September and Our Moving Adventure

Chris left for Milwaukee and the kids and I toughed it out in IN for a week before he came back the following weekend.

(One of the major blessings and tender mercies of this month was that Chris was able to stay with his cousin John. It was quite "lucky" that John, who is in the midst of his first year of residency, had an 8-5 schedule for the month of September instead of his crazy, exhausting ward months where every 4th day he has a 30 hour shift. We are so grateful for their willingness to take on Chris for about 3 weeks! You know what they say about guests-they are like garbage. After a bit they start to stink!)

That first week was a long, long week. And the weekend with him home was a short, short weekend!

Before he left on Sunday I overheard Chris telling Noah that we were coming up to visit him in Milwaukee that week. Really!?! Surprise, surprise!

I planned a bit (when and how was I going to do this on my own?) and bagged a bit (of snacks and treats that I could throw to the back of the van while driving) and finally we took off Tuesday morning right after feeding Sage. We made great time and even with our two quick stops for a new movie and to prop up a bottle for Sage.

We stayed at a hotel with a great little kiddie pool and spent the evenings with daddy.
We stayed two nights and drove back the third morning. Again, I was amazed by how awesome the kids were for the drive. I felt so empowered making that three and a half hour drive with three kids by myself :)

We made it to the weekend when Chris came down again-poor guy always left after work and always hit Chicago at rush hour. One of his tasks for the weekend? Bring back all the things we had de-cluttered out of our house and stored at a very generous friends house! (Another task was to re-home our cat, Malcolm, but our farewell is for another post.)
Why? Because the movers were coming!! Tuesday the movers (Gotta love that word! More later about why I really did love my movers!) came and started packing us up.
They packed Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday and part of Thursday. It was kinda tough doing three kids with more and more of their stuff packed up but the boys loved the big truck and were allowed a tour of the trailer and the cab.

As for Sage, she was an angel through it all. I think how all this could have been if she had been like the second-it would have been lunacy. Mine! Stark-raving-commit-her-to-an-institution-mad! But I know that Heavenly Father knows what we need and it was this:
The sweetest, most easy going, and undeniably adorable little girl! She is a very good traveler, riding quietly or sleeping, and has been very obliging in being smaller in size than her brothers at her age. She slept in this moses basket till she was just over 4 months old. I felt so blessed that she still fit! Her bed was small and portable so that even in hotels she had a consistent, familiar place to sleep. This was her preferred sleeping position.

Ok, so that gets us up to about September 30th, when we were supposed to close on the house. Due to lack of communication from an appraiser we had to push that back a day. We successfully closed on October 1st. However, since we couldn't get a closing time till the afternoon the movers wouldn't be able to unload our stuff till Monday. Yay, one more weekend in a hotel! (Can you hear the sarcasm oozing out of that last statement?)

But lets say the glass is half full and remember that this meant I got to clean the house before unloading day. And seriously, I would wait all weekend for my movers. They were so awesome! I was so happy to have movers-what woman with a 3 kids under 4, one being a 4 month old baby, wouldn't be thrilled? But there was certainly some trepidation. Who hasn't heard the horror stories? Fires in the moving truck, lost belongings, long waits for delivery, etc., etc., etc.

Merchant's Moving is a little different than the big national chains. They are family owned and take extreme pride in doing excellent work. They only hire full-time employees and never use temporary or contract labor. Our belongings were the only things on the truck and should there be a hitch in the works they will keep the things on the truck for one week. After that it would be stored in their secure warehouse. The same workers pack, load, drive, and unload on the other end. I had a moving coordinator that took care of scheduling and whom I could call with any questions or concerns throughout the process.

I was feeling way better about things and with good reason. They were great. I happily filled out a survey telling them how smoothly things went and how pleased I was with the jobs that each person had done. I concluded by commenting that the only way it could have been better was if they had sent two moving truck magnets for my two boys instead of one.

Just a couple of days ago I got a letter in the mail from the president of the company and these:

I told you they were great!