Upward I Look: How it all went down... Moving Day! Part 1

I guess we decided to move abnormally. Every time we would tell someone that we were selling almost everything we own and starting over in Hawaii, they thought we were crazy... and then admitted that it might feel liberating. I admit that it sounded freeing... and complicated... and tiring. But that's how we did it.

We had a couple of garage sales where we made about $500. We sold a few things on Craig's list and gave away a whole bunch more. It felt good to meet the needs that some people had, and it was fun when a family member or friend felt like they wanted something we had. We could have just tossed it all away, and it would have been much easier for sure, but I spent a lot of time driving things around or calling to see if anyone wanted something. Most of my family/friends (you!) kept saying things like, "This feels weird! Like you're dying or something and we are all going through your possessions!" It did feel kinda strange, I admit. But I'm glad the stuff we loved went to people we love :)

Guadalupe (a guy from Craig's list who wanted our free mattress) took more than I thought he would. I had arranged for the ARC to take a bunch of leftover stuff from the garage sale. Guadalupe showed up about 10 min before the big truck did and couldn't move our stuff fast enough! He saw the truck rumbling down the street and kicked it into high gear. He cleared about 1/3 of our stuff before the other guy started loading!

As or stuff kept slowly disappearing, the kids (mostly Cambria) would wander into a room and say, "Hey! Where's our bookshelf?" or "What happened to the couch??" or "I guess we have to stand up and eat now?!"

When Guadalupe came, Cambria, who had been ill with the flu, was picked up off of our bed and put on the floor so he could take the mattress... poor little thing. She was so sick!

And speaking of sick, the whole world was in an uproar with either the flu and its exhausting 2 weeks of lethargy, or Norovirus which took out whole families. We had the flu I think, which lead to interesting blood sugar problems with Kaiah and caused Lochlan to vomit for 27 hours straight while we were at Eagle Crest.

These meds were on our counter for quite a while.

Mason, Kaiah, and I fought it valiantly! Cliff threw up for one night and the rest of us got away with queasy stomachs for about 5 days. Anyway, I'm so thankful to God that he allowed us to get through the move without anyone puking on the plane... and having the energy to get through the week before.

Cliff plugged away at getting our stuff boxed up and mailed a few things.

We packed only the things we wanted to take.

When the blender got boxed up, I tried to make a drink with just the ingredients. Cliff pre-blended all the frozen fruit and sealed them in individual baggies so we could defrost and drink as we went. In this drink, I just tore up some Kale into small pieces, and cut bananas into small chunks... It didn't really work out. Pretty lumpy. I just kinda chewed my way through it :)

Thankfully many friends helped us out with yummy meals in the days leading up to the move! Thanks d'Elseaux, Amber, Michele, Kiles, Jenn, Kara, and Mom! That was very helpful.

And when their toys kept diasppearing, we found other ways to entertain them:

Walks to the park with neighbor/friends

Taking baths every day with the new submarine that Grandma and Grandpa got him!

And keeping up with homeschooling

As we packed and cleared an area, I would clean it so there wasn't so much to do on moving day. When the day came, we organized as much as we could, packed our bags, and headed out to spend the last few gift cards we had in our wallets... nothing like last minute shopping :) Then our friends came to enjoy the last few hours with us and brought us lunch!

And my parents came to help with the final push to get things out and into my dad's truck. They also helped do a lot of last minute cleaning! We loaded it all up and took off.

The rest of the evening was spent at my parent's house putting some of our storables in my parent's pole barn and celebrating my niece's birthday.

We woke up at 3:30 am so we could get the airport on time for our 7:15 flight. Here's the awesome guy that took care of all of our boxes. See all the tape he has all over his arms for our 18 checked bags and boxes? He didn't even weigh our stuff. He just believed us that they were all around 50 pounds. He made the whole process 10 times easier than we thought it would be.

The kids and Mimi hung out inside while we waited. There were a ton of news trucks there to interview stranded passengers trying to head east in a huge winter storm. I guess the shorts and flip flops ruled us out for an interview...