The Big Move

As I stated in my last post, I met my momma to drop off the girls on Saturday afternoon.  This enabled me to get last minute stuff done without their "help".  They had SO much more fun at Grandma's than they could've possibly had with Mom & Dad.

With them gone, I did last minute stuff.  Monday morning Matt & I, with the help of my good friend Sarah, my brother Charlie, & my bro-in-law Darin (who took the morning off work to come help) loaded up our moving truck!  We packed that thing SO full.  Like I said before, we had WAY more small stuff than we thought lying around, plus we had a LOT of Ikea furniture in boxes.  We made it work, but just barely!

Matt's dad posted this sign on our car, it says, "rochester, MN or BUST! Hold the Mayo, pass the gas"

Early Tuesday morning Matt and I headed out in the moving truck.  The poor thing was so weighted down that we couldn't get it over 55 mph, and uphill we were lucky to get 35, usually it was more like 30.  This added lots of time to our daily drive time, and we ended up driving 11-11.5 hours each day (for 3 days).

We drove through Colorado during all the terrible wild fires, it was devestating, as you can see below.  this went on for miles and miles, as far as the eye could see in each direction.

We got into Rochester Thursday evening.  We stayed with a friend of a friend, the Rowse's who we had met on our house hunting trip.  It was good to get to visit with them, even though we were pretty worn out, and Julie even helped us unload the escape off the trailer (which was a comical situation involving a busted ramp gate), and let us keep our stuff that was packed on the trailer in her garage until after we got the keys the next day.

Friday morning we did the final walkthrough, then signed the papers and got the keys!

Friday afternoon Matt and I unloaded some of the truck, went shopping for paint and other supplies, and did some cleaning, etc.  Friday evening we were hoping to get some help from our new ward with the move in.  About 1.5 hours after our scheduled "start time" for the ward move in, the missionaries showed up to help us, with the apologies that they got called because no one could make it.  So at this point the truck was about 85% done, but they did help with some of the big things, with was AWESOME, because Matt and I were toast.  We were actually about to call it quits for the night, and just do the rest in the morning because we were so exhausted when they showed up, so that guilted us into having to finish it that night.  With 2 things left in the truck a ward member (Bro Hurst) showed up.  He apologized for not being able to come earlier and helped us move 1 thing.  It was funny.  He's a great guy.

Part of the reason that Matt & I were toast was that the mid-west was having a huge/record heat wave the week of our move in.  Like 100+ degree temps with crazy humidity.  That humidity just makes you sweat like crazy and is exhausting.  So on Saturday, we got up and started working hard to get stuff put together (5 ikea dressers, bunkbeds, 3 couches, bookcases, etc) and painted.  Halfway through the day we realize that it is really hot.  Our AC stopped working.  The motor was completely busted and ended up being totally replaced.  But not for 3 days.  It got fixed on Tues afternoon (we left on Wed morning super early).  So it got up to about 93 degrees in the house with about 75% humidity.  Perfect conditions for unpacking, moving and assembling furniture and painting right?  We laughed about it being the totally typical "first time home buyers" experience.  At least the kids weren't here.

Sunday at church Bro Hurst invited us to come by after church for dinner with his family.  Normally this is the type of invitation I would politely decline, because I hate to impose, and I feel socially awkward, and I stink at making new friends.  But I also had been eating pb & j's for days straight, and knew that their house was bound to be at least 15 degrees cooler than ours.  So we accepted and had a GREAT time.  I totally adore their little family and have told Natalie that she has no choice, I have latched onto her and decided that we are friends :)

So we went home Sunday evening to our miserable, hot, humid, house and got to work.  We worked so hard that whole week of moving.  We didn't sleep much, and the sleep that we did get was hot and sweaty and miserable.  The last few days we had to take a lot more breaks as we got more fatigued from all the sweating.  It was gross and miserable, but we got LOTS done!

Here are the pics of what all we accomplished in the 5 days we were in Rochester:

Early Wednesday morning (the 4th of July) we flew back to Phoenix (on about 3.5 hours of sleep).  We then drove to Thatcher to meet up with the girls, but first we stopped to eat lunch with one of my BFFs Kellee, who was in the valley visiting her family.  It was awesome to see her, even though I was disgusting and exhausted.  She is one of my favorite people ever though, so I'll take whatever I can get!

We then drove the 3 hours to my mom's house, getting there right at dinner time.  We originally had been so excited to get back on the 4th of July, so that we could do the small town celebrations with the girls.  However, I didn't even eat dinner.  I fell asleep.  What a lame mom right?  Luckily my mom & Hank took the 2 big girls to watch the fireworks, and left Kate home sleeping with us.  The girls said that they had a great time the next morning, so I am glad that they didn't miss out, just because their parents were too tired!


That morning poor Matt had to turn around and drive the 3+ hours back to our house so that he could go to work that night.  I stayed at my mom's with the kids, so that I could have a couple weeks to spend with my family before heading off to Minnesota for good!

June!

June was a fun and busy month for us!

We started off the first week going out with Matt's sister Heather & her husband Tommy for her birthday.  I love these 2 kids so much!  We went to 5 guys for burgers, then mini-golf, then ate Iceberg shakes.  It was awesome.  Then on the way home we caught the last show of the night for Snow White & the Huntsman.  So we got home early the next morning.  We were pretty tired the next day, but it was worth it!  We had lots of fun!

 Heather repeatedly hit her ball off the green into the bushes.  I wasn't quick enough to take a picture every time she had to search for her ball & dig it out somewhere, but here are a few examples.  It was pretty entertaining!

 The course was really dark and this one hole was SUPER deep & dark, you couldn't even see the balls, or the end of the hole, you just had to stick your hand in and feel around.  Of course as a person who hates bugs and anything that is likely to be hanging out in the hole, this was scary, but I totally Indiana Jones'd it up & not only got my ball, but Heather's too.  Happy Birthday.  You're welcome.  Also insert inappropriate ball joke here.

Then the 2nd week of June we had a immediate Earl Family Reunion with Matt's siblings and parents.  It was fun.  Mostly.  Matt, Kate, and I all got sick and came home a day early.  Camping while sick is not the most fun thing ever.  We did manage to have fun for the couple of days we were there though!  Clearly we don't camp because we enjoy it so much, but because the kids absolutely LOVE it.  And its so fun to get to watch them play with cousins all day!

 You will note in these pictures that poor Katie who didn't feel good got bribed with lots of junk food.  There was a lots of crying this trip.  Its a hard age to camp anyway.

 

 

Then it was Father's Day!  Matt had to work the night before and sleep all day, but that evening all his siblings * grandma & grandpa came over and we had a nice father's day celebration.  The girls colored the wrapping paper for the gifts we got him (all things we needed for the new house), and gave him the special gifts they made/got for him at church.

We also spent a lot of time in June packing for our move to Minnesota.  We went through our 2 storage units, getting rid of anything we didn't want to take, and condensed it down to 1 unit (which had so much drama with the storage unit place and an IDIOT manager, I will spare you the details, but it was LAME).  We hadn't seen any of the stuff in 2 years, so it was a lot to go through.  We also made lots of trips to Ikea.  So much that the girls named one of their dolls "Ikea" and always asked when going out if that is where we were going.  We thought we didn't have that much stuff when seeing how little we had in our 1 8X10 storage unit after it was all sorted, but we eventually learned that we had accumulated WAY more junk at the in laws than we had anticipated.  Our home closed on June 29th, so we had to have everything packed and ready to leave on the 25th.

We dropped the kids off to my mom on the 23rd, so that we could load the moving truck up without them, and also leave them with my mom for the 10 days it would take us to load up, drive over, sign papers, unload, fly back.  When I met up with my mom to exchange kids, she traded them for this chair that my grandma sent for me.  It was one of 3 that my grandma kept from my grandpa's pharmacy (decades ago).  The other 2 have disappeared over the years, but she still had this one left.  She gave it to me, and I absolutely LOVE it.  However the yellow vinyl didn't really go in my house, so I recovered it with gray & white polka-dots.  It was a fun project, and a great update for the chair.  I LOVE the style of the chair, just didn't like the old worn yellow (though because I am so emotional about my grandpa, I kept some of the yellow underneath as a tribute).  I feel so sentimental about anything that reminds me of my grandpa and grandma, so I am so happy that I have this chair at all.  And I think the gray turned out quirky and cute, so its a win-win for me.

Obviously at the end of June we moved all of our stuff cross-country, but I think that the move deserves it own post, so that is up next!!