackness only lasted momentarily as the emergency power source kicked on the emergency lighting. It was nothing like the lit up store we had been in only moments before, but at least we could see.

But now the girls were getting a bit nervous. A worker stopped by (I'm assuming because we had kids) to explain to us a bit more what was happening. I think it may have been a bit better for the girls if we hadn't received the extra information - ignorance is bliss and all that. She said that a Code Black was a severe weather situation and that a tornado had touched down somewhere close by but that's all they knew. They had no idea how long the Code Black would last but for now we just had to wait it out.

Meanwhile, practically every person there had their cell phones out - calling people, texting, tweeting and Facebooking. Some were crying and hugging each other, but most people seemed to be relatively calm.

A few minutes later they decided to direct us all to leave our filled shopping carts behind and head to the staff break rooms at the rear of the building. A few people refused to go back there - they felt is was more unsafe due to the proximity of the outdoor walls. But we figured that the management staff knew where the safest area was and we just had to trust them, though I would've preferred a basement shelter!

I found it disconcerting because we couldn't see what was going on outside. We had no idea of knowing how serious the situation was. I instant messaged my best friend, gave her a quick update of the situation and asked her to pray, especially since the kids were starting to get a bit upset.

As they were herding us to the back staff rooms, our oldest started to become very distressed, at one point she was leaning over and almost hyperventilating, shaking and crying in fear. We did our best to reassure her that these were just extra safe precautions they were taking to be on the safe side, and that they had to go overboard to make sure everybody was ok (similar things I was saying to myself in order to keep my own fear to a minimum and remain calm for the girls' sake). However, reason does not usually work well once fear has taken hold that much, so I just prayed for her quickly and quietly (but out loud so she could hear me) while we were heading back to the rooms.

We found a corner of the room and a couple of the kids sat on the floor while we waited. I prayed for Emma again and then dug in my purse for my phone to let Olivia play a game to keep her distracted - hey, whatever works right? A few minutes later an employee came in and announced that the weather had calmed enough that people could leave it they wanted to, though we were welcome to stay a bit longer till it calmed down more. At this Emma had a huge grin on her face - she told me that she had just prayed for God to give her a sign if we were going to be ok, and right then the employee came in and said the weather had calmed, so now she knew we were going to be ok. It was so sweet. She wanted to wait longer before leaving so I sat down in a chair vacated by a man who had left immediately and held Olivia who was easily calmed and then we waited some more. Fairly soon, Nathan decided to take Jacob for a walk around the store because he was getting restless. Sophia was now showing signs of some distress so I moved Olivia to the floor to continue playing with my phone and held Sophia on my lap which calmed her down easily. After a few more minutes had passed, the employee returned to let us know the weather was ok and we could leave.

Jacob was completely unaffected by the entire thing. He tried to reassure the girls a few times "There's nothing to be scared, everything's ok". It was cute.

Unfortunately the power in the store was not back on, and even after it came on it would take an hour for them to have the tills up and running again. So, we left our cart of items behind and headed to Target! ;)

While we were there Emma started to feel sick. I'm not sure if she had had an adrenaline rush and this was the afteraffects of it, or if that's just normal after a stress-filled fear incident. So we quickly headed back to the hotel where she felt safe and could lie down. After more praying she was able to calm down and go to sleep - though she didn't want to eat the ice cream blizzards Nathan had picked up.

She was able to have a sound sleep, but the next day she had another episode of shaking, crying and feeling sick and I prayed over her again and also reasoned things out with her. We had come down on these holidays multiple times and this was the first time anything like this had ever happened, and that the very next day was probably the least likely day for it to happn again, blah, blah, blah. I told her that God was in control, that God was good, that God loved us, that God was with us no matter what happened and that we could trust Him. (I didn't tell her that that didn't mean we would for sure be safe. There's a time and a place for deep theological discussions, but this was not one of them!) She didn't eat a whole lot at lunch after that either, but since then she seems to have been ok.

We are very thankful for our physical safety and continue to pray that the kids (and Emma in particular) will not have fear related episodes related to storms in the future.

Who knew a trip to Walmart would turn out to be so eventful?

Emma'isms

Emma's answers to some schoolwork questions about the Olympics....

Question: Think about it..... Will athletes keep breaking records forever?
Emma: I think they will! But then again, one athlete might break a record that can never again be broken! (if it does happen, then I hope it's a girl!)
(Female) Teacher: Me too! :)

Question: Give 3 reasons why Pierre de Coubertin was important to the Olympics.
Emma: 1. The Pierre dude was important to the Olympics because he thought competing in sports was better then warfare.
2. Pierre dude practicly started the Olympics.
3. Pierre dude promoted the idea of reviving the Olympics. Thanks Pierre Dude!
P.S. Pierre Dude! What a riot!
Teacher: Yes, I laughed as I read this.

So did I! :)

Halloween 2010

Emma was a pirate (apparently $14 Walmart costumes don't come with eyepatches or anything), Sophia was Miss Morticia, Olivia was a good witch and Jacob was a pirate as well (he looks very enthusiastic, doesn't he?!). And no, we do not suddenly have 5 children. The little cow is my niece Taylor. The guys took the kids trick or treating while us ladies were driving home from our girls weekend away - shopping pics to come tomorrow!

And, of course, our trick-or-treaters were the polite ones who yelled "Trick or treat!" at every house and said thank you for the candy. We followed all of my sister's excellent Trick or Treat etiquette advice before she even posted it. Cuz we're cool like that.

Picture Day!

So today was Picture Day at school. Which means last night we were pouring over hairstyles trying to pick what we were going to do - has to be something that looks good from the front - it's Picture Day after all.

There are numerous hairstyle websites out there, but these two are my favourites...
The Story of a Princess and Her Hair is a fabulous blog. You can see their hairstyle gallery on Facebook and when you pick your favourite style there is a link back to the specific blog post with the tutorial on how to make it. Perfect!
Babes in Hairland is another great blog with lots of pictures and instructions.
Thankfully both blogs tag their posts so you can easily search for what you want - like for Picture Day, I picked "Mostly Down" and got some great ideas. And they had to be easy cause I didn't have time to practice - you know, since I left this to the night before - surprise, surprise!

Anyway, I think they turned out great!

Here's my oldest princess sporting this hairstyle....

The picture on the left was taken after school, and it was super windy today, which usually means frizz crazy hair for Emma, but it's actually looking pretty good still! And here is a view from the top - not so sure any of that will show on the pictures, but oh well - it looked super cute anyway!



Sophia wanted her hair the same way I did it for our fall family picture day - simply parted down the middle, with one braid on each side, and then bring the braids up and cross them and pin in place. Voila! Front and top profile pictures so you can see the details. Sophia looks less than impressed - she was in a hurry to get out the door this morning and I'm snapping pictures!



Olivia wanted hers to be the same as Emma's. At least Sophia picked a slightly less time consuming option. Weaving in hair ribbons is not something I do every day! Oh, and I used a crochet hook cause it was handy at the time! (crochet hat pictures to come shortly!) It turned out really cute, and I got at least one really amazed reaction at Costco today when I took her and Jacob shopping. The front profile picture is also from after school. Emma took Olivia's picture this morning, and let's just say it didn't turn out as cute as this one ;)


I'm reinspired to try cool hairdo's on the girl's hair after finding these blogs again after a long hiatus. And I have to do something in the girl's hair anyway. Their hair gets soooo tangly if it's just left down like this (not looking forward to combing it out tomorrow, let me tell you!). They usually have a ponytail or two, or a braid or two anyway. Probably wouldn't take much more to fancy it up a little. That would mean investing in a few cute flower clips and other hair accessories. And is it just me, or is there a black hole of hair accessories in your house too?! It seems like I'm always having to get more hair ties.

Anyway, I highly recommend checking out those hairstyle sites if you have girls. They've got holiday themed stuff and everything (love the Valentine's stuff in particular!). They also have some hair do's for girls with a bit shorter hair, and for babies. Be prepared to waste spend a lot of time browsing the sites!

Emma & Sophia's First Day of School

Unfortunately, my camera batteries were not cooperating despite recharging them, so I had to take pictures with my Blackberry, and they are less than stellar - so disappointing. But either way, here are Emma & Sophia on their first day of school - Gr 4 & Gr 2!

Off they go!

Family Photo Shoot

We were blessed to have a friend do a family photo shoot for us last weekend and I think the pictures turned out fantastic - thank you Kim!! (Facebook friends, feel free to check out all the pictures on my profile page).

Our blessings from God...

Emma - 9 yrs old

Sophia - 7 yrs old

Olivia - 5 yrs old

Jacob - 2 1/2 yrs old

Our girls have attitude? Never! ;)

I love him, I love him a lot!

Disney - Days 10 thru 14 - Universal, Disney Studios & going home

Click here for Days 1 - 3....travelling and Epcot
Click here for Days 4 & 5......Prime Outlets and Magic Kingdom
Click here for Days 6 & 7.....SeaWorld and Magic Kingdom
Click here for Days 8 & 9.....Aquatica and Animal Kingdom

And finally, today is the last Disney post for Days 10 through 14.

Saturday (Day 10) - Universal Studios Islands of Adventure
Today was sooooo fun! Nathan & I and Shaun & Linsay left our kids at the house with grandma and grandpa (5 kids in total) and went to Universal Studios Islands of Adventure for some adult roller coaster fun! I'm not sure who was looking forward to the day more - us or the kids :)

We made sure to get there early so we'd be there for park opening. We started off with the Incredible Hulk Coaster which was probably the best of all the coasters, except I found it to be a bit jerky and my head kept hitting the restraints. Then we headed to The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman which is a cool 3d ride that we really liked. I had to close my eyes at one part so I wouldn't get dizzy - I'm not good with that kinda stuff. Then it was off to Doctor Doom's Fearfall - I gotta say, the anticipation of this ride was better than the ride itself, and it was really short and not as scary as we thought it would be. Then we trekked across the park to Dueling Dragons which is actually two coasters - Fire Dragon and Ice Dragon - that run simultaneously! At two points during the ride you actually come to within 18" of hitting the riders in the other coaster. It was pretty cool.

The good part of getting there so early was that we hardly had to wait in line at all. The bad part, was that we managed to knock off all 5 of those rides within one hour - and we paid for it. We totally had to sit down and get a drink and rest for a bit to regain our completely destroyed equilibrium!

After a rest, Linsay and I were tempted to go on the Jurassic Park River Adventure ride. We didn't really want to get soaking wet though, so we watched several of the boats come down the ride and noticed that as long as you sat in the very middle of the ride, it looked safe. So we went and it was really fun, and we did not get wet at all! Well, our hair did slightly, but not our clothes. Linsay actually got "spit" on by a dinosaur right in the face, it was funny. Anyway, we got off and managed to convince the guys to go with us (cause they wouldn't get wet), but when we got there the ride had stopped working. We waited for awhile and they ended up giving us a fastpass type ticket good for any one ride in the park.

Our one mistake was our lunch restaurant choice. We had seen a Hard Rock coming in, but we thought it would take too long to go out there, eat and then come back to the park for a couple more rides. So we stopped at the first restaurant we saw which was in the kids area - Circus Magurkus - what were we thinking?! Yeah, it wasn't great food, but thankfully it wasn't too busy either.

After lunch we saw The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad stunt show which was quite good. We walked by the Jurassic Park ride again on our way out but it still wasn't working, so we went back to the Incredible Hulk coaster and rode it one more time using our fastpasses. What a great time!

Here are our superheroes!

Not that we need any :)

Spent a bit of time in the shops and then headed home to swim and then go to Uno's for supper.

Sunday (Day 11) - Disney Studios
Today our "little" family headed off bright and early to our last Disney theme park - Disney Studios.
And Emma & Sophia went on their very first upside down rollercoaster!!! I was so proud of them! We headed straight for the Rock n Rollercoaster and I got a child swap pass while Nathan took Emma on the ride. The rest of the kids and I headed straight to Toy Story Mania to pick up fastpasses to use later, and by the time I got there there was a 15 minute wait just to stand in line to get fastpasses! (55 min wait for the ride itself) Crazy how popular that ride is.

Anyway, I texted Nathan to find out how Emma had liked the ride. I was a bit nervous because it's in the dark (neither girl is a fan of dark rides), and you can see the scary takeoff while waiting in line to get on. But she loved it! That was great because I could reassure Sophia while we were heading over there that Emma had liked it and she would too (I hoped!). Right at takeoff I heard a scared voice yell "MOM!" and so I put my hand on her leg and yelled "You're OK!" over and over for most of the ride. When the ride ended Sophia looked at me and asked "Is that it?" She didn't want it to be over! I asked her if she was scared, or if she had yelled for me, and she said no. Must've been some other kid :) oh well! ha ha.

Then we went to see a bunch of shows - the timing of which was perfect! We headed for the Little Mermaid show (waited maybe 10 mins), when we got out of there the High School Musical outdoor musical had been underway for maybe 2 mins so we watched that.

Then I took the girls straight to the indoor American Idol Experience while Nathan took Jacob to see the Cars characters (which he absolutely loved! He threw a fit when they had to leave, so he didn't get a souvenir there).
The girls LOVED American Idol - Emma was just sorry she was too young to try out to be a contestant on the show. I texted Nathan to go get us seats for the Beauty and the Beast show (like Rainbow Stage theatre production, just shorter) and we headed right over as soon as AI was over. I think we missed the first 30 seconds of that one.

Everyone was tiring out by this point, but we went back to Toy Story Mania to use our fastpasses to get on that ride and we were glad we did - the kids loved it! (Jacob too). It's like a 3D midway ride where you shoot at different targets as you move to different stations in your car. It was fun, but I sure wouldn't stand in line for an hour for it!

After that we headed home for one last afternoon swim and then to Olive Garden for supper.

Monday (Day 12) - flying back to Minneapolis
In the morning Nathan took the kids to IHOP so I could pack. They came back and I think they swam for a little bet yet. Then it was off to the airport. At which point we realized that we couldn't find one of the ipods and 6 of the girls ds games. We eventually figured out that I had left them on the airplane on the way down already. Yep, almost $400 down the drain. Not impressed.

We got to the airport, returned our rental vehicles and went through security. We were waiting at a different gate because it was emptier and I guess we just weren't paying attention to the time, or to the people at our gate. All of a sudden I thought I heard our names being called. We went to go check and sure enough - they were calling our party cause everyone else had already boarded and this was our last call or they were going to leave without us! But Nathan, Emma and Sophia weren't even there, they had gone to pick up something for us to eat on the plane! I immediately texted a frantic message to Nathan that we had to leave right now! Thankfully they were already heading back when he got the message and they were there in the nick of time. Ack!!! WAY too close for comfort.

We checked into the Staybridge Suites (so thankful we changed to a hotel with extra bedroom suites after our disastrous night at LaQuinta on the way down) and headed to Chili's for supper, then came back and swam for a bit.

Tuesday & Wednesday (Days 13 & 14) - driving back home
Tuesday we stopped in Albertville quickly where we realized that Nathan had left his credit card at Chili's in Minneapolis (I phoned and the mailed it back to us). After picking up a few things at the UnderArmour store (runners for $35!! Nathan checked and the same ones were over $100 here) we headed for the City and went to McDonald's for lunch. Nathan's parents and Shaun & Linsay drove straight home that day, but we stayed another night - did more shopping and relaxing and generally just delaying the end of the vacation. Oh, and Jacob got to "ride" a tractor.
We got back Wednesday to a freshly painted house! We decided to have our complete main area redone while we were gone - easy for the painter and for us. Nathan's other sister had gotten in from Alberta the night before, so we went to Nathan's parents for supper (I still didn't have to cook!) after getting a bit of the house put back together and stuff unpacked.

Home sweet home!