Day 200

Happy Halloween!

The kids are exciting about going Trick or Treating tonight. But before this we went into Lincoln. We needed to get some more insulation and do a bit of shopping. :) We have not been seeing any more bats. This is a HUGE YYYYAAAAYYYY! Now we can work on getting a bit more of this finished. We kind of took it easy today and ate some pizza at the buffet. It was a nice day.


Then this evening we all went out trick or treating. Jonathan usually stays home to pass out the candy. But we don't even have a porch light, or a working doorbell. And there is no where for him to sit down on first floor. It is still a maze of boxes and bookshelves. So he decided to go out walking with us. It was very different then in our old neighborhood. There were no children. Back in Hickman there were swarms of children. But here we didn't seen any but one other small child out walking. At one of the houses we stopped at we heard that they had 8 trick or treater's (3 of them being ours). Wow. I guess my bag of 80 candy bars would have gone far. Usually we need two or three of those bags. But the kids were very excited and came home with the pumpkins full of goodies. Plus we got to meet some of our new neighbors.

Day 195 - 199

This week we will not really be working on the house. Jonathan and I are in charge of the Cub Scout Halloween carnival again this year. So we will be working on getting everything ready for the carnival this week. Wow, if it isn't one thing it's another. I do know that I will be happy when this week is over and we can kind of sit back and decide what we would like to do. :) We are making up 9 carnival stations. And preparing for around 300 children. Have you ever wished it would snow and they would cancel Halloween? Hmm, I wonder if that would work. ;) We are having a cake walk, a guessing game, a coffin dig, a bat tree toss (and no we aren't using our real bats, just the rubber kind), a bone/tombstone toss, balloon popping, face painting, witch hat ring toss, and a scary maze. We were going to do a scary campground. But it turned out to be too wet and cold outside for that.

Happy Halloween!

Well, we had a good turnout. There were just over 270 children. It was a busy night. Now we are ready for a bit of rest and relaxation. :)

Day 189 - 194

This was the week of the bats. As you might have read we have discovered that our home is also the home of bats. We had a nightly visit from one of them for four days. And it was not the same one. Jonathan was able to get rid of them each night. The last of these fun visits was in the morning. Up till now the children did not know that we had a bat problem. They had all been happily sleeping when the bats came to visit. But the morning visit pretty much worried all of us. Melinda decided that we must live in a haunted house.

Well of course we decided that we had to do something about this. I mean we wouldn't mind bats flying around outside eating the bugs. But we didn't want them flying around our heads and all.

So on Friday I took the kids over to Mom and Dad's house again. We thought it would be better if they were not around as we didn't know what we would find. And we got yet another dumpster. Saturday and Sunday we tore apart the 2nd floor landing room. This is where we thought the bats were coming in. We got all of the plaster and lathe off of the walls and ceiling. We also were able to cover up the holes (from the inside). Next spring we will work on fixing the holes from the outside. And we got most of the exterior wall insulated. Hopefully this will all help the bat problem. After the weekend we were very tired. But we half filled the dumpster and now one more wall of the house is insulated. YAY! :D


This is the part of the ceiling that the bats are coming in from. They are getting into the house from a hole in the wall and a hole in the box gutter. Then they come up from the joist in the ceiling. Then as you can see they can just get in.


This is another reason we had to send the kids to my parents'. All of the rest of the furniture is shoved into their bedroom.


Now we have all of the woodwork taken off and safe down in the basement. This part takes so much time.


No more plaster and lathe.


Now there is insulation in the north/exterior wall. We do still need to get the wiring in this room.

Saturday was another sad day for me. My friend, Myrta, died. We are all really going to miss her. :(

Day 188

Today has been a busy, creepy day. I start out tired from our bat fun of last night and still a bit jumpy about that as I know there is likely still a bat in the house somewhere. Zeb throwing his paper airplane about made me jump off of the couch. Then there were the bugs. I was trying to bring in a load of things that we had left in the van yesterday, there were all sorts of tiny bugs by the front door. Then by the edge of the porch, hundreds of lady bugs. And by the 2nd floor bathroom a swarm of bees (and in the 2nd floor bathroom as well). I was almost hoping the bats would be back to eat the bugs, almost.

Just a little while ago, as the kids were getting ready for bed, we noticed Merlin looking towards the ceiling. Not a good sign. Then we hear the bat noises again.

Right now Jonathan is stuffing insulation in some possible BAT entry places. Hopefully we will have a much better night.

Bats, oh no.

Well, this was not a very restful night. After we got the kids in bed, Jonathan and I went to our room to watch a little TV. And that is when the fun started. There partway through the show a BAT fell from the ceiling just outside our doorway. We quickly shut the door and hoped our cat, Merlin would take care of if. Or actually wondered if he had done something to it. After all of the running around and closing doors and putting Merlin in places and all, we discovered that there was not one but two bats in the house. The night ended with Jonathan getting his gun and trying to take them out. In the end we had one dead bat and one missing one. Now believe me, I don't really mind bats as long as they are not swooping around over my bed. It was a long night. And I am not looking forward to it happening again tonight.

Day 187

Mom and Dad went home yesterday afternoon. So the rest is up to us. We have tons of stuff yet to do. So we got an early start, Jonathan pulling the trailer with his car, and me with the seats still out of the van. When we got over to the house we started packing up the remaining stuff and putting it in the van. We also were trying to vacuum and sweep up the cleared out rooms. Surprising ourselves, we mostly got everything in the van. And with the trailer still empty started working on the shelves in the garage and the shed.

We are not quite finished. There is still a bit of stuff in the garage and shed. But we got a lot more finished today then we thought that we would.

The funny thing is that we went over to the gas station and ordered a pizza for lunch, sat down in the middle of the floor in the empty kitchen and ate the pizza straight out of the box. The reason that this is even interesting is that when Jonathan and I first bought the house in Hickman, our very first meal there was a pizza that we ordered from the gas station, that we brought home, sat down in the middle of the empty living room and ate straight out of the box. We didn't even plan that. I didn't even think about it until we were eating our pizza today. It is funny how things work out.

After we got everything loaded we headed back to Beatrice. Before we could unload the trailer, we had to rearrange things down in the basement. So we worked at getting the workshop in order just a bit. It is actually starting to look pretty nice down there. Then we were able to get all of the stuff off of the trailer. The van is still full of stuff. But we are tired and Jonathan wanted to see about hooking up the washing machine. It is so exciting that the washing machine is now usable and nothing leaks. YAY!

Day 186

Saturday....
Moving Day: Part two

Mom and Dad came over again to help us out. We made three trips filling, the the trailer and the trunk of Jonathan's car, the Van (without the back to seats and full cargo capacity), and the back of Mom and Dad's car.

Wow, another tiring day. And we still aren't finished. I know that we have way too much stuff. :)

It is starting to be hard to find places to put things in the new house. It is amazing that you can fit this much stuff in a smallish house. And when you move it over in boxes it seems to take up even more space.