moving

Who loves moving?  I'm sure none of you are cringing now, are you?  So actually, I really like moving.  I don't like packing and all the pain that comes with it, but I love finding a new house and starting fresh somewhere.  I was able to go on a house hunting trip the week before we moved.  BY MYSELF!  It was heaven, I must admit.  I flew out and my mom picked me up at the airport.  We went house hunting all day, and I found the perfect place!  It was just the third house we looked at.  It was the perfect size with a back yard, an awesome kitchen, and just felt comfortable and homey.  It's only a few minutes from Derrick's work, which is a bonus because he can ride his bike.  I got really nervous after I saw it.  I was so afraid someone else would snatch it up before I could, so we drove around and rearranged appointments so I could see all the rest that day.  The other ones couldn't even compare, so I got right to work on the application and setting it up.  It was sort of nervewracking while we were waiting for them to go over paperwork and checking all of our references.  There was nothing else I could do!  So my mom and I just took the next day to have fun... We went shopping and bought way too much, and ate lots of yummy food, and just had a girl bonding day.  It was fabulous.  And then that night... she left.  And I was in the hotel BY MYSELF!  It was awesome!  Something I had been dreaming of for a while. :) If there is something that having children has given me a newfound appreciation for, it's solitude.  So anyway, we got the house, I did lots of other fun stuff in Utah, and then I flew home... just to move 3 days later.

We were VERY lucky to get the full service moving setup from Derrick's work.  The guys came and packed all of our stuff for us and loaded it up.  So what did we do while they were doing our dirty work?  Well we broke out the "Man Toys" bin of course. 

And we tried to convince our kids they needed to pick ALL the "pretty yellow flowers."

And Hayden drew lots of pictures in his spare time.

Ok, not really.  Well, we did those things but we certainly had enough to keep us busy!  CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN.  I'm grateful for the packers though, because it made it so we were able to clean the whole place without needing help.  It was just nice to feel like we were making good progress and on a good schedule.  But did I mention we were also getting our new linoleum floors put in those days? Remember the flood?   We had to replace the lino. (and I can certainly tell you what flooring company NOT to use, considering that they were supposed to be put in weeks before, and due to their mistake we were a week with cement floors...plus a few other things that made me crazy.)

 But we all sort of felt like this by the end.

This was just an hour or so before we left.  This is called desperation at the last minute, and you do whatever you can to keep them from killing each other or driving you crazy.  Poor kids.  We were all feeling SO done. Our last project... putting up a handrail over the stairs.  Since we bought a foreclosure, we had to put one in ourselves. It was just a project that never got done, oddly enough.  We had to have one though, to pass inspection when we sold it.

And then we loaded our pillows in the car, and left.  We stayed in a hotel in town that night, but first, we went to Texas Roadhouse because we were starving and our per diem benefits from our travel reimbursement were starting. :)  We were in the van on the way there when we heard this strange alarm sound.  I started digging through stuff on the floor (think of all the things you throw in the car at the last minute of packing plus a 3 day road trip) and found our weather radio!  We didn't realize it had a battery, but it was still working.  It was sort of hilarious.  Glad to be prepared. (There were no tornados that night.)

I didn't get any pictures of our road trip, but I'm sure you can guess how it went.  Fine. Lots of sleeping.  Listening to Harry Potter on CD.  Our kids survived because of our DVD player.

The first night we stopped in Des Moines.  We found this great deal on a water park/hotel.  It's called Adventureland inn.  I'm guessing it's off season, because the place was dead.  We were the only people in the whole place!  That also explains the great deal we got.  If any of you Indiana people are going on a road trip back West, I would highly recommend checking out what kind of deal you can get on this place.  It was so fun.

This is Hayden in the kids' area.  He could touch the bottom in the whole area.  Halle almost could.  There were some fun kid toys and a slide.  There was also an adult's area and a spa. (double check that there are no parties going on when you book it.... the adult area has a bar.)

to be continued...