From Maryland to Texas

This picture seems like so long ago, but it's been less than a month since I took it. Looking at it simultaneously stresses me out and floods me with good memories. This was our "do not pack" room. It was the room that we did not want the movers to touch because everything in it we were bringing with us in our car and trailer on our drive to Texas. Sometimes the shipment of your stuff can take awhile to get to you, so we filled a small trailer with things we might need while waiting for our household goods to arrive. When the movers start at your house you kind of have to live out of your "do not pack" room. The packers came on a Wednesday and actually finished in one day instead of the two days they estimated they would need.

This is what our room looked like after everything (except beds and big furniture) was packed up.

Our sweet neighbors Joan and Don offered to have us over for lunch a couple times while we were in the middle of packing. They are retired military, so she has moved many, many times and knew how helpful it would be for us to not have to worry about those meals. 

On Friday the "movers" came...only instead of arriving at 8 am or so like they were supposed to they didn't get to our home till 4 pm. It made for a very stressful afternoon, and they didn't leave our house until midnight. That night the kids all slept in the same room on a big piece of cardboard with a bunch of blankets on top of that for some padding. (They chose the hardwood floor over carpet because they wanted to be upstairs). Nate and I had an air mattress. This was still when Leah was sleeping with me in the recliner half the night, but since the recliner was packed up on a truck, I was nursing her in a camping chair and then spent half the night asleep in the camp chair holding her. I didn't sleep well. 

Most of us are smiling in this picture, but boy was Saturday a stressful day. Because the movers were so late on Friday, we were very behind on cleaning the house and being ready to turn it over to the landlord Saturday morning. It was an incredibly hectic, crazy, stressful morning of cleaning, baby soothing, trips to the recycling center/dump, etc. Somehow we eventually got on the road, packed to the gills and heading to Tennessee that night.

Emmy fell asleep not too far into the drive. She has been getting a lot less sleep than she needs lately, but I guess that happens when you have more kids and life gets busier.

We stopped in Roanoke, VA for a much needed rest and dinner with BYU friends. The Halls were so kind to have us on pretty short notice, and the kids loved playing together. The drive from Roanoke to Johnson City, TN was an eventful one and very miserable. I had felt a headache coming on, and I didn't catch it soon enough and it turned into a migraine. I felt so terrible. Add a crying baby on top of that and I pretty much was in my own little personal hell, pardon my language. I was nursing Leah at one point while we were driving (don't judge me - this baby literally cried for hours in the car and sometimes you do what you gotta do) and the nausea got really bad and I threw up in a plastic grocery bag while feeding her. The ibuprofen was packed away somewhere, so we stopped to dispose of my bag of fun and get some Advil. That was such a hard day from beginning to end.

We spent the night in TN and besides getting in really late, things went ok. I was so worried about night time crying spells with Leah at the hotels, but she was always so tired from screaming all day that after she would wake and eat in the night she was pretty good about going back to sleep. It was such a blessing. We had left in such a rush on Saturday that our car was a disaster and the trailer needed to be rearranged. We unloaded everything in the hotel parking lot and started over. We threw away bags of trash that we had had to pack with us (seems weird I know but we couldn't leave them at the house and we were nowhere near a dumpster) and decided to chuck our vacuum as well. The kids played with toys in the parking lot. It was classy.

Sunday we drove to Birmingham, AL. We loved the Embassy Suites we stayed at. It had an indoor pool, we had a huge room, and warm breakfast in the morning. 

Out destination on Monday was Keesler AFB in Mississipi. Leah was always Nate's little gas up buddy. He would pull her out and give her a little break from the car seat every time we stopped to fuel up. 

Here's where we stayed at Keesler. I like to take pictures of random things like this because it really jogs my memory. 

We had a little bit of time to play at the beach that evening and even got lucky with this beautiful rainbow in the background.

A tuckered out Leah: 

There was this really pretty and crazy rainbow cloud in the sky. Nate and I had never seen anything like it.

From Mississippi we drove to Louisiana. Emmy needed an emergency bathroom break, so we stopped at this little place in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. We didn't want to just use their bathroom and leave, so we got some of their famous (disgusting) fried food. 

That afternoon we arrived at the Nelson's house in Houston. It was so wonderful to see them again and to stay in their home. The kids didn't want to leave. I'm so mad I never got a picture of me and Becca.

Wednesday we arrived in San Antonio! We had to go to the airport and pick up Nate's car that he had parked there long term when he was there a week earlier. It was so great to be finally be in San Antonio.

We spent the night in some lodging at Lackland AFB. 

The next morning we closed on our house and got the keys. 

We were so very lucky and our household goods actually came the next day. Moving is SO MUCH WORK. Even when you have packers. I didn't think I would ever get all this stuff put away, but I knew it would just take time. I wanted to just snap my fingers and be done though.

The sunset from our backyard:

It has been many, many days of rooms that look like this, but we are getting there. Slowly.

So much more has happened, and I have so many more pictures, but we still don't have internet and my little finger just can't tap out letters any more from my phone. So we are here. And I don't want to move again for a very long time.