We're moving!

Well word has made it around to some family, but for those of you that haven't heard, it's going to be the year of big moves for our family.
Paul's dream has always been to live on the family farm in Dayton. (We believe it's only a few years away from being a Century Farm! In fact our little Emilia's name is spelled the way that it is because Paul's great-grandfather, Emil, came to Iowa from Sweden and settled on the farm in Dayton.)
Well Paul's dream will be coming true later this year as Paul's mom recently found a house in town in Dayton. It is a fantastic one-story ranch with full basement and we just know that Ann is going to love her new place.
So once we help Ann to make the move into town to her new house, we'll be moving to the farm!
It's very exciting but overwhelming too.
We talked to our realtor in Manson and he wants our home on the market by the 20th of March. Thank goodness that week is the college's spring break so we can put the girls in day care during the day and get the house show ready the rest of the day. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the house sells in a decent amount of time, but we know too that it isn't a very good time to be selling a home either. We're already working to get the house ready to be "staged" so that rooms look bigger, etc. and have filled many Rubbermaid tubs with kids' toys, clothes, books, etc. Thank goodness Ann is letting us store this stuff on the farm. It's going to be wierd to be living in a home while it's still "show ready" and I'm not looking forward to it because I know I'll be worried about every little thing!
We've been tearing home design ideas out of magazines for the past two to three years and have decided that the washroom/bathroom is the first update that will be made and will be done hopefully before we move in. For those of you (Julie, Maradith, Laura, Carolyn, etc.) that have been on the farm, we are planning to remove the wall in between the washroom and bathroom and relocate it to the west to the opposite side of the bathroom window. Then the wall separating the bathroom and the pantry will come out and that entire area from the new bathroom wall to the exterior of the former pantry area will become a new bathroom with double vanity and corner shower. Paul measured the pantry a few weeks ago and figured that just by knocking and relocating the walls for the bathroom we'll get five feet of additional space in the bathroom. The move for the washroom will also allow us to have a small utility sink and our washer and dryer in the current washroom area. And since the washer and dryer will move in that area, the wall in the kitchen that once had the washer and dryer will be removed to make for a bigger kitchen.
Wow! It sure is a good thing that Paul is a good handyman/construction worker and I'm not afraid to roll my sleeves up and get dirty!
We're so looking forward to it and have already told Grace that she'll get to pick out some kitties shortly before we make the move. She has also told us that since we will be on the farm she wants five kitties, two dogs, four pigs and two cows. Sometimes she has said she wants a pony too. It sounds like she wants her own zoo!! We'll stick to a few cats for mousing and a couple of outside dogs!