Let It Snow.........Sort Of

Oh yes, we woke up fully refreshed from having an early and relaxing evening. It's also the first morning with snow. We got off to a great start, but after driving for about 30 min, we had already passed 2 trucks pulled over on the side of the road with men standing outside of the trucks peeing. I'm not so sure about these Montanian men! The snow was rather short lived and we had a really, really easy drive today. We crossed into Canada and have made it to Calgary for the night. Very excited about having another early night! I've got to say though.....so far there is a whole bunch of nothing and you can see for miles on end (feels like I'm traveling in New Mexico again). There really isn't much to report for this evening, so I'm not going to bore you with a whole lot of nothing. I'll try to have some humorous stories for the next blog, eh (Just a little bit of Canadian that I've already picked up).

We're Off and Rolling!

So far, so good! The kids are really doing good and have discovered that the best thing about hotels is that Grandad will push them around on the luggage carts! When we first decided to make this journey, we thought it'd be a clever idea to find something to do with the kids in the morning so that they could run and play and get some energy out of their systems before we got into the car and started the days driving. During yesterday's leg, we thought that it would be fun to stop at Mesa Verde in the morning to check out the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi Indians. I was really looking forward to this because growing up in New Mexico, we pretty much studied them every year in school and I always found them to be interesting and mysterious. What we didn't know and didn't work into our travel time, is that once you enter the National Park, it's still a 45 min. drive to where the cliff dwellings are. This means that on top of the hour or so that we were planning on sight seeing, we now have another 2 hours of travel time. OOPS! Also, the kids had no interest what so ever in walking anywhere. Molly wanted to sit in the stroller and be pushed and Jensen wanted to be carried. Somehow, he suckered Grandad into this on the way down to the dwellings. Poor Grandad! On the way out of the dwelling, which oh by the way is uphill, Jensen weaseled his way into the stroller which John was pushing and I was carrying Molly. I only made it about halfway with Molly when Beau had to take over carrying her because I was about to die. Of course, this has nothing to do with being out of shape, but more to do with the increase in altitude, obviously! All I have to say is, way to go Beau. We really thought that the kids would be all about running around and burning off some energy, but we were wrong! We really enjoyed the dwellings though. They were awesome and I'm glad that we added the extra 3 hours to our day.

Driving through Colorado and Utah, Jensen has been fascinated by all of the mountains. He is completely convinced that a "really big tractor" made them all and gets incredibly irritated if you try to tell him differently. We had a beautiful drive yesterday though and thoroughly enjoyed the landscape. We were going to see my sister Jenna in Salt Lake City (SLC from now on) yesterday evening, but because of all the extra time we spent in Mesa Verde, we got into SLC a lot later than originally planned and were all pretty wiped. I programmed the GPS for the first Hampton Inn (we're collecting points) and we were so relieved when we pulled up to it. Poor Molly had been completely over being in the car for the last 20 min. Imagine our shock when John came out of the lobby and said that they were completely full. I asked what was going on in SLC and he said that the receptionist said nothing, that they and all the other hotels were always completely booked up during the week. Now come on......really......what on earth is going on in SLC everyday of every week. I have my own theory..........it's a conspiracy by the Mormons! We didn't look Mormon, so there was no room at the inn lol. Just my own little theory though. Thank the lord for GPS because I just started calling EVERY Hampton Inn going further and further out of SLC. Finally, we found one with some rooms in Layton, which as it turned out, was only 2 exits from Jenna's house. Of course, it also added another 40 min. of driving for the poor kids, but we all made it and turned in soon after arriving.

This morning we all got up, I'd like to say fully refreshed but I don't think any of us has slept that well, had some breakfast and headed to see Jenna. Best news of the morning is that Molly and Jensen are both warming up to Beau and they went with him and Grandad down to have breakfast while John and I finished getting things packed. We had a nice, though short, visit with Jenna and Jeramey and loaded back up to start our trek for the day. Let me insert here, that while we were at Aunt Jenna's, she so kindly gave Jensen a Capri Sun to drink. Before we left, I kept telling Jensen that he needed to go potty, but he absolutely refused and John sided with him, saying that he had already gone earlier. Shocker, not 20 min. down the road, we hear Jensen saying that he's got to go potty. Luckily, we found a place to stop pretty quickly, but Molly, who had just fallen asleep, was now up. So we begin our trek again. No lie, not more than 20 min. down the road, Jensen has to potty again! This time though, there is nowhere in sight for him to go. We find the safest place that we can and let him go on the side of the road in Idaho. Will have to admit that he did actually pee quite a lot, so we definetly needed to make that stop. Who knew that a Capri Sun could cause so much chaos!

We had a good drive and started to make good time. We stopped at Applebees to enjoy their offer for a free entree for any active duty or retired military vets for Veteran's Day. Having John, Beau, and Mike, this was definetly a lucrative offer for us! We had a great meal, the kids ate great, and we were all ready to load up and try to make some tracks. Now that the kids had their belly's full, John and I were hopeful that they would fall asleep in the car, so that we could really get some miles behind us. After about 45 min. of driving, we see Mike and Beau pulling up along side of us. This cannot be good news, and as we suspect, the "Hutch and Beau Show" (they named themselves I swear) need a potty break. Once again, like with Jensen, Molly has just gone to sleep. We write a note and hold it up to the window to tell them that Molly's asleep, we're not stopping but will slow down, and they can catch back up. Our plan works marvelously, except for the fact that John's phone rings and he answers it by yelling (though he will deny the yelling) "What's up brother!" to his best friend Ben on the other end of the phone. As you can probably already guess, this wakes our dear sleeping Molly. Plan now demolished!!! Through great mommy tricks, I get her happy and we continue to roll. Mike and Beau found out during their stop that there is snow on the way for tonight, so we decided to add an extra hour to our driving and make it to Helena, Montana. We get in at a great time, have dinner, and still have time to let the kids play in our hotel room before going to bed. We did drive through our first bit of falling snow, which wasn't bad at all, but we'll see what the morning holds. So far, so good, and everyone on the trip is hanging on exceptionally well! Until next time......................

The Last Supper.........and the First Leg of the Journey!

John and his comrades finally arrived in Clovis yesterday to officially begin this journey of ours. He arrived with his dad (Mike aka Grandad) and a work friend who is also in the process of making the move to Alaska, Beau. It's really nice to have a sort of caravan going so that we can look out for each other on this trek. Mike is riding with Beau to keep him company (and I'm sure that there is no shortage of storytelling going on :-)) and the kids and John and I are packed, literally, into the Acadia. There is not one spare inch for even an extra cheerio at this point!

Last night we had a great get together when John, Mike and Beau arrived at my brother's house. Missy, my sister-in-law, made an awesome lasagna with elk meat and my best friend Jennifer also came for all of the fun. Upon arrival, to Justin and Missy's, poor Grandad was immediately suckered into playing with all of the kids outside on the swing set, but it was such a beautiful evening, he didn't put up much of a fight. The kids all worked up an awesome appetite and ate really great before heading back to keep playing for the last few hours that they had together. Jensen was going to be spending the night with his cousins and had been talking about it all day. While the kids were playing, the adults continued to watch football and chatter about any meanless, but humorous thing that we could come up with. Not long after Grandad and Beau retired back to their hotel for the night, Jensen came out to say that his tummy wasn't feeling too well. Assuming that he was absolutely exhausted from all of the playing of the previous week, I snuggled him up and rubbed his back, and before I knew it, he was sound asleep in my lap. Love it!!!! All of sudden, he kind of stirred and sat up, and the next thing I knew, he was throwing up elk lasagna all over himself, me and the couch. GROSS! As quick as we could, we got him into the bath and rinsed off, and he seemed to almost instantly be feeling better. I washed my clothes off as best as I could, but it was an obvious party ender, to say the least. We decided not to take any chances and didn't let Jensen spend the night, but made him come back with us. Bummer all round for the cousins. As we were loading into the cars, John had the Acadia to drive back to Mom's, I had Mom's car with both the kids and her, and my friend Jennifer was also heading out. I felt bad for having to just say a quick goodbye to Jennifer, but I was really stinking. Gotta say though, she didn't seem too upset. She said that she'd just give John a hug instead and that could count for us saying goodbye. The thing is......she seemed more than willing to throw me to the side in order to say goodbye to John :-) I do believe that I'll have to have a word with her later lol!!!! On top of that, Mom got into her car with the kids and I, and started gagging from the wretching smell coming from me. This from the lady who has raised 6 kids! She jumped out, and said that she'd rather ride home with John. At this point, I'm really getting a complex. It's was a sad ending to what had been such a pleasant evening, but the good news is that Jensen seems to be completely fine.

This morning, we got up and managed to get the cars loaded and hit the road pretty much on schedule, and pretty much on schedule means gold stars all round for this motley crue. We are currently in Durango, Colorado and are staying the night here before heading to Mesa Verde tomorrow for some sight seeing and then up to Salt Lake City to see Jenna. It was actually a really great trip here today, and I am soooo proud of how well the kids behaved. As for John's behavior with this kids, that's another story. About 2 hours into the journey he decided that it'd be a "fun" idea to let Jensen and Molly have a lollipop. Now Jensen is no problem with a lolli, but Molly who is 18 months is another story. The memory that stands out the most is the lolli literally hanging from her bangs and sticky all over her mouth, hands, and clothes. Then, not long after lunch, we stopped and John told Jensen that he could have a special treat. The special treat that he chose was an ice cream bar. Not really the kind of thing that I consider road trip food for a 3 year old! I keep telling myself that one day he will learn.........I will accept all prayers that anyone has to offer!

We're all in good spirits and still enjoying each other's company, and I'm just certain that any hour now, my children will warm up to Beau and quite treating him like a leper. He's really being a good sport with all of us. I will close by saying that even with a rather unfortunate ending to last night, we all had a wonderful last supper in Clovis thanks to Justin and Missy, and a wonderful first leg of our journey today. Good night, and until next time..........

Praise the Lord........the Packing Is Complete With No Thanks to Inertia!

I apologize for the big break in updates, but as soon as the packing was finished, I headed to Clovis with Molly and Jensen to spend some time with Mom and let the kiddos play with their cousins. I don't have a lot of access to a computer here, but I am finally able to give another update.

Our high class movers (did I mention that they are called D Lux Movers, the spelling of the name should have been a definite give away) did eventually have a driver show up for work and they arrived on Thursday to start the loading of the crates. Now, the weather forecast for last Thursday was 80% chance of rain, and yes, it was definetly raining when the movers arrived. Let me set the scene................the moving van that they rolled up in had the front grill attatched by a bungee cord, and the drivers window and passenger window were missing, yes missing, not broken or stuck, but completely MIA. So the 4 guys that came to start the loading had driven from Dallas in the pouring rain, with no windows on the cab of their truck. They were starting their day in a bit of a bad mood thanks to that! I had had the weather channel on all morning though to monitor the rain situation, and even though it was currently pouring, it showed that the storms were just about pass us and then it was clear skies from there on out. Of course, the mover's were wanting to just call it a day because they were convinced that the 80% in the forecast meant that it was going to rain 80% of the day, not that there was an 80% chance of rain! It took awhile for me to explain and get them on board with my logic and I would have assumed the rest of the world's logic as well! I finally convinced them that once they finished wrapping up what was left to be wrapped, then the storms should be past, and we could begin loading the truck without getting wet. Spoiler alert.............the rain did pass, and we were able to load the truck with even a little sunshine peeking through.

At lunch time, I had been really impressed with how efficiently they were loading the crates, and I thought that it would be a nice surprise to have some pizza delivered. When I called and placed the order, I was rather shocked to hear that it was going to be over an hour for the delivery, but what are you going to do. I went and told the guys to keep working, that it was going to awhile, and this just added to their already gloomy outlook of the day. Just as the pizza girl showed up, the mover's needed to open up one of the doors further back on the truck in order to get to some more crates to start loading. As I was signing for the pizza, I heard this huge BANG. When I looked up, they had started pulling the moving van forward without closing the door that they had been previously using to load, and it had swung into the brick mailbox. Gotta say, that is one solid mailbox though, because luckily, it just chipped off one small bit of one of the bricks. I decided to not say a word, and just finished paying for the pizza and went to set it down in the garage. I did notice out of the corner of my eye, that the moving van was now reversing up the court, and I naturally assumed that this was so that they could actually close the door that they were done using, and open the door further back, without destroying anymore of the mailbox. Wrong! I set the pizza boxes down and look up to see this huge moving van coming flying down the court, the driver had to have floored it, and then slam on the brakes as it goes skidding (let's not forget the streets are still wet from all of the rain in the morning) to a stop. I yell out what on earth is going on to a reply by the "supervisor" (I use the term loosely) that the crates in the back weren't loaded correctly, and they aren't able to get to them, so they were trying to get everything in the truck to slide forward as they slammed on the brakes. I was gobsmacked. Out of all of the ideas that their minds together came up with, they decided that inertia was the best alternative!!!!! Let's not forget, that the crates in the front of the truck have already been loaded with a lot of our belongings, and these are the crates that they are now trying to slam forward in the back of the van. I called a time out, told everyone to go inside and eat, and to think about a new plan to try after lunch. Shockingly, after lunch, they were able to use all of their god given strength together to merely push the crates forward. Why would I have thought that boys would think of that first!

I do have to say though, that I did watch over all 0f the boxing, wrapping and crating, and that they really did seem to do a good job at trying to make sure that things would be packed in tightly and well to keep them as safe for the travel as they could. They just didn't have a lot of common sense for other things, bless them. I am relieved that everything is now complete, the house has been cleaned and the keys turned over for the new owners. I felt a tinge of sadness as we finished everything up, but I was filled more with a sense of excitement about the new journey that we will be beginning and all of the new decorating that I get to do in a new house!

Mom came on Saturday and picked the kids and I up and John stayed behind to finish his last week of work on the F16. We are having a fantastic time with family here in Clovis, but I'm anxious for John to get here on Sunday so that this trek can officially begin. We will be leaving from Clovis Monday and that will begin the daily drive up north. It should take about 12 days and even though I know there are going to be trying times, I am really really excited for the trip. Hopefully while we're one the road, I will be able to update the blog every day or two, at least that is my plan, but until Monday, there probably won't be another post. I look forward to passing on our great adventures...............keep checking in!

Movers.........Need I Say More!

So the movers arrived yesterday and actually did a really awesome job at getting the house boxed up. They did arrive with the big boss man though as it appears that none of them have driver's licenses and no drivers had shown up for work that morning. Made for a lot getting achieved in one day though and I was really pleased with how fast and how thoroughly they wrapped and boxed everything. There were 5 of them total and they really knocked it out. The big boss man told us at the end of the day that the plan for today was for them to finish the little bit that still needed to be boxed, and to start loading the boxes into the crates on the truck. Imagine my surprise then when the movers showed up this morning and there were only 2 of them, and they arrived in an old beat up Accord. It appears that no driver showed up again today (is it just me or would you be firing and rehiring drivers that actually wanted to show up, especially in this economy, just a suggestion to the big boss man) so these 2 poor fellas loaded up their little Accord with as much packing paper as they could possibly fit in and are just going to get as much wrapped up as they can. I'm thinking that this means that tomorrow is going to be a REALLY chaotic day as now, they are going to have to finish boxing, wrapping, and physically moving every belonging we have into the truck, all in one day. Add onto that the fact that they have forecasted 80% chance of severe thunderstorms for tomorrow morning and I start to get a little nervous about the outcome of all of this! To end on a happy note.........not only do I still have a couch and chairs to sit on and a tv still to watch tonight, I also have my own bed to sleep in for another night, and for that I am thankful :-)

And the Madness Begins

We had an incredibly busy weekend getting things prepped for the movers this week. John's dad graciously helped unload the attic yesterday and after being told by John that we didn't have that much "stuff" up there, he now realizes that his son's perception may be a tad bit off! The garage is completely loaded with everything that was brought down. On top of all the attic stuff being in the garage, we also had to unload the 4 wheeler from the trailer and fit it into the garage. Needless to say, both the cars are now outside. Wouldn't normally be a big deal, but after having no rain in the forecast for the weekend, out of nowhere, severe thunderstorms broke out about 9 pm last night and what do ya know, they came with hail! John and I jumped into action and started moving boxes and chairs into every spare spot in the house while moving the 4 wheeler on the front porch making literally just enough space to squeeze the Acadia into the garage. Still not really sure how we managed to get it to fit :-) Also, Jensen is completely freaked out by all of the rain and hail and is standing in the doorway crying that he's scared the entire time and being completely in the way. Oh memories!

Today, Monday, is the last day before the packers arrive, so I've got lots ahead of me to make sure that we get seperated all the things we need to take with us, as well as getting things ready to move like cleaning the lawn furniture and defrosting the refrigerator and getting it aired out. I get a phone call from some guy claiming to be our "go to guy" for any issues that may pop up during this packing extravaganza. Of course, our "go to guy" didn't have all of the correct info, and sent me into a totally frenzy. Gotta love when people are there to "help" you out! He had not been informed that the dates had been changed by one day and that we are getting packed on Tues, Wed, and Thursday. He thought that they were starting today and was insistent that they had to be completely done by Wednesday or as far as they were concerned, the shipment would be nonexistant. John had done all of the setting up and meeting with the packers last week, so I only knew what John had told me and had no idea of who the moving company actually is or a phone number for them. After frantically searching through John's folders, I found their name and number and was able to pass it onto our "go to guy" so that he could get all of the particulars sorted out. He was also thorough in conveying his feeling of disapproval of the fact that I had not been here during the walk through last week with the movers, and that I was not in fact getting things achieved quickly enough, like getting the refrigerator dried out. Of course, once he was convinced that we were not in fact getting packed starting today, then he chilled out a bit, but there's nothing like being made to feel like an underachieving dimwit.

Now that's what I call a smooth beginning (insert sarcasm here)!!!!! Stay tuned for more fun filled days.........................:-D

This Is Going To Be Interesting

So, I've never been that adept at writing, but my Aunt suggested that I start a blog to chronicle this crazy time in our lives and I think it was a brilliant suggestion. Hopefully, as things progress, so will my writing. I do think that it'll be a great way to keep everyone in the loop of what is going on as we start this packing and moving process. It will be no small adventure, that is for sure!

Things could not have started out more positively for us. We were able to sell our boat quickly and easily at the start of summer, and then a good friend of mine who had always wanted to own a MR2 offered to buy John's from him, so that was also no problem. We sold the house within 2 weeks of the sign going up, ended up in a bidding war and were fortunate enough to end up getting over our asking price! I know......totally crazy in this economy!! After the inspection, the buyer's were completely satisfied with everything and didn't ask for us to do a single thing. We closed yesterday, a week early, at the buyer's request, and have until the first to be completely out without having to pay a dime to them. So far, so good!

We will be prepping all weekend for the movers to start their chaos on Tuesday. If everything goes as planned, we will be completely out of our house by Thursday night. Can't believe that this is all finally happening. We've been talking about it for almost 2 years and now reality is setting in. We are so excited and can't wait to start this new chapter in life. I hope that you will keep checking in and follow our "progress" (yes, I use that word loosely). I'm sure that once we are officially on the road the stories will become more interesting for everyone who is not actually involved in them :-) For some reason, I keep having thoughts of the Griswald's! I will try to update often. Until next time..........