Now that the computer is all set-up in the new house, I can give the run-down on the last four weeks. It's been crazy, to say the least. I'm glad I can look back at it now, rather than have to stare it in the eyes.
Tues, May 21st - PACK DAY
We had snow the night before, so the packers didn't arrive until about 10:30 am. There were two, they were men, and they were both over 50. Any preconceived notions you have just concocted reading those describers all were all true - they were slow, they were reckless and they were didn't get the job done. Collin knitted with his grandma-friend RuthAnn after school, and we skipped Cub Scout Pack Meeting. I had done a lot of packing in advance (both to get the house ready for the market and so the kids had less to make messes with), and I am so glad I had. At 8pm, they left, and after getting my tired monkeys in bed, I packed the last 4 boxes I'd purchased with items they'd not done. I picked up Ryan from the airport shuttle stop at midnight and called it a day.
Wed, May 22nd - LOAD DAY
The loaders were our only good experience of the move. There were a lot of them, they covered the floors with protective pads, they used ramps, they had blankets and padding, and they were efficient. I had my last follow-up appointment with the periodontist (from my March quad gum graft and then April re-do) in the afternoon. They were done loading everything by 4pm. Then we had Ethan's preschool graduation. I went to get a treat with my RS presidency before bed.
Thurs, May 23rd - CLEANING DAY
We took a good long time to get the car loaded. We had way too much for the space, but Mr Tetris made it happen. After getting Kate from preschool, we had lunch at Tina's house (RS president) and gave Kate a nap there. The carpet cleaner came about 1pm, but I just left the door unlocked. I picked the boys up from school, and the house cleaners came about 5pm. We went to dinner with the Pauly's (Collin's best friend). They were done cleaning at 7pm, and Tina and I stopped by at 7:30 to make sure everything was good-to-go. The final walk-through was at 8pm. We were done. The house looked great. Tina let us all sleep at her house.
Fri, May 24th - CLOSING DAY
We dropped the biggest boys off at school for their last day and Ethan & Kate at Maddox & Harper's house (Maddox was Ethan's best Church buddy). Ryan & I headed to the 8:30am closing. It was super smooth and easy. After grabbing donuts at Mr Yo's, our favorite spot, we tried to organize the car for a road-trip, and picked up Ethan & Kate and then Collin & Brennan.
We hit the road about 10:30am and headed to Colorado Springs. We checked into the hotel and swam in the pool. We ordered pizza and went to sleep.
Sat, May 25th - Garden of the Gods & Pike's Peak
We woke up early to beat the crowds and headed to Garden of the Gods. I thought this would be much more like a hike, but most of it is really just paved walkways. We had to intentionally seek out paths which were more nature-y. I don't feel like we stayed as long as I would have liked (maybe the kids were tired/whiny?). But it really is a cool pretty place.
After leaving Garden of the Gods, we headed to Pike's Peak. We waited in line to get through the toll booth, and then started the drive up the mountain. It was warm (not hot) at the base, but it got colder, snowier, icier and windier as we ascended. In fact, due to the late snows and never-coming Spring, the top of the mountain wasn't open (18 miles), and we had to turn back at Mile 14. The views were amazing though. I'm so glad we did this once before leaving Colorado.
Sun, May 26th - Manitou Cliff Dwellings & Air Force Academy
Sunday morning we checked out of the hotel and headed to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings. Ryan has always wanted to take the family to Mesa Verde, but we never made it. I picked this activity so the kids could get a feel for a similar history. It was pretty tiny and disappointing though, and we tried really hard but could only fill an hour. It was expensive and not worth it.
Since we now had a lot of time to fill, we headed to the Air Force Academy. Security is really tight, and they checked our IDs, trunk and had us open the doors so they could see the kids. This unplanned stop was actually perfect, and I'm glad we did it. We walked around the Chapel (neat aircraft-like design) and the neighboring statues. We also drove down to the Visitor Center and saw a short movie about life as a student there. The boys all left saying how much they didn't want to go into the military (too much yelling).
Then we drive to Alamosa. We met up with my parents at the VRBO house and went to Chili's for dinner.
Mon, May 27th - Sand Dune National Park & Splashland Pool
The next morning we headed to the store which rents sand sleds and sandboards. After some advice, we headed off to Sand Dune National Park. Even though we planned for it to be cold, we were still surprised how uncomfortable it really was. The wind was bitterly cold and whipped lots of sand into our eyes and faces. The kids and I wore sunglasses the whole time, and Ryan wore a bandanna we'd picked up with the boards. You have to walk across a creek bed to get to the dunes, and it was really flowing and had a good amount of water in it too. Since it was so cold, the last thing any of us wanted to do was get wet. We had a good time figuring out the sleds, and Ryan even made it down on the board a few times. We ended up liking sitting on the board better than the sleds because it slid over the sand better, but the foot bindings were pretty uncomfortable on your tushy. All in all, I'm glad we did this once-in-a-lifetime activity.
I had planned for us to take a wet hike up to a waterfall and also play in the sand and water near the parking lot, but seriously - it was soooo cold (in the 40s)! So we had a little picnic with sandwiches at the tables near the parking lot, and then headed to a hot spring pool.
My mom grew up spending her summers in this area, and she remembers always going to the hot spring pools after playing at the dunes. We ended up at Splashland. It wasn't crowded at all, and the sun and water were warm, even though the air was frigid. We had a great time... until we had to get out. ;-)
We grabbed pizza for dinner back the house and crashed. It's tiring to be on "vacation!"
Tues, May 28th - Manassa Cemetery
Another reason I wanted to meet my parents here was so we could visit the cemetery my mom's parents (and many other relatives) are buried in. When they each died, I attended their funerals, but because Manassa is so far out of the way and I was either pregnant or nursing, I never made it to their gravesites.
Anyway, as we drove to the cemetery, I rode with my parents, and my mom was able to point out the homes of her grandmother and where her summer-time friends lived. I even saw the pasture she used to ride horses in! It was fun to hear her stories and think of her as a little girl. Of course, we also saw their grave sites.
This was a surprisingly somber - no, SAD - experience for me. I miss my grandparents, and I wish I'd have taken more opportunities to see them before they passed. After I was out of the house, college and family always took precedence and time got away from me. I rarely saw them after high school.
After we were done at the cemetery, we said goodbye to my parents, as they had planned prior appointments to select their own plots and also with the engraver for their headstones. So awful to think about, but they want to try to make it easier on us after they are gone.
We started the long drive to Roswell, NM where we stayed the night.
Wed, May 29th - Drive to San Antonio
The next morning, we headed started the last leg of our journey, driving to our new hometown. After picking up Ryan's car (which had been parked at his work all week), we headed to our new "home" - a hotel near the airport.
Thurs, May 30th - Tuesday, June 4th
The next nine nights is kinda a blur. I think I have just blocked it because it was so hard. We spent a lot of time at the hotel pool and various playgrounds I found on Google. We also met the principal of the boys' new school and got a tour.
We even met a few people from the ward at the playground across the street from our new house, even though we weren't in it yet. One day we headed to New Braunfels to see our Peoria friends, the Powell's.
On Saturday, we went to Aquatica (a water park) and Sea World, so we didn't have to spend the whole day fighting in the room.
On Sunday, we went to our new ward (Leon Springs) and found out that we'd be having a special meeting the very next Sunday to put us into a new ward. Oh the irony. While in Colorado, we were placed in a new ward in a new stake with all new leadership THREE times in 5 years. Each ward lasted about 17 months, until the final one which was a full two years (haha, like that's a long time or something). Anyway, to learn that what we thought was going to be our ward was splitting made us feel like we were cursed or something.
Wed, June 5th - CLOSING DAY
I spent the morning packing up and cleaning the hotel room. We headed to our final walk-through, and the home owners were still home, hugging and saying goodbye to neighbors and eating lunch in the kitchen. They were supposed to get it professionally cleaned, but they said they had it done "the day before." Not exactly what we meant. Their Uhaul sat in the driveway. They also were supposed to have the sprinklers serviced and functioning, but the control panel was black. We also apparently didn't make the refrigerator an inclusion, so we didn't have one. Sigh. What a disaster. We finally got a texted-promise from the seller's agent that he'd pay for a sprinkler guy to come out, and we went to closing, about 30 minutes late. The kids had been running around like animals for 2 hours at this point, and luckily Melissa (met on Sunday swapped numbers) said she'd keep the kids for me.
At the title company, the mortgage was all in Ryan's name (I was upset about it, but he tried to get me added a couple weeks ago, and they said they'd have to start over from scratch). But, in the end, it was a good thing, because they spelled my name wrong in EVERY spot. My name is on the title and deed, and they spelled it -Ay instead of -Ey. Anyway, we all know how many hundreds of times you have to initial and sign your name to buy a house, and I had to do all of those PLUS I had to cross out my name, rewrite it and initial the change. Sigh. I guess I should have been glad I wasn't on all the mortgage docs too. When we finally got done, we grabbed the kids and got a celebration dinner at Lupe's Tortillas, a delicious, expensive Mexican restaurant. Then Ryan headed to Lowe's to buy us a fridge, and I headed to the hotel with the kids half-an-hour away for bed. That night Ryan went to Lowe's, then Home Depot and then back to Lowe's bought us a fridge after closing time and brought it back to the house. All the while, I hunted for someone to help him unload it from his truck and into the garage without our appliance dolley, which was on the moving truck.
Thurs, June 6th - CARPET INSTALL
Ryan had spent the night at the house while I was at the hotel, so he let in the carpet-layers, and they started demo about 8:30am before heading to work. I showed up at 10:45 with the kids to meet with the AT&T guy about tv and internet. I also brought all Ryan's things from the hotel, because he'd slept with nothing (no toothbrush!) the night before. It was a full trunk-load. AT&T took 4 hours to hook everything up, and the kids and I sat on the tile floor in the front room with blankets and kindles and noisy pounding for the whole time. I was finally able to take the kids to the neighborhood pool at 3pm, but a vicious, dark storm rolled through at 4pm, and we had to leave. Back to the hard floor and loud pounding. We finally met Ryan for dinner at Freddy's at 5:30. Again, we headed back to the hotel 30-mins away, and he headed back to the house. The carpet-layers finally finished up at 11:30pm.
Fri, June 7th - TRUCK DELIVERY
While I packed up the rest of the hotel and checked us out, Ryan welcomed the next round of movers. THREE guys showed up at about 8am. They came in a car following a semi loaded with 7 of our 11 crates. (Since we had a gap in housing, they'd unloaded our original semi. They'd removed all blankets from our furniture and crammed everything into crates to sit in a warehouse. Then when we were ready for our things, they'd lifted the crates into a semi.) Anyway, they didn't have blankets on any furniture, they didn't cover the floors, they didn't have ramps, there weren't enough guys, it was over 100 degrees with the accompanying southern humidity, and it was a nightmare from beginning to end. I showed up with the kids at 11am, and Ryan informed me he had to go into work and left me with the 3 idiots and my 4 crazies. The idiot handed me an enormous stack of carbon copy papers and as they pulled my furniture - and boxes - across gravel and nails, yelled numbers at me to cross off the list. All the while, Kate asked for food, Ethan asked for me to open wrappers, and Collin & Brennan argued about what the other did in their Minecraft world. I sweat in the insane heat while Allied numbers (from our previous move) and United numbers (this move) were also yelled at me. It was horrible. I finally texted Ryan and said "I need you" and he started the 30 min drive back from work. I thrust the paperwork at him when he pulled in, and he was out there with them until after 7pm.
Sat, June 8th - Unpacking
I thought after they movers left, things would calm down, but it was then that we discovered all the destruction they'd caused. It was so frustrating to see all the gouged furniture, broken glass and missing tools. (UPDATE - Two months later they cut us a check for $1000 to cover all the missing and broken items. It worked out, but it was super unpleasant and a huge hassle.)
