Moving Day

Well we finally moved (over a week ago already).  The main move took place over two days-Feb 27th and the 28th.  However, the weekend before we were able to move some things into the attached garage which was wonderful.  John, Dale, Brandi and I unloaded the small enclosed trailer that was full of stuff we took out of the house when we put the house on the market, we loaded the trailer up with all the stuff from our garage, and then unloaded that into the new garage.  Then, we filled the trailer up with boxes and furniture and would wait to unload that until we got the keys the following Friday.  We picked up the Uhaul truck on Wednesday night and was ready to start loading it up on Thursday morning.  John and Ross spent the morning loading up the truck and Jeff came to help out with some the larger, heavier items that would require a little more manpower.  By 11:00 AM the majority of the house was cleared out and I was feel pretty good about our situation.  The new buyers scheduled the walk through for 7:00PM that night so I had a deadline but with John and I and an empty house I figured we would fly through the cleaning part of it all.

Elsie packing up her books:  She LOVED helping to pack
and wanted to be there right along with us to do everything. 

Boy was I wrong!  It was cold that day-temps were close to zero.  This became a problem when some of John's cows decided it would be a good day to have a calf.  With it being so cold, those poor little calves froze-almost to death.  So John was gone most of the afternoon dealing with that.  One calf ended up going to Iowa State University for 5 days because it's body temperature was so low (thankfully, that calf is doing well now).  So that threw a little kink in the plans.  Bev came over and helped cleaned which we wouldn't been ready for the walk through without her.  We worked hard until Elsie had to be picked up from daycare at 4:30 PM.  When we left we had the whole house clean-thoroughly cleaned.  I felt good at how we left the house.  The main thing that was left was to finish up with the garage and a few little things I was waiting on John to do inside the house.  Marc (our Realtor) told the buyer's Realtor about our situation and they were understanding about it all.  So after the walk through we headed back over to sweep out the garage and the last few items on our list.  Finally, we headed back to John's parents around 9:00 PM.  Just a little time to relax ;)  I must admit that when I walked through one last time I was a bit sad.  We had so many wonderful memories in this house and it was our first home.  The home we brought our sweet little Elsie home to.  But I know the new house would be a place to make new memories and hopefully we will someday be bringing a new baby or two home to this house.

2.26.14-The last night sleeping in our first home. 

On Friday morning, we had a few errands to do before heading over to our closing at 11:00 AM.  We had to drop Elsie off at JoJo's, get the cashier's check from our bank, do our final walk through at the new house and sign and fax some papers for our insurance company.  We got all this done with time to spare so we stopped at Panera for bagels and coffee.  At 10:15 John turned to me and said "Well let's go" and I said back "ummm we have 45 minutes still and it only takes 10 to get there." His response "Well we have so much to do I don't think I can just sit here anymore".  Typical John ;).  So we left and stopped at the store for a few more cleaning supplies and arrived the the bank early.  Which worked out because we got done with the closing early.  When we got there Marc made a comment that we were homeless.  Ha, which was true.  The new buyers closed on our old house at 9:00 AM so for two hours we were technically homeless.  Closing went smoothly and it wasn't long before we were off to our new home!

Jeff helping us with the heavy stuff

I got there first and while I wanted to wait for John so we could enter our new home together I knew we didn't have much time before the movers were to arrive at 1:00 PM.  So I got to work cleaning.  And boy was there a lot to do!  Let's just say that I feel REALLY good with how clean we left our house.  I snapped a few pics before any of our stuff was brought in and before I knew it the movers were there (along with John and Ross).  In two hours both the truck and trailer were unloaded and much of the stuff we had put in the garage was moved into the house!  I was AMAZED with how fast it all happened!  And I was still cleaning the kitchen.   I felt defeated because I hadn't even made it out of the one room I had started in.

The guys all left around 3:00.  At 4:00 I knew I had to go and get Elsie from JoJo's and when I went to pick her up I decided to stay and visit for a while with all the moms.  Every once in awhile the moms stay on Fridays to visit and hang out (FAD-Friday after Daycare).  Unfortunately, we had done such a wonderful job of getting Elsie excited about the new house that she was crying and whining about wanting to leave and go to the new house.  So around 5:00 we took off to our new home.