Things that Can Happen to You When You Move

• Your 20-month-old discovers she can climb out of her port-a-crib while you are en-route to your new destination.  She quickly carries on this new found talent to her crib which greatly hampers naps (which are desperately needed for all parties involved) and bed time.
• You realize the online bank you have put all your money in for the closing of your home does not do wire transfers.  You discover this Saturday afternoon while talking on your cell phone in the middle of Iowa.  You resort to blubbering and crying on the phone the next morning to a manger.  No give.  You even resort to threatening to remove all your money from said bank.  No give.  (Which is amusing if you think about it because you practically were taking it all out in the first place anyway.)
• You become desperate on Monday to access your money so you can buy your house.  You give your dad "Power of Attorney" over you so he can go to another bank and instigate wire transfer in your name.  Let me tell you, such power.  He better have shredded that thing! You do this to avoid the almost 4 hour round trip drive to the nearest bank you would need to go to, to get a wire transfer that would need to happen in person.
• You learn the hard way that purchasing a house when you have only seen it in the drywall stage maybe isn't always the wisest idea.  Great house, strange things about it.  Why would a builder opt to not put a phone jack in the kitchen or neighboring family room? Strange indeed.  There are other things but you might be too darn tired to list them at the moment.
• After 7 days (!) without doing laundry you finally start your first load of about . . . hmmm . . . a lot of laundry, only to discover after taking the fresh clothes out of the dryer they are all covered in melted yellow crayon.  Oh wonderful excitement.
• It takes at least 2 1/2 hours to attempt to remove crayon from clothing.  Crayon removed but all clothing now smells like WD-40.  Which is worse?
• Since your husband's birthday lands on the 2nd full day of living in new house you still haven't purchased a birthday gift, made a cake and even can't find the card that came for him in the mail.  You get creative and buy him ice cream called "Cake & Ice Cream" and stick candles in that.  It works.  All are satisfied.  
• Kids attempt to help the people un-packing.  You aren't sure who is worse.  The workers who just dump your items everywhere or your kids who discover said items and begin moving them, opening them, etc.  You now have a whole house full of stuff to dig out from underneath not to mention attempting to cajole your kids to clean up the 6 different re-discovered board games that lay in scattered heaps amongst the rest of your household items.
• You have no idea where your second vehicle is at the moment.  It was loaded on a truck last Monday and was suppose to arrive today.  Hopefully whoever is out joy riding in it won't put anymore scratch marks on it. 
• You wonder why you are sitting here writing a blog when your feet ache, your back aches, your hands and arms ache (from moving the piano) and you probably should take a shower.  Maybe because life deserves a little sense of humor.

The View From our House

In some ways I still feel like we are in Minnesota. The water, the breeze, even a black bird with red tipped wings singing in the trees. It's a comforting feeling.

How to Pack a House

Moving

Our life is upheaval again. We are on the road to Bartlesville after getting packed up and moved out these past few days.

There has been so much I wanted to blog about:

• Jaron deciding to use his newly acquired knowledge of the garage code. He ended up closing the garage door on the opened minivan trunk and getting the garage door stuck on the van door. Very fun. Hope we get our security deposit back.

• That same week Clark got rear-ended while driving the van. We seem to be setting a trend on damaging our vehicle multiple times in one week.

• What an awesome experience it was singing with the MN Mormon Chorale. It was such a gift to me in so many ways, namely it was the only place here I really made friends. (I'm going to miss you Liz!). Plus we had the awesome privilege of performing Rob Gardner's "Lamb of God". Stunning! Who would have thought I would have had an opportunity to really do one of his pieces again 11 years after going to school with him.

• Our kids single (or I should say multi) handedly attempting to make sure we don't get our security deposit back on our rental house.

• An awesome visit to Madison, WI where was saw friends and sights but didn't do any protesting. A drive by our old house was sobering. It didn't look too hot. (Davises you house looked great. Your landscaping is flourishing. )

• Finally selling our house in Bartlesville!

• Enjoying the luxury of Clark working from home. I'm not sure if I am going to miss that or the proximity to Target more. Not sure how Clark will feel about time with him compared to shopping at Target. It's a good thing, trust me.

• All the wonders of moving. The loaders showed up unexpectedly Thursday afternoon. We assumed they would prep a little bit of our furniture and put stuff down on the floors. We left for the evening and when we returned hours later we found almost the entire contents of our house on the main floor. Picture wall to wall boxes and furniture stacked shoulder high. It was a hunt to find dressers to locate pjs. Nothing like a little hunting at 10 pm when you have tired kids to get in bed.

Ok, I typed more than I intended but forgot plenty more. For viewing entertainment I snapped pictures of our kids entertaining themselves on the packers truck. And a note Jaron left for the packers on his alarm clock. I'm still chuckling about that.