The Move

There is SO MUCH to blog about that I will just have to break it up into sections.  I know the few who actually read this blog are just dying for pics of the house, well I'm sorry you will have to wait just a tad longer!  This post is about the move itself, I'll post pics of the house later.  For now, here is an overview of the move:

Well we made it to Texas and are FINALLY settled in (mostly)!  Let's just say this past month (June, that is) has been a very LONG month. We had originally planned on packing up the trunk June 2nd with Erik and my dad leaving the 3rd and me and the kids leaving the 4th.  Well, the bank being the horrendously slow and inefficient bank that it is (dang you, Bank of America!) we were unable to close until the 21st! Meh, things do not always go as planned so I've (re)learned on this move. 
While we were waiting for the bank to get in gear, we packed.  Little bits here and there, what do you pack when you know you are going to move but don't know exactly when? Frustrating! Well on Monday the 11th,we finally got the okay to pack up the entire house and move, because we thought we could close the 15th (haha, yeah right).  Besides, Erik had to be in Texas for orientation on the 20th, so we figured we probably outta move out of AZ anyway.  What a chore, I'll tell ya!  You think you have enough boxes, but turns out you can never have too much! We loaded everything onto the Uhaul truck on June 12th.  Gabe sure had a blast running back and forth from the truck to the garage.  His friend Kade came to visit before we left, and that made it all the more fun! A huge thank-you to the Rose Valley ward Elder's quorum for helping us load the truck, we'll sure miss that ward!  And an even bigger thank-you (albeit a very inadequate one) to my in-laws for practically EVERYTHING dealing with the house and the move, we would so be living in a crappy apartment it if weren't for them!  I guess we owe them 23 grandchildren by now :)
 Since we had to reschedule the flight for me and the kids, the price went sky high. In order to save money, Gabe did the 18-hour drive with my dad and Erik instead of flying with me and Elisa.  He did a really good job-he's such a good little boy! I was worried about the trip being too much for Gabe, but he's such a little trouper.  Besides, its one less kid to get through security! Everyone left early Wednesday morning, and me and Elisa stayed behind because the flights were just too expensive if we went any earlier. Luckily enough for us, our kind friends the Riddles took us in and let us mooch off them for almost a week!  Thank goodness for good friends, Elisa and I would have been homeless without their hospitality! We are so grateful, and I never forget nice things people do for me.  We had a great time staying at their nice home, but all good things must come to an end, so on Monday the 18th we said goodbye to Arizona, and flew to Houston on a 2 1/2 hour flight.  Elisa did wonderfully on the flight.  She sure can be needy, but all in all she is a really good girl. 
By then Erik, Gabe, and my dad were already in Texas (Texas City, to be exact).  Erik's parents had left to go home already, and we had STILL not closed on the house!  So Erik and my dad rented a room in an extended-stay hotel called Value Place.  It was nice to see Gabie and Erik again and of course my dad (that was the longest I had ever been away from my Gabe!), but what a waste of a week! And boring too.  Poor Elisa was so bored, any chance she got she would escape out the hotel door.  We were able to go inside the house before we closed, but be couldn't do anything to it.  It was frustrating sitting around the boring hotel room knowing there was so much to be done with the house but not being able to do anything at all.  We weren't even allowed to park the van in the driveway.  If fact, while me and Elisa were still in AZ, Erik, my dad, and Erik's dad thought they could at least unload the van and put the stuff just into the garage, but turned out they weren't allowed to do that either.  So after unpacking most of the van, they had to put it all back! So glad I wasn't there for that.  On Thursday after MUCH much tribulation, irritation, calls and emails, we were finally able to close! We didn't unpack the van until Saturday, and only one guy from the elders quorum helped.  Poor guy, but we were happy to have at least one person show up!


Pictures to come in the next post when I find the camera :)