McCormick Acres

Holly & The Turtle

Well, today I got up and made the kids pancakes!  They loved it, it has been soooo long since they have had a hot breakfast!  Then we headed into Mountain Grove to try out the Wal Mart there.  It was much easier to find and their grocery area was nicer and a lot less busy!  We couldn't get paint though since their paint machine is  a manual one and it was broken.  We came home and worked on Bekah's bedroom and got it all fixed up.  Then we had tacos for dinner.  It is so nice being able to cook again!  I got the kids' clothes all hung up.  They didn't want showers tonight because they wanted to hunt lightnin' bugs, so we let them stay up and I did some ironing.  Paul took the kids outside to find some lightnin' bugs and they walked down the road a ways.  Holly, our dachshund, started goin crazy barkin, and they thought she had a snake cornered.  But they soon discovered that she had found a turtle! 

Everyone was so excited!  They brought him up to the house and we put him in a tub with some water and lettuce.  He was so fun to watch.  Then we sat and watched the dogs and kittens play.  Our two kittens are named Socks and Mixy!  We only saw about 3 lightnin' bugs, so the kids were pretty disappointed.  Danny and Vesta have tons at their house.  We all came in, showered and crashed!  What a fun evening.

First Real Meal

Today was a beautiful day.  It was sunny, with blue sky and about 84 degrees.  Perfect!  I worked on Nate's room today and got it completely unpacked and organized.  Paul put his bed together and he is now set!  Tomorrow we'll work on Bekah's room!

We finally had our first real meal in our house!  We had BBQ'd burgers, fresh watermelon and baked beans.  it was soooo good!  Everyone commented on how good it was,  mostly because it was the first homecooked meal we've had in quite some time!

We discovered just how far in the country we are!  We called about garbage service today. There isn't any!  We can take it to the end of our road and they'll pick it up, but nothing comes to our house!  So, guess we'll be hauling garbage!  AND, there is no recycling here either!  BUT, we can burn!  Once we get chickens we'll be ok as they eat the scraps, but until then, we'll have to be careful!  Guess we'll get a couple garbage cans and make a run to the dump every couple of months!

Paul did do a bunch of burning and we got a lot cleaned up today.  That is really helping!  Nate and Bekah played outside ALL day today!  They chased lizards and caught a giant frog!  They are having so much fun!

Dawn and Pual went in to town and went to the feed store and got some rabbit food.  Droopy was very happy.  We went to church this evening and it was wonderful.  I am so glad we moved here.  We stopped at Danny and Vesta's on the way home and Paul got tools for the treadmill adn the kids chased lightnin bugs!  We got home about 9 pm and we crashed.  It is so nice to be so tired!

Big Shoppin Day

Today was somewhat of a lazy day.  We didn't get up until 8 am!  I didn't get dressed until noon!  I can't believe it!  We decided to head into West Plains today and got to Wal Mart because we are in desperate need of groceries.  Some things just don't travel 2000 miles well, so they got left behind!  We also told the kids we'd take them to Chen's for dinner, it is a Chinese buffet with excellent food!  That was a lot of fun, and it was nice to finally eat something more than just sandwiches!

We got major groceries and some towels and bird feeder stuff.  We went to the health food store, but it closes at 5:00 pm!  We learned that most everything closes at 5 pm!  We came home and oh, I almost forgot, earlier just as we were gettin ready to leave our real estate agent Mike came by.  It was so great to see him, he's more than an agent, he really became quite a friend.  He has the listing for the only other house on our road, clear at the dead end, and he saw us home and stopped to say hi!  He told us that the family that is selling also homeschools, too bad they are lookin to move!  Then, on our way home, the wife of that family passed us and she turned around and came back and introduced herself.  She is a very nice lady!  It was a beautiful day with lots to do, people to meet and incredible weather!

The Truck Goes Home

Well, I got up about 6:30 am and got to work on the kitchen.  Danny came about 8:00 and he and Paul took the moving truck to the Penske store in Rolla.  I worked on the kitchen all day.  Sharon Wiles cam about 10:30 with her grandaughter and 2 kittens!  She helped a lot in the kitchen.  We got all the canning cleaned and put away!  She left about 12:30.  Danny and Paul got back shortly after that. 

I began getting frustrated with the kitchen because I was overwhelmed and couldn't get everything put away.  The cabinets are not very deep, barely deep enough to put a dinner plate in, and the lower cabinets, which are larger, only have half a shelf , so there is a lot of wasted space, and I just couldn't find a place for everything!  Plus the pantry is about a bedroom closet size, but they only have three wire shelves in it, spaced so far apart, that there is a lot of wasted space!

Then Paul was trying to get the phones hooked up and they wouldn't work.  He got frustrated because there are phone jacks everywhere in this house, but only the phone jacks in the girl's two rooms work!  Then he got depressed thinking maybe we bought the wrong place.

We got over it and decided to get something accomplished!  So, we gathered ourselves and got to work.  That's when we saw the cardinal couple and 10 squirrels and we saw a deer in our backyard!  It was so beautiful!

We worked until about 10:30 pm and we got nearly the entire kitchen done!  It was really nice to see it finished and I feel like I can function now that my kitchen is in order!

Tomorrow we are going into town!  Woo Hoo!

Our First Sunday in the Ozarks!

Sunday!  We got up and went to bible class today.  Paul went with Nate and I went with Bekah and Dawn went with the teen class.  Both Bekah and Nate had substitutes.  Then we had a good service!  Then was the potluck!  It was a huge success and Danny was completely surprised!  We had some great food and met some wonderful people!  Then a very large, very dark storm cloud appeared on the horizon.  Vesta thought we'd see our first tornado and Amy showed me a picture of a "wall cloud" whatever that is, but I guess it is associated with tornadoes.  I was really ready to go to the basement!  Then I started talking to Beth and Jaime and they told me  a lot about tornadoes and they also live near us, so that helped.  They said that if they were headed to shelter (they both live in mobile homes), they'd call me so I could go with them!  Finally the cloud just dissipated and blew over.  I guess it was moving too fast to create anything, so we escaped that one!  We came home and relaxed for a little while before headin in for evening service.  It was wonderful!  After services we visited with Tommy and Sherrie and a couple other ladies.  It is truly great to be in such a great church with such active, warm, welcoming, helpful people.  It is going to make this so much easier!

Hopefully tonight will be quiet with no storms!

Another Day in Our Ozark Home

Today was a great day!  We all had an amazingly good sleep last night.  We got up and got to work.  I got the living room cleaned out and set up.  Paul got all the beds set up and I washed the bedding and made them.  Then we got the picnic table and back patio put together.  We need to work on the treadmill tomorrow.  It is stuck in the living room because it won't go through the bedroom door!

Danny and Vesta came over with our new puppy!  We named her Ellie Mae.

They also brought over Droopy our new bunny.  The weather was beautiful.  I hope that tonight is as good as last night!

Ro called this morning and we visited for nearly an hour!  It was so nice to visit with her!

I worked on Nate and Bekah's rooms, but it was too overwhelming, so I took a break and I'll get back to it later.  I pray tomorrow is fun and tonight is nice and quiet!  We are having a potluck at church, it is supposed to be a welcome for us, but it is really a surprise party for Danny!  It's his 50th Birthday!

The First Day Home

We finally got up this morning at about 9:30.  What a night!  Then I got in the shower and Bekah came running in to tell me that someone was at the door.  I got dressed and went to the door.  It was Mr. and Mrs. Wiles and they had brought us a cake and wanted to help us unpack.  We visited some and they left.  What a nice couple!! 

I am exhausted and overwhelmed!  When Paul got up, we decided we really needed to head to Wal Mart for some necessities.  It is about a 25 minute drive there, so we tried to think of all we would need.  We headed out and stopped at Danny and Vesta's to take care of the water and call the phone company.  Vesta told me last night's storm was mild!  I am really nervous now!  She also caught a bunny and she wondered if we wanted it!  SURE!  They also offered to let us take their truck to West Plains to get Bekah's mattress!  She didn't have one because the bunkbeds got left behind and she inherited Nate's loft bed. 

So we headed to Wal Mart and got a vaccum and a few other supplies.  Then we stopped at a mattress store and got her mattress for $88!  What a deal!

When we got up this morning there were squirrels everywhere!  It was so fun to watch them!

We came home and unloaded, grabbed swim suits and headed back to Danny & Vesta's for dinner!  They had a BBQ for everyone that helped last night.  It was so fun!  We had a blast!  Tommy took us out to see his horses and the milk cow.  He offered to let us milk her anytime we wanted!  We just might have to do that!

Danny and Vesta will be delivering a puppy and the bunny  tomorrow!  They have a friend who had two blue tick/lab cross puppies dumped on their property, so we're gonna get the female!

Bekah made some new friends tonight and came home with phone numbers.  Nate made some new friends too and came home very upset.  He said that his one new friend reminds him of his friend Colton and he wants to go back to Washington and live in the tiny house so he can see Colton again.  I think that reality is sinking in and he is on major overload!  Plus he is really tired!

I think we are all on overload!  All of the sudden I got the horrible feelin again that we made a mistake and I just want to go back!  Nate was sad and it made me sad.  Dawn has already expressed her displeasure with the heat, humidity and bugs, now Nate is upset.  Everyone else is ok, but it makes me sad when any of them are sad!

I am also learning that the storms here are terrifying!  I heard too many horror stories tonight!  I am scared to death of snakes and I just don't know if I can make it here!  What I do know is that I will be relying on God so much more.  Maybe that will be the best outcome of all!  I am so incredibly tired.  I need to get some sleep.  Tonight, NO STORMS, sleep should come easy!

The Big Move: Finale

Well, today we got up to wind, but no storms.  We headed out about 7:30.  The drive was pretty good until St. Joseph where we hit some rain.  Then we got to Kansas City about 11:30 and traffic was pretty good.  Vesta called several times to see about our progress, she had everyone waiting on stand-by!  Then we took the SHORT-CUT!  Hwy 2, what a crazy road!  It was a pretty drive, through some Amish and Mennonite farms, but it wasn't a drive for a moving truck!  Finally we hit Springfield and Vesta called again!  We were only 1 1/2 hours out!  The drive to Willow Springs was great and we saw several Amish buggys!  I was so excited!  We were hurrying through as they were forecasting some thunderstorms.  We arrived and everyone was waiting for us!  Paul backed up the truck and everyone just started unloading!  In not very long at all the truck was unloaded, everyone was fed (they had brought food, Thanks Kathy and Vesta), and we were enjoying some time to visit!

After everyone left we put the kids in the shower and I found a tick on Bekah!  AHHHHH!  I panicked, our cell phone had no signal, we had no land-line phone and so I drove down to Tommy and Sherry's to get it off.  Sherry was so kind and didn't laugh at me!  She showed me how to get it off and told me what to do.  Whew!

We got home and on the way I called Mom & Dad to let them know whe had arrived safely.  On the drive home we say lots of lightnin' bugs!

We just threw mattresses on the floor and everyone crashed in our new home! 

What a night!  About midnight we woke up to horrendouse thunder and lightening!  It went on forever and sounded like it was right no top of us!  It rattled the house!  It finally ended about 6:30.  By that time the little kids were all sleeping in mamma and dadda's room, and I was glad of that!  It was a rough night!  I was really scared and spent a LOT of time prayin!  Guess I better get used to it!

Phase 3: The Big Move cont.

Today we got a later start than we had hoped.  We were on the road about 6:30 ish.  We left Cheyenne and took I-80.  We stopped in Sidney, Nebraska for breakfast.  The weather forecast was for high winds and we got them!  The drive was really difficult as the day went on.  We saw a lot of storm-chasers and watched the sky change.  We decided to try and stay ahead of the strom front so we would stop only for gas and potty.  We found the NOAA station and central Nebraska and Kansas were to see supercell thunderstorms, high winds and possible tornadoes.  We needed to get to Lincoln.  It wasn't supposed to hit until around 7 pm.  We ended up driving through 40+mph winds, a few dust storms, and one BLINDING dust storm.  I had a hard time keeping the van on the road, Paul was REALLY struggling with that big moving van!  At one point, we got right smack in the middle of a dust storm, and although I was right behind him, I couldn't even see his tail lights!  All along the trip we had seen signs stating "DO NOT STOP IN THE ROAD DURING A DUST STORM", now I understood why.  I was so afraid that I was gonna get hit from behind, but eveyone must have slowed down as much as me!  Anyway, it didn't last more than 5 miles, so that was a blessing!  We arrived in Lincoln around 4:30, well ahead of the storm front, but the winds were blowing so violently that it just would rip the door right out of your hand!  When we got to Lincoln we took Hwy 2 from I-80 and right to our hotel.  We checked in and went to the pool, we all needed to relax!  Paul and Dawn went to Wal-Mart and got some chicken for dinner and we just stayed in our room, we were too tired to do anything else! 

By 9:30 pm the sky had cleared and it looked ok, but the winds were still howlin!   Hopefully, the thunderstorms will not materialize here.  Tomorrow we get to our new home!

Today I got a bad feelin that we were making a horrible mistake.  I think it is because I got scared and we were leaving something safe and going somewhere completely new and it is just scary!  I talked with Vesta and I'll call her tomorrow when we get close and she'll get our help there to empty our truck!  Hopefully tonight will go well and tomorrow our dream becomes a reality!

Phase 3: The Big Move cont.

Today we got up to leave at 5:30 am.  Paul and Nate headed out but the girls and I had to find a grocery store.  We finally found a Win Co foods and we got what we needed and headed out to catch up to the guys!  We finally caught up to them at a rest stop and we had the breakfast we had purchased.  We headed out and made a couple of potty/gas stops.  One place had a Starbucks!  Life is still good!  Driving through Wyoming was terrible!  There were hardly ANY rest stops!  The weather worried me a bit because they kept calling for thunderstorms and the sky was pretty dark, but God kept us safe and we seemed to always be just behind them.  We drove through a lot of construction and that was a real slowdown for us.  We took I-84 which joined I-15 for a while, then it became I-84 again and then we took I-80 all the way to Cheyenne.  We arrived in Cheyenne at about 7 pm.  Vesta called and I missed it and then when we got to Cheyenne we had no signal so I'll have to wait to call her until in the morning.  Hopefully there isn't a problem.   The kids went in the pool and I organized our stuff.  I hurt my arm and it got really puffy so I worked on that a bit.  I'm getting kind of nervous about our move.  Reality is setting in and being away from everything and everyone we have known is going to be hard.  The weather issues scare me too.  I am not used to tornadoes and thunderstorms, they just don't exist in Washington!  I think I am just really tired.  Tomorrow we are porbably just going to Lincoln, Nebraska, we'll see, maybe after a good night's sleep tomorrow we can go further.