Moving Day - Day 3 - We're Still Alive

Today was a long day, Justin finished packing the moving truck to the ceiling (I really mean to the ceiling). Justin is covered with lots of bruises, I know he's ready for a good long vacation from moving. Siti & Papa arrived just in time to help at around 2 pm today. They took Annabelle back to the hotel this evening for a swim - this was great because it allowed Justin and I time to finish getting the last few items into the truck. Tomorrow morning we will get up and finish putting the rest of the stuff from our house into our cars. We also have to drive to the airport to drop off the truck in long term parking so Justin can pick it up next week. Closing on our old house is at 2pm and after that we plan on driving as far as we can and hopefully making it to Austin. We'll arrive in McAllen ( if all goes well) on Wednesday by 3 pm. Our closing on the new house will probably be Thursday or Friday if everything works out, but I have NO expectations of that! Everything regarding the closing of the new house has been an obstacle! We'll at least get the keys and be able to move in on Wednesday. Should be an interesting long drive with Justin trying to drive as fast as he can, a two year old, 2 retired people and a screaming cat! I'll definitely need a vacation after this...

Happy Birthday Grandpa Writer

Happy Birthday Grandpa Writer! We hope you had a great day!

Moving Days - Day 1

Today we picked up the Penske truck. Notice how thrilled Justin looks in this photo. We reserved a 22 foot truck with a ramp & on Thursday Penske called and asked if we would take a 26 foot truck with a hydraulic lift, they gave us another discount so we decided we would take it (especially since the lift will come in REALLY handy with moving the piano!). Justin moved all our boxes from the storage shed and garage to the truck today, tomorrow Justin's buddy is going to stop by to help move some of the bigger items into the truck. Annabelle and I spent the day packing more stuff, the photo shows how Annabelle helps me pack glasses - by trying each one out! (Don't worry, I'll wash them all before I put them in the new cabinets). Our neighbors, Tina & Jeff, made dinner for us tonight since our kitchen is packed away, Annabelle spent the afternoon with Derek (Tina & Jeff's son). Good neighbors are hard to find and we will definitely miss them!

My co-workers threw a going away party for me at On the Border last night, it was good to see everyone I work with now and all the people I used to work with too! I will miss them all very much.

Our house in Moore is still scheduled to close on Tuesday. We don't have our loan on the new house yet so we signed a lease agreement with the seller so we can move into the house until closing. We had hoped to be able to close on the 1st but it looks like it might not happen until later in the week or early the following week....ugggghhh!

Moving Day is Approaching...

Today my boss had a going away luncheon for me, even though I'm really not "leaving" the company. We went to On the Border (very funny, since we are moving "on the border") for lunch and Justin and Annabelle were invited too. It was a fun lunch and I will definitely miss spending my days with all the people I have worked with for five years now! They are a fun bunch of people and have made my work life really good. The great thing is I will still be able to see them as much as I want on IChat!

Our house here in Moore is set to close on Tuesday. Our new house does not have a closing day set yet, our loan is, once again, in underwriting, the banking system is such a mess now. I'm hoping by Monday we will have a closing day but I am not getting my hopes up. If closing doesn't take place by the time we arrive in McAllen with our entire home packed into our truck we'll have to pay rent to the seller to live in the new house until closing. Preparing to move to South Texas has probably been the most challenging move preparation we've encountered so far with: difficult house hunting, language barriers, technological retardation, electricity that you choose (who knew there'd be billions of choice for electricity?), utilities that can't be hooked up unless you go to the city hall IN PERSON, slow bank loans and a bunch of other hurtles that we have had to overcome. Let's just hope the trip down there isn't as eventful as the preparation! If so, we'll just stop where we are and start a new life...haahaaa!

"Do you have everything packed for moving?" Lots of people have been asking me this...and the answer is definitely "no way"...last night I got out two boxes, put one in the kitchen and one in the living room, Annabelle climbed into one and Walter climbed into the other, I guess that means packing is all done!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to Daddy, Grampa, Grandpa & Papa! We hope you had a wonderful Father's day!

Just Swimmin'

Saturday Afternoon Swim

I should've been packing today but instead decided to blow up the big pool and let Annabelle swim, she absolutely loved it! It was so hot outside. Since we goofed off today now we'll have to work extra hard at packing tomorrow. The buyer is supposed to do a walk through on our house here in Moore on Tuesday and after that we are all set for closing on the 30th. Our loan is still in underwriting for our home in Texas, let's just hope and pray that it goes through before the 30th! Justin and I are very worried about the closing on our new home but there isn't much we can do to speed anything up!

Walter

"Are we done moving yet". . .poor Walter.

I don't think he's enjoying all the packing, he's a grumpy old man.

New imac!

My new imac arrived today. I spent most the evening installing software (Annabelle was not happy about this, she wanted me to "hold" her). We set up a virtual network so I can link directly with the server at work but, of course, it wouldn't work so I'll have to trouble shoot that problem tomorrow at the office. The new computer is very pretty!

Everything with the house in McAllen is moving along, the house was re-inspected today and some of the repairs were not completed. The repairs will need to be made before closing. The lawn hasn't been taken care of either so our agent told the seller he needs to keep up with that for us. I'm sure we'll have lots of yardwork and cleaning to do when we move in...fun fun!

Monday is the Big Day

Tomorrow, Monday, will be the "big day" at my office, all my work will start to be rotated to another employee, except a couple accounts I will be holding onto and working on from the new house. I'll then be taking on another new monthly account and taking on any extra work that might need to be done. I ordered my new imac last week and it should arrive in the next few days. Very exciting to be able to work from home! I will be totally set up to do freelance work. Anyone need a logo, ad or design??

I purchased a ticket for Justin to fly back to OKC on the 9th to pick up our truck at the airport parking garage. We weren't successful in finding someone to drive the truck to McAllen and I got a pretty good price on the ticket. Justin will be doing a lot of traveling that day! We've had a lot of ups and downs with the home buying process, our loan broker isn't doing as good a job as I expected him to do. Last week we were told we wouldn't get the loan in time, after I almost had a heart attack & called our loan broker back he assures me now that everything will be fine. Do I trust him? Absolutely not! We are kicking ourselves for not just going through a bank but this broker was highly recommended to us by our realtor. I guess this is just another "live and learn" experience for us!...note to self: never use a loan broker. Our realtor also told us that "it appears that the dishwasher in our new home has expired" so we will be getting a small amount of money from the owner since he could not fix the dishwasher. I'm hoping this week goes more smoothly than last week and we don't run into any problems with the house "stuff".

Carousel at the Zoo

We rode the Carousel at the zoo a couple times. The kids thought it was really fun...

At the OKC Zoo

Had a great time at the OKC Zoo, even though it was HOT!
We didn't get to see the entire zoo, it's much, much too large!

Weekend Fun with Family

We had a very, very busy & exciting weekend with my family. Siti & Papa, Aunt Cindy and her kids: Alyssa, Gavin & Leah, Aunt Leslie and Rylan all came to see us! On Friday afternoon we swam at the hotel pool, went to a Chinese buffet & spent the evening playing in our yard. Saturday we packed up all the kids and went to the OKC Zoo, we tried (and failed) to have professional pictures taken of all the kids (Annabelle would NOT cooperate) & we spent the entire evening at Chuck E Cheese's! Annabelle was totally beat but she had a great time with her cousins. Here are some pictures of the big adventure...


Our backyard, the kids loved the tree stump. Photos on the tree stump include all the kids: Alyssa, Gavin, Leah & Annabelle and also Annabelle's best friend Derek.

Bottom photo is Annabelle with Rylan at breakfast.

Tuesday

The work crew came out yesterday to start repairs on our house here in Moore. They were supposed to arrive around 8 am but didn't show up until late in the afternoon...we should've known! Nothing ever goes as scheduled around here! They serviced the A/C unit, fixed the inside plumbing issues and started work on the roof yesterday. They will be back later today to (hopefully) finish up the repairs, it looks like some of the repairs ended up being more involved than they initially expected so the buyer will have to pay for any additional cost for the repairs.

Annabelle was in a horrible mood yesterday. Justin said she had quite a few "meltdowns" during the day, he was ready to drop her off at Ms. Ruth's house! Hopefully she's in a better mood today!

Only three more weeks of work for me and then looks like I will be working out of the house to help out while the company transitions and tries to find a replacement for me! I'll probably be purchasing a new computer for home next week.

Saturday Fun

We had a busy Saturday. We went to a birthday party for Annabelle's friend, Riley, this morning. Annabelle had a great time seeing all her old friends from daycare and she loved the swimming, crafts and hot dog cart at the party. It was lots of fun! This evening Derek came over and the kids played in the sprinkler in our front yard, then Justin chased them and sprayed them with the hose while they hid! It was very funny. After all that action during the day Annabelle was beat this evening!!

Daddy's Girl

Annabelle's new favorite thing to do - sit on Daddy's lap and watch music videos.










(Notice she's wearing her princess costume...too funny)

Phew! Rental Truck Reserved

After a few days of checking moving rates, trying to figure out how to fit 40 ft. of trailer and ramp onto our block, calculating how much of our stuff we could stuff into a small pod, dreaming about living on the streets of South Texas and worrying I finally reserved a Penske truck for our move. It seemed like the most practical way to move and I was able to get a great rate by asking if they would honor a competitors price, which they happily did! It never hurts to ask! The Penske trucks are supposed to be newer and better than Budget or UHaul so lets hope this move goes more smoothly than our past moves using the competitors. I don't look forward to packing all our stuff into the truck, I think I'm going to call some local moving companies and check on the cost of hiring a couple guys to help Justin move our big appliances and furniture into the truck. Moving will start on the 27th! Justin will be sleeping in the moving truck to make sure all our stuff doesn't get stolen : )

It's times like these that I'm very tempted to sell ALL our stuff and start over!

Volunteers? Anyone?

Justin and I are still weighing options for moving ALL our stuff across almost two states!

Option 1 includes hiring a moving company (a company where we pack the stuff into a large trailer and they move it to our new house) this option has a couple drawbacks, the first is that the trailer they drop off is a 28 ft. trailer with a 14 ft. ramp, this means the trailer would take up a large portion of the block we live on and we would have to push everything (including our piano) up that 14 ft. ramp! The other drawback is the cost, this would be a more costly way of moving all our stuff. We would then drive all 3 of our cars along with Mom & Dad's car down to McAllen the day of closing.

Option 2 includes renting a Penske truck and driving all our stuff to McAllen ourselves. The drawbacks of this include driving the LARGE truck all that way, we would also need another driver since we would be driving 3 cars and a rental truck. This moving option is more budget friendly. Another option would be leaving one or two of our cars at the airport, flying back and driving them down within the next week.

So, if anyone has any great (budget friendly) ideas on moving long distance, please let me know. Or if anyone out there would like to drive a car from OKC to McAllen I would happily fly you back to your home!...Oh, I forgot to mention, you have the option of either having a screaming 2 year old OR a screaming cat to ride along with you for at least 12 hours! Sounds like fun huh?

Everything else with the home buying/selling is moving along smoothly. The FHA inspector is scheduled to come out again tonight to our house to check if the door opens, make sure we took out the extension cord in our garage and now he wants to look at the shed. Lets hope all goes well this time around! FHA Inspection is supposed to take place on our new house either today or tomorrow - praying that this goes well also!