Never a Dull Moment...: Moving Day

Moving day was a little crazy, as was to be expected. We were very blessed to have so much help. For starters, my dad, who had been helping all week, accompanied me to pick up the moving truck. Then, when I chickened out at driving it home, he even did that for me. Seriously, I didn't know I was such a wimp. When we got it home, he and Kurt took apart our front deck so that we could put the ramp straight from the driveway to the front door. It was a little precarious, but it certainly made loading the truck a lot easier!

My dad was the Tetris king. You know, loading all the belongings of a family of 8 into a 24 foot truck is like playing a game of Tetris. You can't waste an inch. So he stood in the truck the whole time, fitting things together so that there was no wasted space. We had so much help that it bottlenecked on our ramp, because to pack a truck well, you have to pack it slowly. And it was packed well. Because we fit everything! We didn't have to leave a lot of our belongings behind this time.

Like I said, we had a ton of help. I wish I had taken more pictures of loading the truck and all of our great friends that came to help us out, but alas, I was a little overwhelmed, so all you get is this silly picture of Spencer and Barrett and all of our Legos.

Dixon's flight got in on Thursday night late, and by the time he got home, we were all asleep (at Grandma and Grandpa's house). Friday was spent renting a trailer for all the last minute things, and cleaning. Hayden had a swim meet that night, which we were able to catch a little of. We said goodbye to my family that night, and drove out to the Falters for a family sleepover for our last night in Washington. We hung out there with the Falters and the Shoops all evening. It was a teary goodbye. You don't have friends like that everywhere you go.

We left on Saturday morning for our three day drive. Things went smoothly for about ten minutes. Until I pulled into the gas station to fill up with gas. The card that we were planning on using all the way to Arizona didn't work. It had expired. We had no gas card and little money. Time to stress out. I used some of my cash to put gas in the car, and kept driving. We then stopped in Centralia, so Dix could try to cash his paycheck. While he was in doing that, I was parked outside the bank. All of sudden Landon was throwing up in the backseat. Things were not looking promising. I told Dix that while he was in the bank I would run to the store. I found a gas station that sold Dramamine and bought enough to last for three days for Landon. Once he got that in his system, he was fine. But not until he had emptied his stomach a few more times. Thank goodness for the Costco box of gallon sized Ziploc bags that my mom had given us. We took all his stinky clothes, zipped them into a bag and didn't have to smell them for the rest of the drive.

Luckily our drive improved after that. We were able to make it money-wise, Landon stopped throwing up and our car drove flawlessly. Well, we did have one more mishap. Porter's lizard pooped on his leg. Again, thank goodness for Ziploc. Lizard poop is pretty stinky, in case you were wondering.