Life is a Highway

So, we said goodbye to 103 Densbury Ct. and the adventure had really begun.

I arrived at our hotel room close to midnight.  Everyone else was asleep, or at least trying to asleep. Ian was frustrated because they had promised him a no smoking room and by the way it smelled, that was definitely not the case.  However, we were only staying there for a few hours before we woke up early for the drive so it wasn't that big of a deal.

I got ready for bed and hopped in.  My mind was spinning, so I had some trouble going to sleep. Then, after a few hours of fitful tossing and turning I woke up to the dog sitting up from his usual position at our feet absolutely shaking.  Poor dog!  I assumed that he was freezing cold, and indeed, the room was very chilly so I went over to the air conditioner and cranked it warmer.  I headed back to bed and while I was rubbing the dog trying to get the shaking to stop I started smelling smoke. Apparently, turning up the temperature so much had cranked on the heat and it smelled like something was about to catch fire.  So, I ran back over and just turned it off...awesome!

Then as all this was going on, Ian and I noticed that the smoke alarm was doing it's fabulously annoying "low battery" beep.  Great!  So, I spent the rest of the night laying there worrying about the dog and that the room would catch fire and it wouldn't be caught because the smoke detector was broken.  That definitely made for one of the worst night's sleep that I've ever had.  (Oh, and it turns out the dog wasn't cold.  Weeks later when I was having my home alarm installed, Rip started doing the same shaking.  Turns out he didn't like the beeps of the alarm, like the beeps of the smoke alarm.  Who knew?!)

Fortunately, I didn't have to be in that room for long.  Our alarms were set for 5am, and we packed up, picked up some tired sleeping kiddos, and dumped everyone and everything in the car for our journey.  We were off.  The 14 hour drive to St. Louis was about as uneventful as a 14 hour drive can be.  We travelled through North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and finally, into Missouri!  The kids patiently played video games, read books, and watched movies the whole time.  They've really gotten to be pretty good travelers.  Ripple was sleeping for the most part, but whenever we stopped and one of the adults took the kids to the restroom, Ripple got very concerned.  He was so stressed about the pack getting separated.  Poor dog!

While we were journeying Ian entertained us by writing fabulous little Oregon Trail updates and posting them to Facebook.  We both had always loved playing that game in elementary school, so we thought it was appropriate as we were on our journey.  We went "hunting" for McNuggets, forded the mighty Mississippi, and poor Ripple even "got cholera".   Hey, it kept us busy.

After a long day in the car, we finally passed by the St. Louis arch and arrived safely at the Homewood Suites-Chesterfield which would be our home for the next few days.  We had arrived...now what was going to happen?

(heading out from the hotel on the morning of our drive-If you look carefully you can see our moving truck with all of our possessions conveniently parked in the Waffle House across the street.)

(Moving can be tiring!)

Saying Goodbye, Why is it Sad?

After Evan's school let out for the year, we had about a week before we headed out for St. Louis.  So, that week we had a lot of sad goodbyes to make.  It had been a hard month, but I think that week was definitely the hardest part.  We ended up seeing lots of good friends, which was great, but at the end of those outings we always had to say goodbye which was not fun.

Our great friends and neighbors, the O'Malleys were even leaving early so they wouldn't be there when the actual moving truck was pulling out.  There were a few tears when we all met for one more wine night, but we planned to meet at the beach in about a month, so we tried to think of it not like goodbye, but see you later!

There was a particularly hard evening when we were having one last dinner at the South's house.  We ate dinner and enjoyed each other's company one more time.  As always, the kids were having a great time playing, and it was hard to watch them knowing that they would have to leave their good friends.  They also gave us some personalized stationary so the kids could write each other letters from afar and a really sweet book filled with pictures of all the great times the kids have had together.  When we were leaving Nathan and Evan were out in the grass giving each other their secret handshake one more time.  I lost it at that point, and I'm glad it was dark on the way home so the kids didn't see how upset I was.

(one last sweet playdate)

The week continued with more goodbyes.  Then, that Monday the movers arrived.  It's an odd thing when people arrive to pack up your whole house.  On one hand, you're so glad that you don't have to do all that work yourself.  But on the other hand, it's hard to see people just throwing all your treasured possessions in boxes.  Turns out, these particular packers weren't very good and ended up damaging quite a few of our belongings, but we didn't know it in all the chaos of packing up.

The packers packed for two days and left us with a house full of boxes.  The next day, the moving truck arrived to load everything.  Turns out that moving day was also Evan's birthday, poor kid.  We had already celebrated with a party for both of them, and we had promised him that he got his family "birthday day" of fun once we got to St. Louis, but we still wanted to make the official day fun for him.  He ended up spending most of the day playing video games with Ben in a closet while the movers were there, which he really didn't mind.  That evening, the movers were gone and the house was completely empty.  We ended up bringing his choice, Moe's back to the empty house and eating one last meal where the kitchen table used to be on the floor!  We had also picked up some cupcakes from one of our favorites, Smallcakes, and sang to Evan and had him blow out his candle.  Even though we were moving, he still got to open his presents and he was absolutely thrilled with his new Kindle that he could use on the long drive the next day.

After the birthday celebration, the kids, Ian, and the dog got in the car to head to the hotel and get some sleep.  I hung around because I wanted to make sure to get everything clean for the new owners.  I think I also just wanted a few minutes of peace and quiet to say goodbye to the house.  My neighbors Kurt and Jill were also nice enough to hang around and help me with some of the cleaning.  Once everyone else told me that it was clean enough, I did one last walk through the house.  I distinctly remember walking through each room remembering some of the great memories there, and then turning off the light.  Of course, I was a wreck, but I had some great friends there to help me out.  It had been a great house.  It was filled with so many memories and so much love that of course we were sad to leave.  But that was the hardest part, and I knew that now the exciting and fun (?) part of the adventure was starting.

The next day, after one of the worst nights in a hotel ever, we would take off for a whole new chapter in our lives, the next chapter, in St. Louis!

(all our possessions get loaded in the truck)

(Boy, we have a lot of stuff!)

(The boys play their video games while everyone packs...and the poor dog looks on anxiously.)

(birthday dinner)

(blowing out the big #7 candle)

(Birthdays are sweet no matter what!)

(The truck drives away...see you in St Louis!)

*Oh, and did anyone else catch the Muppets reference in the title.  That line is from a Kermit the Frog song, I think it's called Saying Goodbye.  I remember singing it with my friend when we were moving from Denver, and it always pops back into my head at moments like this.