Moving Day!!

Well, it's moving day. We did it. Something I swore I would NEVER do on graduation weekend, MOVE. But, that's life. You graduate, you move, RIGHT? I must say, it was much more pleasant than I thought it was going to be. When you have 6 people helping, LOTS can get done. Kyanne and Mom Gochnour took the kids to Costco and the park to get them out of the house while John, myself and my parents worked like wildfire!!

Thankfully, I was able to do a lot of prep work for this move. When we made the decision months ago to move graduation weekend, I started packing, cleaning, de-junking right then. I had an entire storage room (just off our back patio) full of boxes all ready to go. So, by the time graduation came around we didn't have anything but the "last minute" stuff to do. I did NOT want packing to keep us away from any "graduation" festivities that John wanted to be a part of, so we didn't let it!!

That did leave for a pretty busy day on Monday. The big decision was what size trailer to use? If we were going straight to work for a firm, they would have moved us. That's right, come into our house, put everything in boxes, put it in a truck, and drive it to our destination. BUT since we're doing a clerkship, we had the pleasure of doing it ourselves. We decided to go with the smaller trailer. It was about $500 cheaper than the slightly larger one and since we don't really own $500 worth of "stuff" we decided we could toss or sale whatever didn't fit. Between my Dad's amazing tetras skills and Suzanne's moving expertise, we all made a great team. They loaded the trailer while my mom and I taped the last minute kitchen stuff.

Just our luck, it started POURING while we were loading things. Thank goodness John was watching the clouds very carefully and had (mostly) everything covered before the real rain came down.

Well daddy was wet, so the boys thought they should get wet too. Jonah really liked it a lot more than he's showing in this picture.

Nothing like a nice warm bath after cold, wet rain... earrings and all!

Kyerin and John Moody (and their new born Morgan) had been all week at a beach house in Florida and stopped to pick up Madi on their way back up to Shipensburg, PA where they're living right now. Soon after they got there, I had to rush my parents and Kyanne off to the airport. I got home and the 2 Johns (with Suzanne's guidance and suggestions of course) had loaded everything into the truck. I could NOT believe they fit every piece of furniture we talked about taking... EVEN the green "scotty" chairs.

I like to call this next situation a "funny marriage moment". Every marriage has them, these "miscommunications", these "why couldn't you read my mind" moments. Well, this was a pretty memorably one in our relationship. A miscommunication that we are now able to laugh about and something we did not realize until we finally walked about it weeks later, after the truck was gone and even unloaded in AZ. Anyway, once we decided to go with the smaller trailer (IN MY MIND-- John claims I never said it out loud) I let those chairs go. I was fine to leave them in NC and sale them, toss them, give them away. They were gone in my book and I was pretty excited to just get new ones some day. BUT as soon as we decided on the smaller trailer John had determined (also IN HIS MIND) that he was bound and determined to somehow fit those darn chairs in (since he was feeling slightly to blame for the smaller trailer because it was cheaper). Well, when I came home from the airport and saw them in the back of the truck, I thought "Why the heck is he trying to fit those chairs in? Haven't I made myself clear that I DON'T want them anymore?" But I didn't say anything because they were already packed well in there, moving is stressful enough, I didn't to discuss, conflict with one more thing, and Suzanne (for whatever reason) really wanted them in as well... So whatever. Together John and Suzanne worked their magic and got the chairs in, even though I thought it was a waste of moving space. So, there's the story of those ugly, greasy, Scotty chairs!! I wish SO badly that we would have used that space and brought the unbelievably comfortable blue Lazy Boy chair we left behind. I would SO rather have had that chair that I've nursed all my newborns in... but, I guess that's a mute point now, ha?? The green chairs are here, and now it will only cost a fortune to get them reupholstered...

After the rain storm the neighborhood geese (from the near by pond) came looking for lunch in our backyard. I think they found something yummy.

The Moody family left pretty quickly after the loading was done but it was so fun to see them and meet sweet little Morgan.

Amazing. It was packed to the brim AND beyond. By the time the sun set, we had every tarp, rope, cord, and box in tow. Suzanne wanted an early start on her drive across the country so we wanted everything to be ready for her to leave as early as she wanted.

That night Suzanne slept on our air mattress (best I've ever slept on). We left it out for John to use all summer while he lived in an unfurnished apt all alone in DC. John and I slept on two toddler/crib mattresses on the floor. It was hilarious!! Lets just say this, they aren't the best quality of mattresses. When Jack layed on them, the almost sunk to the ground... imagine what happened when John and I layed on them!?! I sleep curled up in a ball anyway, but John' s feet were hanging off the edge big time, and we were sleeping on a tiny blanket with just a sheet on top of us...oh it was so funny. The adventures we live through. That's what makes life so fun!!

Hats off to the amazing packers and HUGE thanks to my amazing mother in law who willingly drove all of our stuff across the country for us.

Jack was a little worried to see all of his toys go, but got really excited when we told him we were moving into Ethan's house for the summer.

He thought he should drive with Baba Gochnour!

Later that night the Pelfrey family came over to say good bye. They were headed to Dallas for the summer internship (hence we're subletting from them) and we would be gone before they got back. It was a sad day, mostly for the mommies because I'm pretty sure the boys had no idea what was going on. They just thought it was another play date!!

Ethan and Jack-- Best Buds
Jonah and Liberty

The next morning, breakfast was quite adventurous. Scraping by with a few spoons and bowls we had thankfully left out, eating on boxes... all that good stuff.

Cleaning off the fridge. We found this sticker chart and Jack really wanted to take a picture with is before I threw it away. Jack stayed dry all night for 3 weeks. He earned car after each week... BUT he hasn't been consistently dry since then, so I'm not sure what to do now?

John went to campus to start his BAR study and I moved all of our stuff over to the Pelfreys house where we are spending the next couple months before we move to AZ. That night we put our boys to sleep in their new beds and sweet Lauri Leslie came over and sat with our sleeping boys while John and I went back and cleaned. It was spotless when we were done!! (and YES, we did get our entire deposit back a few weeks later... $300). The hours spent cleaning were well worth it.

WOW, I'm glad that is over. Trying to organize what goes to AZ, what can go untouched for a year vs. what will we need to get into once we're in AZ. What stays for the summer (what will fit into our trunk), what stuff are we going to sale, what food/spices will I use this summer, what should we leave aside for John to take to DC (living in a completely unfurnished apt.) etc. etc. etc. It was WAY too much brain work! But we did it all with not a single breakdown (that I can recall) and we're still in love!! So, hats off to us :) The Gochnour family has one more move under our belts!

Happy moving!!