Home, sweet home

July was a really busy month for us. One of the biggest reasons for that is we moved to Edmonton halfway through. Which meant being all together as a family again - yay! - and packing up all our worldly possessions and transporting them 3 hours north. It was hard and stressful and made for some long days - I got nearly 20k steps the day before we moved, and 24k the day of the move. But we did it. And now we are home.

Mostly I love our house.

The kitchen is beautiful. It has more cupboard space than I quite know what to do with, but I'm sure I'll fill it all in no time.

And, of course, it has a dishwasher!
There is so much more space than our old place, and I love having a designated playroom where no one is sleeping so if my children fight me on cleaning it up, I can just shut the door and ignore it for a while.

The kids' rooms are bigger, too, and of course the basement is coming along nicely.
The yard, while not large, is much bigger than we're used to,

and everyone (kitty included) has enjoyed having a bit more space to roam.
The spray park is just down the street, and we have been frequent visitors there.

Calista figured out how to pump her legs on the swing in the first week we were here, and is now working on conquering monkey bars.

I'm sure she'll get it.

Craig loves playing in the water and the sand,

and Caleb just loves being outside.

We've done a tiny bit of exploring in Edmonton,

and that is going well, too. I'm still far from confident getting around, but I know that I'll figure it all out in time.

Not everything is sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows however. For example, the house is very close to the train tracks. To quote the Blues Brothers,

I still notice it, but I'm sure sometime I'll reach the level of Elwood.
And, as with any move we would have done, it's hard adjusting and learning new things.

But I also remember the reason we decided to put in an offer and ultimately buy this house. It wasn't the beautiful kitchen, the train tracks, the spray park, the number of bedrooms, or anything like that. It was the feeling I had when we walked in the first time. I had prayed before we came house hunting that if there was a particular neighborhood, ward, school, something that we should be in, that I would feel something at one of the houses. And I did. I felt like this could be home. And I'm hopeful it will be.