Eve Has Her New Garden of Eden

This past weekend, we went to help my sister move. They have moved 4 times in about 8 years. It has always been around this same time of the year but we were blessed with wonderful weather. We were worried about rain or snow but were grateful that it was nice weather.

We arrived about five on Friday evening and worked until I dropped sometime in the night. She stayed up all night but we had done the midnight moving showing the night before and I had an early appointment that morning so I was not up for the all night marathon.

We were then up at 8:30 after a few hours tossing on the couches to spend the day helping them move. The princesses were extremely helpful cleaning up after things were moved out. They washed out cupboards and drawers, packed and got great at washing window's and vacuuming empty rooms. They are a bit sore from lifting boxes as well.

I was more of the packer and organizer telling people what needed to go, stay, making donation piles and trying to keep parts together from taking things apart as we moved them. I couldn't believe how many people came to help. There were so many that came to move them. They had a huge basement storage room and she home school's so she has lots of science things and many books and very steep and narrow stairs. People were great. Many brought food, some cleaned, some loaded, some donated trucks and trailers and some will come and help her unpack as we had to head home.

However, when we finally got to see the new house last night just before dark, I was thrilled to see the back yard. Today, I quickly took some pictures from behind the house but should have gone back to the orchard where they have about 12 different types of trees. It has a well. It has a windmill. It has all those fruit trees. It has an underground cement root cellar. It has the garage you can see and another shed behind that along with another deck and patio. It has the fire pit you can see. If I had taken a picture of the back of the house where I was standing, it has raised beds along the length of the house, and along the whole length of the property which goes back very far. It also has a green house glass room on the back of the house. The front yard is all grass and is about the same size as the entire house. The yard is fully fenced. It has five bedrooms, three full baths and a half bath. It has a two car attached garage. It has a huge workshop with a wall of peg board and the other two walls are all shelves. The laundry room has shelves it's full length and a full storage room and built in closets everywhere. Wood stove, two family rooms, gas fireplace, three closets in the master bedroom and a living room upstairs. The only down I think is the eating area is smaller than desired with the amount in their familyas they have two married and five children still at home. It does need some updating as you can see by this lovely shot of them showing off the light above the dining area. Not sure why they people before updated the kitchen, walls, flooring etc and left this light but it gave us all a great laugh.

Here is the happy family before going to church today. They are all excited to be in their new home. They found 7 snakes this week and her youngest caught his first snake this week and it was all he could talk about. They did have a discussion about not bringing the snakes into the house as we had a funny experience a few years ago with my daughter thinking someone put a fake snake on the handle of the suitcase..... Turned out, it wasn't fake. They didn't tell us their pet snake escaped and had been missing for a few weeks. That would not be a fun repeat experience.

One more funny story about the weekend. Someone dropped off a glass bowl of cut oranges for the workers yesterday. My sister told me to grab it so we could return it. I washed the bowl but ran out of paper towels so it air dried and had some spots. My sister was told it was their new neighbor. She didn't want to have the bowl get lost in the new house mess so she walks over to the only neighbor that had brought something over and introduced herself. The women opens the door and invites her in. My sister said, "Sorry the bowl has spots but it is clean." The lady said, "Do you want to wash it?" my sister said, "No, my hands are dirty." The lady then takes the bowl, washes it and dries it. My sister said, "I just wanted to thank you for the oranges because my husband said the new neighbor brought it over and I knew it had to be you." The women hands my sister back the clean bowl and said, "It wasn't me."

My sister was so embarrassed. This woman invited her in and thought she wanted her to wash a dirty bowl for her. She got home with the bowl and I said, "Wasn't she home?" My sister starts laughing and crying because she is laughing so hard. She tells me the story and I laugh until I cried. So, today, she asks a few more questions from her husband about who brought it over. She then goes to the other neighbor who has turkeys in her yard and tries to give her the bowl.

Guess what! Yep, it wasn't her bowl either. We had a good laugh about that. I am sure in time, they will figure out who was so kind to offer the oranges. They were all eaten and enjoyed.

My sister's middle name is Eve and she has always loved gardening. I am so happy for her to now have a beautiful yard of her dreams. It needs a little help on the back grass but the front grass is like a parks. I look forward to seeing what amazing things she will do with her Garden of Eden. See here for my post about her and gardening.

I love you EVE! I'm so happy you now have your own "Garden of Eden!"