Moved

Good news and bad news.  We're in the new house!  It's gorgeous!  I have re-claimed most of the downstairs from the boxes with womanly herculean efforts.  Andrew has been incredibly efficient at moving furniture and handling so many efforts from work too while also handling work at Groupon!  Cameron has been enjoying playing around and chatting about "Percy Jackson: Lightening Thief"; he even spent hours just listening to it last night.  Unfortunately, we've also had lots of unpleasant and expensive surprises.  The washer hot water spout was broken (no laundry until the plumber came and he told us the water heater sound indicated it was on its last legs).  The upstairs furnace was not evaluated by the inspector and it turns out it has a poor motor and was incorrectly installed.  The gas stove has a broken lighter and fan.  The fridge we had delivered received two significant dents in transport (headache of dealing with the store to get a replacement door).  There was an accident on the main road to our neighborhood to which the authorities responded by blocking all left hand turns both into and out of our neighborhood (that meant we attended the local transportation committee meeting and voiced our disapproval along with the other property owners because the closure leaves us only able to turn right and needing to make u-turns to get home).  The people that the prior owners let "house sit" at the end left it absolutely filthy (adding at least a dozen hours of just cleaning over this week if not more).  However, the most significant issue has been finding us that Verizon basically lied when they sold us DSL service and assured us we could have high speed internet.  According to the technician who came out yesterday, this house has always been too far out for DSL service and Verizon knew that because they promised and could not deliver the same thing to the prior owners.  This has meant that I needed to commute to Groupon, carry my computer into a conference room, and teach my classes from there all week.  This is a huge issue for us because both of us need a quality connection for work… neither Andrew nor I can ever work from home with this situation and that was not what we were looking for in a new home.  So… we're working with neighbors and trying to find unusual solutions since the normal ones won't work.  We really love the surroundings and are hoping that week two in our new home will be much smoother!

Cute antics:

• Cameron's comment on seeing the dented fridge, "Oh, it's the new fashion."

• when I commented that someday our house wouldn't be full of boxes, he broke into singing, "Some day over the rainbow…"

Paper pushing choo choo train :)

Playing on the breakwater in Santa Cruz after the county meeting... talk about cool cement shapes!