Our moving experence

At ballet recital with friends.

At Xmas tree lighting with friends.

This was a great climbing tree by our temporary Lodging.

This has been a big move for us. Before the movers came we had to make three different piles for where our stuff would be going: England, long term storage and Albuquerque. We were very stressed not know how it was going to be having all the movers here on the first day. We were lucky and the movers were good. Only three time we thought they packed the laptop, the binder and pool key that needed to stay in the house ($100 fee) and our passports but there were no problems. I did cost a lot to feed people lunch for three days but they deserved it. We have so much stuff. I am to good at organizing and fill all and any storage places. My goal is to have a big yard sale when we get to England. I just hate to throw something away that I might need there.

Moving out of our house took eight days. Two days packing, Thanksgiving, one day to move the stuff out, two days of camping out on air mattress and sleeping bags (thank you Crystal and Jill) and two days of cleaning our butts off (thank you everyone who let us barrow cleaning stuff). We stayed in temporary lodging while cleaning and a few days after. We got to see Pope's Christmas tree lighting for the first time and visit with friends one last time.

It's always exciting to go to new places but this was the first time with kids. Most of our friends have always moved out before us so that was hard to leave them behind (even though they will be moving soon too). We had a Nerf dart war in our empty house with Audric's friends(he earned it for all the books he has read since June). Audric and Julie had a going away party at school the day before we left, we had a couple dinners with friends and Tim had a going away party at work. We miss everyone, it's hard to to leave home and Family; our friends.

It took five days of driving two cars from North Carolina to New Mexico. Our plan was to put a kid in each car but after seeing how much stuff we had packed that it wouldn't fit safely. The Rav4 got packed full of our clothes and thing we would need for the next six months, not even the front seat was empty. The Subaru had the kids, our travel clothes and bikes on top. (Sarah's struggles) If you don't already know driving long distances make me fall asleep. I trained myself to do that as a kid so I would get to places quicker. Well it's a pain in the butt now. The first day I was fighting myself to stay awake. The kids were in the back watching movies so I couldn't even sing to music to stay awake, I resorted to slapping myself. I tried eating sunflower seeds; that helped. Now I will forever use 5hour energy when driving. It was great.

Day 1: Left 8:30am, checked out of TLF. 8 hours drive, with a lunch stop, we stayed just outside of Atlanta, GA. We drove through NC on 95, SC on 20, and ended in GA. Stayed at Holiday Inn express. Audric got two spider bites.

Day 2: Woke up 7:00am ate free breakfast yum. Packed the car, loaded the bikes left around 8:30am. Drove on 20 through GA, AL (pretty state) and stayed in Mississippi right outside of Memphis in another Holiday Inn express. Julianna, we realized, had a UTI. She's on meds daily already and I knew what dose to give her to take care of it.

Day 3: Woke up ?? time change. ate free breakfast, I love free. Drove through Memphis and to Little Rock, AR for lunch. We met up with two good family friends for lunch at Jason's deli. A long lunch but it was worth it. We drove to Oklahoma City to another Holiday Inn express. It was nice staying in the same hotels every night. It made us feel like we were not driving all day. Tim did a good job.

Day 4: Good breakfast, no real butter. Poor Julie didn't eat much because she still felt sick. Short drove to Amarillo, Tx. OK was nice the day before but now it was bear and flat; Tx looked the same. We went swimming in the hotel pool, ate at Texas road house for dinner. I got carded for drinks and got to use my Texas drivers licence.

Day 5: stopped at Santa Rosa, NM for lunch. Got to new Apartment by 1:30pm. No more driving!

I forgot to say that this whole move we were all sick. Coughing, runny noses, just crappy feeling.

Our daily trip to the car with all our stuff plus one more with the bikes.