Moving week

It has been a long, long week. Monday we picked up the truck from Budget and 7 or 8 of Jay's soldiers came by to help load it. I was feeling really good about it because they got most of the boxes and big furniture packed by the end of the day. That evening my friend Jenn and I went out to the opening night of Olive Garden. The next day Jay brought me to look at the truck--there was NO room left and we still hadn't loaded some of the garage and the couch, bed, and some other stuff. We debated over what to do and decided to get a U-haul trailer to hitch onto the truck. I was already really nervous about Jason driving that huge truck all the way down to Georgia, so this made it that much worse. Luckily, Uhaul had a trailer ready for us Wednesday morning, so Jason left to drop off a bunch of trash using the truck before picking it up. While he was at the recycling center, the truck broke down. The Budget guys came out and said the starter was broken so they would bring out a new truck. They dropped the new truck off an hour later and told Jason to call when he was done loading everything into it. He asked if they were going to help, and they said they couldn't because no one else was at their office. I called customer service to tell them to take responsibility for their mistake and send someone out to help him load it. The customer service rep said we had to call roadside assistance, so we did and they "sent someone out" and would "call when they got closer to get the exact location". Nothing. All day. Not a phone call, no one showed up, nothing! It was awful. Poor Jason had to load everything by himself that had taken him and 7+ people two days to load! Fortunately his soldiers showed up to help when they got off work to help him with the last half of the load. My friend, Tara came and helped me with the cleaning and last bit of packing that night. Thank God for good friends and those soldiers!

We both ended up spending that last night loading the truck and trailer and cleaning the house til 2:30 in the morning and got up again at 6am to finish. Our final walk-through appointment was at 11am on Thursday and we finished just in time. By the time we drove away, we were so exhausted! Here's Fort Drum (and Jason in the truck) in my rear view mirror!

It was still too early to check into our hotel and we were all starving, so we stopped at Cracker Barrel for celebratory pancakes.

Looking grungy after cleaning all night and loading the truck in the rain.

We stayed at a local hotel to get a good night's sleep before taking off Friday. Bailey and James snuggled up together in his scooby doo sleeping bag.

Riley thought he wasn't tired at all.

We hit the road Friday morning, a little later than we'd planned, but we made it to almost halfway. We drove around in circles in the middle of nowhere at the end when Jason took the wrong exit (I had mom find a pet-friendly hotel close by), but the kids and dogs were great sports about it. We finally found the inn and grabbed a late dinner at Steak and Shake.

There was a little girl in a high chair at the table next to us and Riley was flirting! They had squealing contests and grinned at each other. It was adorable.

We were worn out after 12 hours on the road, except for Riley. He slept almost the entire drive and refused to sleep in the hotel crib. Both kids, one dog, and Jason and I ended up in that bed. The other dog would have too, but her legs were too short! We got barely any sleep that night.

We headed out the next morning for another long drive. The further south we got, the more things were alive and in bloom. We saw some gorgeous cherry blossoms at this rest stop.

We stayed with my folks Saturday night. The kids and dogs loved getting out of the car and getting to run around. James kept saying he didn't want to go to Georgia, he wanted to stay at Grandma's house. Mom road with me and my dad drove down behind Jason and we all caravan-ed to Georgia on Sunday. After 3 consecutive, looooong days of driving, it felt so good to pull into our new driveway and stay put! Our landlords met us when we got here and walked us through. They were so kind and helpful and had put together a little welcome basket for us. The house is beautiful and the neighborhood is friendly. We got the truck unloaded in one day, even with a late start. I think every one of our neighbors dropped by throughout the day and introduced themselves and welcomed us. Everyone is so nice! I think this is the the friendliest community we've ever lived in! Most of everyone here is retired and has grandkids, so they're older than us. But everyone looks out for everyone else. It's a quiet little cul-de-sac, but we're close enough to everything in town that it's just a short drive.

I'll be posting some pictures of the house soon, but right now everything is all over the place. Right now, we're breathing a huge sigh of relief, relaxing, and saying a prayer of thanks for making it through all the chaos and making it down here safe and sound.