Author Archives: Grace Mischenko

The house is now on our OWN property!

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Yea!  It made it to our property safe and sound!  It is now 12 feet up in the air though, and that is the bottom of it!  From the ground to the top of the house is 28 feet!


 


They had to raise the house up on one side with air dollies to get it over several bridges and that made my stomach rather uneasy, and then it took them 15-20 minutes to get around one 90 degree turn on our narrow dirt road back into our property.  The driver also had to contend with two power poles and a guy-wire that was pulled taut, all on the same corner!


 


Oh, we also had a narrow miss with a black jacked-up Blazer that decided to run a stop sign, and pulled out right in front of the semi pulling the house!  Then he had the audacity to make rude hand signs at the rear pilot car, which happened to be the mover's wife!  Praise God that he protected us from what could have been a disastrous accident.


 


The house was moved to the property on Wednesday and then on Thursday they came back and rolled it over above the foundation and raised it up into the air.  We are building a first story under it, so that is why it was raised up.  On Friday, our framer raised the walls up under it, and he and his crew are supposed to put the sheeting on tomorrow.  It should be ready to lower the house onto the walls by Tuesday!


 


The kids spent Wednesday with me in the van watching the house move down the highway, and then Thursday the younger kids went to my Mom’s house, and the older two boys went with me to the property to watch them roll it over.  They asked lots of questions of the mover (he has an 11yo son, so he didn’t mind them being there), and even got to help them haul the posts for the cribbing when they raised the house up!  I guess we are unschoolers for the first month of this school year!  How many kids get to see that?!?


 


I got all of the highlights on video too, so we can share the experience with all of our friends.  Dh hasn’t watched it yet though.  He said that he can’t watch it until it is all set down and secured.


 


Hopefully I will be able to get some video of them setting it, but I have to take the kids to get signed up for swimming lessons on Tuesday afternoon, so we will just have to see how much we get to watch.


 


More later….

House update!

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They have our house loaded onto a trailer, and are supposed to move it tomorrow at 9am!  Wow!  Finally, a four year project is coming to fruition!  Yes, you read that correctly.  They are moving our whole house, all 30x48ft of it, down the two lane highway!  I will post before, during and after pictures when I get a chance, but right now, the kids and I are getting ready to head up there and finish up some things that the mover didn't bother to tell us needed to be done beforehand, even when I specifically asked him!  Grrr….!


 


Anyway, it is all loaded on the trailer, and off of the posts and beams where my dh built it.  It will be moved 70 miles down the highway to our new 6 acres, and set on first floor, more than doubling our living space!


 


I have an entry half written which has more of the background of this project, but for now, you will have to just follow us on this journey from today.  If you want to see the house how I left it on Saturday, I have pictures posted of the front of the house from when I was doing the Clean Heart Clean Home Challenge with Amy at Dandelion Seeds.  I will take pictures of the house up on the trailer when I get up there today.  Tomorrow, I will be video taping parts of the house moving down the highway!  There is one train trestle that it will have to go under with only 3″ clearance on one side, and 7″ of clearance on the other side…and several 90 degree turns on small gravel roads going into our property.  The mover says he can do it though, and he has the reputation of being the best, so our home is in his hands…and a whole lot of our money too!!

It’s official!

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Our new son, Timothy Craig, was baptized on Sunday.  Craig is my dh's name, and it took me 5 sons to get him to let me name one after him!  Our last two boys have their grandfather's names as their middle names, and my daughter has my name as her middle name, so I wanted to keep up with the middle names being after a family member, and I have always loved my dh's name.


 


Timothy seems to really fit this little guy…speaking of whom, I was going to write more, but he just woke up.  Off to nurse…I will try to get back on here this afternoon.

Our son’s name…

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Sorry, but you have to wait until after next Sunday.  We have picked a name, but dh wants to reveal it at his baptism, which will be next Sunday.  We have told our parents, but no one else at this point.  The kids are being really good about our “secret”! 


 


So, hopefully, I will be able to get online on Sunday evening, and post his blessed name!  Maybe even a picture or two of his baptism!


 


Here is the list we are working on, although his middle name is not on here.


 


Elias


Gavin


Gabriel


Martin


Seth


Stephen


Thaddeus


Timothy


Tristan


 


What do you like?

The past 5 days…

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Here is a newer picture of my little darling.  We are trying a name out on him, to see if it fits him.   I'll let you know how it goes!



 


He is such a good baby.  He sleeps A LOT!  I feel like I have to wake him up to nurse.  My milk came in right away, so it doesn't take much to fill him up.  He nurses well once he gets latched on, but it takes some work to accomplish that, probably because I am so full!


 


Dh is loving having the week off!  We are getting so much accomplished each day!  He is such a great husband.  He is constantly telling me to go sit back down, that I've been up too much.  It is so hard to sit idly by and watch everyone else work though!


 


He made fajitas on Friday night.  Saturday night, we had an awesome celebretory prime rib (it was still in the freezer from when we bought a half a beef last fall) dinner with special mashed potatoes (mixed with sour cream, cream cheese, and spices), and even some sparkling cider leftover from the Resurrection Day potluck!  Talk about clearing out the freezer and pantry!  Sunday night we just had freezer food, quick stuff I keep on hand for those last minute dinners…more cleaning-out of the freezer!


 


Monday night, my MIL made us a Mexican feast: hamburger nachos, taco pizza, and chicken enchiladas.  Boy was that good!


 


Tonight we are having a snack dinner.  The kids are eating pbj's and fruit, and we will probably have popcorn later when we watch either Anne of Avonlea that I picked up from the library last week or continue on with Have Gun Will Travel, an old western series that my dad loaned to us.


 


It has been such a good week.  We have gotten a lot done, getting ready for the move, and getting things cleaned up around here.  We only have one more day at home though, and then we have to go to town for baby's checkup and circumcision.  Then on Friday we will take the kids to the State Fair, and then move into our apartment!  We can't move in until 3pm (they run it like the hotel rooms), so then we will be living in town!  I can't believe it is here already.  It will be a totally different lifestyle for us.


 


Well, more on that later.  I better post this, or I never will get it done!


 


Thank you all for your comments on the birth of our son!  I have had so much fun receiving comments from you all, then checking out your blogs!


 


God bless!

My night wasn’t over…

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After I went to bed, I was awakened at 12:30am with contractions.  My 20mo son wasn't sleeping very soundly, so I was also getting up and giving his pacifier back to him.  (He is cutting four teeth.)


 


I dozed in and out with the contractions until a little after 2am, when I had a really strong one.  Uh-oh, I thought.  Go figure…dh is 2 hours away, and I will have to arrange childcare for the kids AND find someone to drive me in.  I figured I would wait it out for a while, and see how things went.  20 minutes later, after a couple of light contractions, I had another very strong one.  Then they started coming every 6-8 minutes.  I waited until about 3:30am, and was laying there praying about it, having more contractions, asking God to let me know what to do.  As soon as I requested His guidance, I had back-to-back hard contractions.  OK!  I'm listening!


 


I called my midwife (Judy), and she agreed it would be a good thing for me to come in.  I knew my MIL would be happy to come over to stay with the kids, but she had to go to work at 7:30am, so I had to arrange for someone come take over for her.  I called the person I had lined up as a backup, but she had forgotten to take the phone upstairs with her, so after calling her number 4x's, I called another friend.  Of course while I was on the phone with the second person, the first one called me.  I really hate making decisions during labor!  I finally decided to have one gal come over to babysit in the morning, and the other one drive me in.  Spread out the work, right?


 


Anyway, to make a long story a little shorter, we made it to the birthing center, and the contractions were still about 6-8 minutes apart.  Dh had beaten me there, as I suspected he would, since he was actually closer than I was.  Judy checked me and I was dialated to 3.5-4cm, but the problem was that he had his hand on the top of his head!  She suspected that he was stimulating things and causing the contractions!  She got his hand to move (UGH!), but only after he tried to grab her fingers and she finally had to pinch his fingers to get him to pull them back!  Silly baby!


 


She decided I should try to get some rest, as things weren't really close yet, so dh and I laid down and tried to sleep.  We woke up at 9:30am!  I was “dead-in-the-water!”  No contractions….


 


Judy was really busy with appointments at the clinic, so we scheduled an appointment for 11:30am, and went out to breakfast.  I had two contractions during breakfast, then we headed back to the clinic.  Judy checked me and I was a little more dialated, and more effaced, but not much progress.  She stretched me a little, and we decided to go run some errands for the house project.


 


After several hours of running around, with hardly any contractions, we decided to head home.  My mom had heard we had come in, so she had made us dinner.  We went by her house, picked up dinner, and headed to the center to pick up our things.  Judy checked me again, and I had effaced more, had lost some of my mucos plug, and was having more contractions, but I still just wanted to head home.  I was SO tired.


 


I continued to have contractions, but they started stretching out, and by last night, they had stopped.  I am still losing more mucos plug (how much do you lose, anyway?  I don't remember losing mine prior to labor before.), and I know I am dialated somewhere between 4-5cm, but other than that, no labor.  I was able to sleep pretty well last night, but still feel pretty tired.


 


Dh is begging me to have this baby so he can take vacation time.    I'm trying to accomodate, but this little man just isn't cooperating.  Maybe we will go on another walk tonight.  Any other ideas?

Road closures and unnecessary evacuation

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Well, we are home again, after a very early and long Sunday.  The highway to the north is already closed due to a bridge being washed out, which doesn't really affect us because it is 5 hours to the next big town going north.  Our concern was going south, toward Wasilla.


 


On Saturday evening, we drove down and looked at Montana Creek at three different points.  All three places were flooded. Montana Creek campground was 2 feet under water, and part of the creek was running through the culvert for the bike path under the highway.  Out Yoder Road, we couldn't even get close to the bridge, as the creek was running across and then alongside the road.  Out Montana Creek Road, the creek was eroding the road on a corner, and had eaten the dirt road down to one lane.


 


We heard reports that Willow Creek (30 minutes south of us) was expected to cross the road sometime after midnight.  We had decided that I should go down and stay in Wasilla Saturday evening, and Craig would stay home with the kids, just in case the road was shut down, as I was continuing to have contractions, although they weren't consistent or regular.  My brother showed up that evening, and said that it didn't appear to him that the road was in any danger, so we decided that I would just stay home.


Little Willow Creek


 


We went to bed, and I woke up at midnight.  I gave the baby his pacifier back, went to the bathroom, and thought I would check the latest press release on the highway.  It stated that they were probably going to close the highway in Houston, due to flooding of the Little Susitna River sometime after 11pm.  Here it was already 12am, so I called the Emergency Operations Center, and they said there was water in one lane, so the highway was closed to one lane of traffic, and was holding. 


 


We made the decision to all head into town, so that they weren't trapped up here for who knew how long, as a lot of times the highway gets washed away when the water flows over it.  So, I packed up three days worth of clothes for the kids and I, while dh pulled things together he might need for work and for the house project.  We left the house at 2am, hoping that the highway would still be open.


 


When we finally got to Houston, where we thought we would see the river practically running across the highway, we saw that all the water problem was from the ditch overflowing onto the northbound lane of the highway!  I was riding in my brother's 4-wheel drive pickup, and dh was driving the kids in the minivan.  He called me from his cell phone and said, “You got me out of bed for that!?!”  LOL!  It was rather anti-climactic!


 


We got to my parent's house at 3:15am, and settled down to finish our night.  We got up at 9:30am, went to church at 1:30pm, and headed home.  When we got hom, the phones, cell phones, and internet were all down!  Apparently, a piece of a cabin floating down Willow Creek severed a fiber optic cable that was buried under the river, and about 1,800 people from Willow north to Healy (about 180 miles of road) lost telephone, cell, and internet service for 21 hours, from Sunday into Monday morning.


 


So, instead of my dh being able to work from home today, he had to drive back into the city (about 2 hours south), where he is staying the night, because he has to be in town again tomorrow.


 


Talk about a saga…


 


We had another little adventure this evening, that I will blog about later.  Right now, I am going to go get some sleep.  I have a midwife appointment tomorrow in Wasilla, so I better get some rest for the trip to town tomorrow.


 


I will try to post some more pictures of the flood soon.

Today…prayers for flooding needed

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I had a rough day emotionally today, so dh thinks maybe it is
a sign of things to come. I am just over 38 weeks, so he isn't late at
all, but I am definitely emotionally ready to be done.

We have had so much rain in the last couple of days, that the rivers are
nearing flood stage. Some are even over flood stage. We have a “lake”
in front of our house, and a “river” running down the side of our house.

Here is a link to the newspaper article online about the flooding.

My concern is that the highway to town will get shut down due to the
rivers overrunning the highway. We have only one highway to town, and
it has happened before. Dh is sure he can take care of me but it
makes me nervous. We have plenty of EMT's and emergency responders that
live close by, but I KNOW all of them! I would be kind of embarrased to
have my friend's husband deliver for me! What a story though, eh?


My back is feeling a bit better.  I was able to feel it go back in, but was still experiencing a lot of pain from it.  I think maybe it was just muscle pain though as it has eased up throughout the day.



Anyway, that's my update. Thanks for praying!  I will keep you posted!

Midwife appt. and our day yesterday

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Well, baby is working his way down!  I am 2.5cm dialated, 50% effaced, and his head is in an excellent position.  It could be any time!


 


I did something to my sacrum yesterday or last night, and it is really sore right now.  I can't seem to get it to go back into place, so that is of some concern for me, as I can't imagine that would make labor too relaxing, so you could pray about that if you think of it.


 


I accomplished almost everything on my list for town yesterday!  I didn't get my checks cashed, but I got everything else done!  Yea!


 


Will post more later…