When the bright early morning sun shown through the loft windows on Sunday morning, Santana groaned and stretched. She and Rachel needed to get up, feed and walk the dogs, eat breakfast and get ready to head to St. Lawrence. They were finally going to hopefully finish up all the last little details for the new home, seeing as move in day was exactly one week away. The camera crew would most likely be there today as well since their filming was going to be wrapping up with the official opening ceremony being the last part of the documentary. There would be interviews afterward that they were going to edit in, but on the site shooting would be finished. Santana was beyond ready for this documentary to go into editing, the guys were nice enough, but it was hard to work with a camera in your face. That was one of the reasons she held a high appreciative for Rachel's movie work. She wouldn't be able to do it, especially with the probability of having to shoot scenes over and over, at least with the documentary she had control over what she was doing and saying. If they didn't like something or thought it was a bad angle all they had to do was edit it out.
Santana lay in bed a moment, just looking out of the window. She couldn't wait for the first snow fall. It was always a little refreshing when you breathed in that first super chill wind, even if burned a little in your lungs. For a moment while the snow fell, the world was silent, covering itself in a beautiful blanket of white. There was also the addition of regular deer hunting season. Once Davis was settled in even more at home, she and Puck were going to have to plan a trip. Maybe this year would be the year that Rachel would decide to come along, Santana highly doubted it though. Hunting just wasn't one of Rachel's favorite things to do.
Speaking of Rachel, the woman was covered head to toe with blankets. It wasn't cold in the cabin at all, but Rachel always liked to be extra warm. Santana smiled listening to the soft snores of her wife, who would swear that she never snored at all. Santana knew better than to tease her, it never ended well. Either way, it was still so cute. Sighing a little at having to get up out of her own blanket cocoon, Santana tossed the covers back and decided to make her way downstairs to put some food down for the dogs before letting them out and starting on breakfast for she and Rachel. Maybe she would put together a fruit salad with some of the things they had bought yesterday at Shuebury's, it was light and healthy. Before anything else was done, Santana knew she definitely needed to get some coffee going.
Rachel and Santana arrived at the new St. Lawrence Children's Home at roughly ten AM. There were a lot of cars already there, meaning that most if not all of the original group that Santana had put together was there as well. Everyone was gunning for that last minute push to get everything done before the week was up.
"I wonder if your parents are here?" Rachel asked as she leaned forward in her seat looking out of the windshield.
"I'm not sure. I don't see their rental car at the moment. They might show up later." Santana shrugged her shoulders. To be honest, she hadn't seen much of her parents since the night of the art show. They had found great friends in Leroy, Bayani, Shelby and Cassie, which Santana was thankful for. Between the calls and text messages she had been receiving, they had been spending a lot of time together. Grandparents bonding is what they had named all of their outings.
"Santana! Rachel!" Clark, a member of one of the churches that had stepped in last minute to help came trotting across the parking lot.
"Hey Clark! How are you this morning?" Santana asked as she climbed down out of her jeep. Rachel followed suit a moment later.
"I'm great! Listen, your stuff that finally arrived is in the dining hall. We set it up in kind of an assembly line the best we could. My crew didn't open anything, we just went by the box labels. There's a three tier cart we left in there for you too so you can hall a bunch of stuff at one time when you get it put together." Clark squinted his eyes against the bright morning sun.
"Thank you. We really appreciate that." Rachel stuck her hand out to shake Clark's hand.
"It was no problem. It really looks great in there. I know we will be done by the end of the week." Clark smiled a big toothy grin.
"Yeah? They've got it almost done?" Santana shielded her eyes and looked up at Clark. In a way he kind of her reminded of Mark Wahlberg.
"Almost. Respectfully I told my crew to stay away from anything that was associated with your group in terms of decorating. But, I noticed that you all were about done anyway." Clark took a long drink from his bottle of water that he was carrying.
"Yeah, Rachel and I hope to finish our personal rooms up today and get all the little accessories into the rooms." Santana tucked her hands into her pockets. The sun was bright and warm but the wind that was blowing was chilling her to the bone.
"That sounds cool. I got to go to my truck and get a dolly to move the last couple of bed frames into the dorm rooms downstairs. We're having a late lunch at around two, you both are more than welcome to join us. It was supposed to be an outside picnic, but with this wind we will most likely be eating in the dining hall." Clark spoke as he started towards his truck.
"That sounds great." Santana and Rachel both turned to smile at the man before heading inside. They had boxes to open, shower caddies to put together and other odds and ends that needed to be delivered to each room.
Santana couldn't get over just how much of the home was completely finished. If you didn't know before, you would never be able to guess that at one point the buildings were made for college students. Every room now looked bright and colorful instead of that boring off white color that most dorm rooms were painted. Santana was making her third and final trip to deliver shower caddies when she lost Rachel at the nursery. Marley had been running late and Rachel really didn't want to start on anything without her. They still had the wall decals and some paintings that had to be hung, but other than that, everything else would come with the children when they moved in.
Thanks to some help from a large group of suppliers every room was fully stocked with the basic necessities. The lounge rooms on each floor were decked out with new game systems and at least two computers for gaming. All of the other computers that were strictly for homework could be found in the library that thanks to Leroy, Bayani and the school system was over flowing with new books. For the children who found themselves doing home school instead of attending public school, there were at least three classrooms. They could work on their studies undisturbed throughout the day. Even the little kids had a classroom, Santana felt like it was more of a play room though.
As Santana made her way down the hallway on the top floor, she smiled as she placed two shower caddies and new towels and wash cloths inside each room. There were a few people still milling about, doing a last run through to determine if anything else needed to be done. It made her chest swell with pride to see so many people willing to help out with the children's home. Between all the money spent, the time dedicated, it was nice to know that humanity could still be humble.
"Santana!" Rachel shouted as she rounded the top of the stairs.
"Finished with the nursery already?" Santana asked as she looked at Rachel. The woman must have jogged up the stairs instead of taking the express elevator.
"No, Marley and I need your eyes on some of the stencils and decals. We really don't want them to be slanted." Rachel giggled as she tried to catch her breath.
"Okay, I have...four rooms left to do and then I can come help." Santana pushed her cart a little further down the hallway.
"I can help you." Rachel nodded her head to herself before she grabbed two shower caddies and walked into the next room. She came back a moment later for the towels and wash cloths.
"So, how does the nursery look?" Santana was curious. She hadn't seen it since it was still bare walls.
"It looks amazing. The walls are a hunter green color and the window seats are perfect. All of their little shelves are stocked with diapers, pull ups and wipes. They have dressers with extra clothes and a linen closet full of bedding. All the cribs aren't there yet, but that's because the rest don't come until move in day." Rachel gushed over the room. "Oh and their little stencils and decals are a bright white and dark brown or animals of some sort so it all matches in some way or another."
"It really does sound amazing." Santana grinned before walking into the last room to deliver the last of the caddies. There were still tons of extras down stairs that would go into storage for when they needed them.
"I can't wait for you to see it." Rachel followed along behind Santana as the woman made her way in and out of the last room. "Now, all of the rooms are officially stocked and ready to go."
"Well as ready as they can be right now. I can't believe this huge project is finally coming to a close. All those kids are finally going to get to start a new life in a new home." It felt like a chapter of her life was about to be over for Santana. Sure she had started plenty of new ones in the past and there were definitely going to be more, but this one was the most special. So much stuff had happened in this one chapter and frankly Santana wasn't ready for it to end. During this chapter alone she had gained a wife, was helping to remodel a children's home and she was adopting two girls from said home. This chapter, once it was finished, would be one for the ages.
Once Santana and Rachel made it back down to the nursery, Marley was in the process of laying out all of the stencils and decals that were meant to go around the room. When Rachel had left they were still in their packages laying on one of the dressers.
"Hi Santana. How are you today?" Marley asked as she looked up when the two women entered the room.
"I'm great, how are you Doc? Rachel said you two needed an extra pair of eyes for the stencils." Santana motioned to the items on the floor.
"I'm fantastic. And yeah, we just want to make sure they are as straight as possible since at least two of them are quotes." Marley stood up and dusted off the knees of her jeans.
"There's a rumor going around that they have ordered more words and quotes to put throughout the whole campus in the halls and such." Rachel raised her eyebrows as she peeled the backing off of one of the stencils.
"I think that would look great, personally. Maybe we should order some of these for the twins nursery?" Santana picked up one of the stencils and studied it. She could easily paint the same thing onto the walls instead of buying very large stickers.
"We can if you want to. Now, this one goes over the door, so were going to peel the backing a little and then slowly stick it into place, if it looks slanted at any point, you have to tell us." Rachel gave direct orders to Santana.
"You got it boss." Santana stood straight up, staring right at the wall.
"What have we gotten ourselves into?" Rachel giggled as she looked over at Marley, who stood there laughing.