Our Home Now Home

Yesterday we received our shipment of household items we had packed in May! It was an unexpected surprise and is SO fun to go through and see it all!
The items we had shipped were the cream of the crop, if you will, because space was a premium. We actually haven't seen these things since last fall when we were packing up and selling our house in Missouri. I had to make decisions then of "sell, store, or ship" with our entire household.
We purchased a large storage shed and have it at the house of dear friends in Cabool (thanks, we love you Nick and Faye!) and it contains all the items that were not practical to ship but yet we will not want to replace in the next 10-15 years. Things like our furniture, washer and dryer, electronic appliances, Mark's large power tools, Christmas decorations (don't get Mark started on the amount of those lovelies I have) and so forth.

Sell!

Store!

Ship!

Back in September we had the mother of all yard sales and we sold a good bit of our belongings that were either in need of being sold, or not practical to ship or store--things like the kids' Power Wheels, their large toys, our generator, etc. So that left us with the cream of the crop. These items we packed carefully and moved down to Houston with us in October where they sat in my parents garage for the next 8 months (as soon as our things were shipped, though, my mom's 1963 convertible Volkswagen beetle was back sitting pretty in that bay of the garage!).

The kids digging into long-lost toy boxes!

The kids have been in heaven the past 2 days as we unpack. They each only had their carry on suitcases loaded with the bare essential toys and they have grown quite tired of those in the past month here. When the boxes opened and My Little Ponies, a doll house, play kitchen, Little Tykes football toybox, Imaginext sets and Legos came out the kids thought it was Christmas! Caedmon has fond memories of every single item from his room. Caithness remembers she loves toys and it's ALL new to Aberdeen who was but 18 months when we moved! So fun to watch them!
Mark loved opening all his tool boxes (after being a month here without a pair of pliers!), opened his self-taxidermied turkey fan and beard mount and his fly rods and self bows. I'm excited to see my craft bins of paints and supplies as well as my knives and aprons (Mark will comment on that, because we both know full-well that those knives are his from his head-chef days in Branson!) We were also careful in packing most of the pictures from our walls as these things are familiar and comfortable to us all.

Our living room at the moment.

It's so good to see all these things again! I know very well they are in fact "things" but I made careful decisions as to what would make our house here in Buckie be "home" and already it has a great impact on our flat. I tried to make a large effort on the transition for the kids. I have their bedspreads, curtains, bicycles, even their favourite plates, bowls and cups here with us now. We know we are here for the long haul and really wanted to make Scotland home. Without being materialistic we are very grateful for these items that surround us, but knowing it's family that makes a house a home.