Surprise for Jere

Jere arrived back home safe and sound yesterday! We were all SO excited to see him! And I think he was glad to be back. It seemed like, as usual, that things went wrong all over while he was gone. Including, yesterday morning, trouble with our van. I started it to warm up a bit before we had to leave (at -5, that might be a good idea?), but once everyone was bundled and ready to go out, the van had quit and wouldn't start again. I called a neighbor who kindly came to help. He put jumper cables on and poured HEET into the gas tank and couldn't get it to go for anything. So, Corinne came and picked us up instead of us meeting her at the babysitter's. Not a good start to an exciting day, but with lots of help from lots of people we made it work!

Our week without Jere was a lot more bearable as we were planning a surprise for him when he got home. He knew I wanted to get the painting done, but I wanted to do more than that. So I had a friend install carpeting in the master bedroom, and had LOTS of help come Wednesday evening to move us upstairs! Thank you SO much, Hostetlers and Kyle! You don't know what that meant to me...

When Jere walked in the basement door last night, he noticed right away our bed was missing. He gave me a funny, questioning look and asked what happened? I told him to come see. Well, he had another tired child to carry in from the vehicle, so it took him a bit. He of course quickly noticed the children's beds were missing as well. I could hardly contain myself! Right away he started asking what I'd done for flooring, and I told him to go look. We went upstairs, and in a slightly disappointed voice he said, "Oh, I see you just put rugs down." I did have an area rug in Leanna's bedroom, which is the easiest one to see into from the stairs. The floors upstairs are simply painted wood that's in sorry shape, but it was cleanable so I figured it would do for now. Then Jere turned and looked into the master bedroom.

And all he could say was "WHAT? What did you do?" And then he laughed a relieved little laugh, and I was delighted! Ok, the trim still needs to be put up and there's a few scuffs on the walls from laying the carpet that need to be touched up, but we're IN, and he doesn't have to lay and finish the flooring in that big bedroom. Hooray! We're moved in upstairs--even though it's cold and drafty, it still feels like a big accomplishment. And once he was home I discovered that he had the heat run to the upstairs plugged, so no wonder it was so cold. It will take him a few minutes to hook it up (hopefully he'll have those few minutes today!) but then things should be warmer up there. That will be nice! Meanwhile, I'm needing to take some time to recuperate after all that project...

The boys' room.

Leanna's room.