We Moved!

  Yes we moved.  We'd been wanting to move for a while and a couple in our ward put their condo up for rent while they went on a mission and we were the lucky family they selected to live in their home.  We pay more rent than our old place, but it is still a great price for the location and size.                               Before we left for Arizona, I had been packing all of our things for our move on August 27th.  The owners of the condo were SO accommodating.  They let us move half of our stuff into their place a few days before they were completely out.  Most of these things were items that we kept in closets or things that we didn't use on a daily basis.  We did that portion of our move before we left for AZ.  My reasoning was that I only wanted to be in boxes once. Meaning, I wanted us to move into our new place and mostly be settled.  I was able to make this work because I had so many kind and willing people watch my kids while I went to our new place and moved our stuff into the closets and things before the official moving date.  

The week that we moved, Virginia seemed to be prone to natural disasters.  Small ones, but they happened. During the week we had a 5.8 earthquake.  The kids and I were taking naps (they in their beds, me on their floor) when I could feel the floor shaking.  In my sleepy stupor I thought they were doing construction in the apartment below us but 10 seconds into it I realized it was an earthquake.  I bolted up, grabbed K1 in one arm and Sister in the other and braced myself in the doorway with my foot.  The earthquake lasted 45 seconds.  It felt so much longer than that and it took me a few minutes to find my 'land legs' again.  Thankfully nothing broke.  Many people had pictures and things fall down, but all of ours were already packed away :)

Sister sleeping on the floor in
some of PC's shirts because
everything else was moved to
our new place.

The day we were scheduled to move, Hurricane Irene was scheduled to arrive.  Lovely.  At the last minute, PC decided to move our couches and mattresses to our new place the night before to avoid getting them wet.  At this point 80% of our things were in our new place.  The next morning, the elders quorum showed up and moved all our big furniture and the last few boxes.  The whole affair was done in an hour.  Right as everyone left and got in their cars, the rain started to pour.  What a blessing.  If we'd moved everything that day, most of our stuff would have gotten wet (and the carpet in our place would have needed a really good cleaning).  Anyhoo, I felt it was a big blessing.  We were completely settled by the end of the day and had most of our pictures hung the following day.  

I think the only real kink in the whole process was poor K1.  The week we were moving he kept saying 'home?' because our home didn't look like it. He REALLY cried when we moved to our new place and kept demanding 'HOME!!' meaning he wanted to go home.  It took him a while to get used to our new place.  It made for a hard first month sleeping wise.  He would wake up several times a night screaming because he didn't know where he was.  *sigh*  We made it though.  

We love our new place.  I love that we only have 3 flights of stairs and not the huge walk to our building anymore. I also love the drive into our complex.  There are lots of trees and we live next to a man made lake (which is great for walks!).  We'll only be living here 2 years in total. We love all the details that make this place feel like a home and not a run-of-the-mill apartment.  We intend to keep this place in top notch condition :)   Pictures coming soon!