Farewell, White House!

Hi friends!  I've been MIA for over a month.  Good grief, what a whirlwind!  Early May we finally found a place to live.  Our lease on the "White House" as we call it, was up on May 31st, so it felt like every day for the entire month of May, we were packing, organizing, tossing, cleaning and readying for the move.  I must say, it was a whole lot easier this time not being 9 months pregnant (our first house), or having a brand-new baby (the last move).  

Even living in our house for two+ years, you accumulate a lot of stuff, and things can get pretty dirty.  This vent in our main living area was FULL of all sorts of goodies:  a petrified orange, a plastic head of lettuce, a crayon, lego guy, crumbs and I think $.94 in change!  Not bad for a day's work.  We really wanted to leave the home pristine for the new owners, so we spent a lot of time wiping walls, baseboards, windows, mopping, scrubbing and vacuuming so they could just move right in.  We even mowed and did a thorough weeding of the flower beds! We vacated our house a day early so we could have a whole day for the carpets to get cleaned.  I would have felt comfortable moving into our house when we left it, if I do so say myself.  :)

That's our garage.  Look how clean and spacious!  I'll miss you, garage.

When the wonderful moving crew came on Wednesday, we were ready with beds broken down, everything boxed, moved downstairs or to the garage, so it was just a matter of loading up the boxes in the truck and then hauling the heavy pieces down the stairs.  Oh, those stairs.  Two flights no matter where you enter or exit.  What champions.  We are officially a 2-U-Haul family, filling 1 1/2 vans with stuff.  How did we get so much stuff!?

We had an odd hitch with our plans, in that the owners of our rental weren't moving out until June 14th, and we had to be out of our house by May 31st.  That left us a window of about 2 weeks of homelessness.  We planned to move all of our stuff into their garage and back deck and under the house, then take off for Utah and crash with our families until our house was ready. 

Moving out took all day, despite our preparations, to load up, haul and then unload the vans.  Hooray for  Marie' for taking the kids after their last day of school, and keeping them until we were done. After we picked the kids up, we checked into a hotel and tried to relax after an exhausting day.  The kids brought home all sorts of goodies and end-of-the-year treasures to show us.  We tried to put on interested-looking faces and ooh's and ahhh's while looking through their papers.  They really did have great teachers.  We stopped by on our way out-of-town to say thank you and deliver a gift.  I failed to bring my camera or think to snap a picture.  Ah, well.

Boo's teacher saved samples of the children's work and fun units and organized them into a binder for each child at the end of the year! It was so fun to look through all of their projects.

I had a horrible night's sleep on the hotel hide-a-bed with Diddles, who had a hard time the entire trip without her crib.  Poor kid doesn't know what to do without her wooden bars surrounding her! 

We stopped by our house for a few hours to let in the carpet cleaners, do a final walk-through with the owner, and collect our deposit.  I was happy to get a last picture with the kids on the front porch to remember the house we lived in.  When we moved in no one was even in school yet!  Diddles was two months old, and Yaks was in Sunbeams!   Now we've got two in school, an almost-three-year-old, and Boo's in Sr. Primary.

 It's been a great house for us.  I'll really miss the awesome kitchen.  It was such a joy to cook in, and had a place for every thing.  There were so many closets and cupboards and room to spread out.  I loved the windows that helped to cheer us up in the dreary winters, and the open floor plan that let us all be together yet apart, if you know what I mean.  I won't miss the flights of stairs, or the roaring dishwasher, or the temperamental clothes washer, or the light-colored carpets upstairs.  See?  There's good and bad about any place you live.

 Now, enough reminiscing.  It's time to hit the road.  So long, White House!