Michigan

So we moved last Saturday to Detroit Michigan. It was exhausting and awful as moves always are. But, was made MUCH easier by glorious friends and family who came out to help us. My two dearest friends, Ruth and Beka, proved themselves once again to be some of the best friends in the whole world. They found childcare and came to Ohio, with husbands and moving vans/trailers in tow, to help us pack and clean the Hilliard house and then drove 4 hours with us to Detroit to help us unload/unpack on Sunday. They took vacation time, as did their husbands, to help us out for a full 2-3 days. We also had my mom and one of Josh's friends, Jameson, and then two close ORU friends in Michigan (Nathan and Liz) who came to help. We were truly blessed with all the help and could not have done it without everyone. We have spent the past week unpacking and cleaning. Josh started work on Monday morning and is getting acclimated to the new program. It's never fun starting out somewhere new, but I think he will like it once he gets the hang of the new system. The new house is a blessing in space because it is pretty big and that is what we need with three kiddos... but we do miss our house in Columbus, our clean, carpeted, good smelling house in Columbus. Our new place is in a lovely neighborhood. But it was built in 1961 and seems as though it was actually frozen in time. The house has not been the best maintained. It has the old original wood floors that used to be under carpet. So they are unfinished and dingy and stained and scratched. I have made a new rule that the kids have to wear rubber gripped house slippers now because their feet are just black from the floor dust and they keep slipping across the slippery wood. Also, I keep finding nails and staples in the floors from the old carpet that did not get removed and I'm afraid one is going to find it's way into one of the kids' foot. The house is musty and stinks and I do not know how to fix that besides a dehumidifier. But it really stinks. Josh was gracious enough to let me hire a housekeeper to clean the house before we moved in because it was just dirty and grimey and severely needed a deep clean. That helped, but there is still quite a bit more cleaning to do. I am tired. My OCD tendencies don't handle these kind of situations very well because I can't shut my brain off to everything that needs to be done. I am unable to relax until EVERYTHING is clean and unpacked and hung and decorated. Sometimes I wish I could just have a more chilled out personality when it comes to that kind of stuff. My plan was to take my time unpacking and moving because it's not like I have anything else to do in Michigan. I only have 1 friend and can't even find my way to the grocery store yet. But, alas, my drive for order will not allow it as I feel on the edge on insanity every time I look at Isaac's new bedroom door covered from top to bottom in bumper stickers from 1965. Anyways, enough complaining. We're thankful for this new adventure and will find our place here, I'm sure. This weekend we drove down to mom and dad's house for the Fourth because we missed all the fireworks in Detroit (they do them in June). We are enjoying the day with family because my dad's cousins will be coming in and my brother is making a last-minute surprise visit from VA. We're just missing David who is now in Hawaii (yes, I'm jealous) and Ben and Sarah who are quite busy moving into their own new place in NY and having another new baby. My newest niece was born yesterday and I'm just dying to meet her. Her name is still to be announced and hopefully I can make a trip into NY sometime in the next couple of months to hold her and cuddle her. That's all the updating for us right now.