Moving day

Well, moving day arrived. We packed all weekend in between attending all the final parties and Monday morning we began the loading of the truck. My parents came out to help us while Micah's parents had the kids and were going to fly out and meet us on Thursday. So the loading began...

We had some AWESOME neighbors who helped us all day loading and packing. We really wouldn't have gotten it all done in a day if it wasn't for them!

Our minivan was getting worked on and I'm on the phone with the dealership trying to get everything taken care of. As annoying as it was to have to deal with that on top of all the work we were already doing, I welcomed the chance to sit for a minute!

All packed up...sort of. We still had some odds and ends to get in there, but we couldn't believe we got it all in. Well, that's a lie. See my dad's truck on the side...loaded with stuff for storage. Garage had a pile of stuff still to go to storage and Goodwill. I had Sandy's car since the van was at the shop, and that was packed to the brim. Oh yeah, and some stuff in the cab of the moving truck. It all got transferred into our vehicles that were being towed (they were both at our parent's houses because they were both getting work done on them before our trip).

So after we loaded everything up and cleaned the house we left Monday night for our parents' house 2 hours away. Spent the night, and then Tuesday morning picked up the van and put it on the tow dolly and met everyone for a final breakfast. This gave us the chance to say goodbye to everyone one last time, and see the boys before we got on the road. They were excited to see us and the truck with all our stuff, but Aiden did start crying when we were leaving. I am sure he was pretty confused as to what was really going on. But Grammy did a good job distracting them and giving them plenty of fun things to do before they left with Sandy and Larry on the plane to meet us in our new home!

Getting on the road! We were so grateful that Dan made the drive with us. I didn't drive at all...no way I was going to pull that big truck with a trailer on the back with our van! No experience, no thank you! haha

We stopped in Utah on our way out for a quick breather and visited with Ben's mom LuAnn and Ben's niece Lucy. She was so welcoming and opened her house up to us for a few hours. If I had my way (which I was trumped by the two men driving who wanted to continue straight through) I would have wanted to stay the night and seen a little of Utah, and actually get some real sleep laying down. But I was going to take what I could get, and she made us a wonderful breakfast, gave us a few hours of sleep, and a warm shower. I felt human again! Even if it was just for a few hours :) Thank you so much LuAnn!!

I tried to get some pictures of the scenery with my phone...sorry about all the bug splatters. We actually welcomed the rain we encountered to help wash them off! All these are in Utah.

So while we were leaving Nevada, the boys were getting ready to go to the airport and fly with Kiki and Grandpa to meet us!

Getting ready to board the plane! And see Mommy and Daddy!!! and their new home with a playground and a pool :)

I think they did ok on the plane. This isn't their first time, but it is Devin's first time in his own seat. I'm just so happy and thankful everyone arrived safe and sound. Especially AJ who took off a day after us towing Micah's car, and he drove almost straight through. So glad he stopped in Reno to get some sleep before getting back on the road.

San Fransisco! No this is not the Golden Gate bridge...but you get the idea.

Putting together the boys' airplane bed.
I really didn't take pictures of the mayhem that followed after we arrived. The unloading and boxes everywhere were a bit overwhelming. We had some friendly neighborhood kids ask if they could help us unload...and it was fabulous! Since we live on the 2nd floor, it was great to have the help taking boxes up the stairs. We showered them with pop and Popsicles in gratitude (hope the parents didn't get mad)! So many people played an instrumental part in helping us with this move, and we are so incredibly grateful to each and every one of them! We truly don't know what we would have done with out you!

We love and miss you all!!

Final Party

Even now it's hard to believe that our time there has ended. I can't get over that three years have past, and they have flown by. We were suppose to have had 5 years there, and it makes it difficult to have our time cut short. We have made some life long friends, and I know we'll be in touch-but the familiarity, companionship, and camaraderie have been taken from us and now we are in a new environment trying to learn new things and make new friends. Everything happens for a reason, and we are really starting to enjoy our time here...but I'd be lying if I didn't say that we were really missing "home" and everyone that was there. So here is a look back on the last days we had together, the end of the year resident party and roast. It was a sports theme, in case you couldn't tell! haha

Rachel, Laura, and Liz
We have had some great times together.

I tried to dress like a cute Bears player and Micah went as Brian Urlacher...broken wrist and everything. And no, he did not injure himself, just got Ben to put a cast on him. I literally had 10 minutes to put that bald cap on Micah and get ready myself (not exaggerating either) so it didn't come out very well, but he wore it long enough for everyone to see it and then we took it off later in the night.

Matt and David already graduated from the residency; Staci and Christina, have been great friends to us over the years, and we were so glad they all came to the dinner before the party. Since the program closed they invited every doctor who ever went through the program to attend the party. We had a pretty good turnout (pic below).

Ben and Laura-Go Utah! ;)

Go Bears!

Adam, Jason, Jeff, Kartheek, Micah, and Ben
The tradition is the guys take the limo from the dinner to the party while us girls drive the cars to the party. I think they had a great time on the way up.

The significant others
Rachel, Adam, Jason, Jeff, Rachel, Kartheek, Micah, Liz, Ben, and Laura

The guys got beer glasses with their favorite sports team on them.

Traditionally, the wives of the graduating residents were given Vera Bradley bags from the program as a token of appreciation for being the "backbone" for our husbands. Our husbands were not graduating, but we were all leaving, and Bonnie surprised us all with our own Vera's on behalf of the program! It was so sweet of them to think of us even though we weren't graduating. I love mine and use it all the time :)

I tried to get a pic of the party, but it was too wide for me to fit in one frame. But you get the idea...definitely a better turnout than years past.

It came time for Ben and Micah to roast our graduating residents, Jeff and Jason. Now even though Jeff has a girlfriend, they both just have the "bachelor forever" vibe to them. The ongoing joke (for years) was that the two of them were actually a couple, and it didn't save them face when they were both accepted to the same fellowship...and yes...they are going to be roommates! So the guys had some fun with that.

The guys did a great job photo shopping a lot of pictures, and it really was a very very funny roast...even if you didn't know them well. They worked hard and it showed.

Ben and Laura worked very hard to get this picture to look just right, and Ben even made sure to try and get a picture of Jeff at the right angle from our party last year when it was Western themed, having this slide in mind for the roast the following year. It was awesome.

Our last moments together before Rachel left.

Yeah...not the best picture, but as I was going though, I have so many pictures of everyone else dancing and having a good time, and this is the only one of me.

After we closed the party down, we went ahead as a group to a bar/dance club to continue the celebration. We were lucky Kartheek knew the owner (he knows everyone) and they let us in because we were not dressed to code...no jerseys...but we got in (after some drama and failure to get in to a previous club) and had a fantastic time. Even when a fight broke out because some girl was accusing one of our guys of touching her inappropriately, they got kicked out (because it was bogus and they were looking for a fight) we partied on till 3am :)

Pretty tired, but very happy. Totally not thinking that we were both going to be spending the weekend packing our houses and putting 2,600 miles between us.

Great night with awesome friends. And a BIG THANKS to everyone who helped us watch our kids so we be out all night. And to everyone who made the last three years so wonderful for all of us. We love you!

INTERNET!!

Oh my gosh we have internet! FINALLY!! It has been 6 weeks since I have had access from my computer...minus the 12 hours we had about 3 weeks ago. I am soooo excited and obviously have a TON of posting to do. I absolutely plan on getting some of that done tonight, but I'm not quite sure where to begin? Do I start from where I left off or do I start now and go backwards? I'll have some time to think about that while I make dinner (sushi for tonight!) and then after the kids go to bed I will be posting away. For now I thought I'd leave you with a few pictures to suffice the family for now. :)

I'll be posting more later and explain all that we've been up to!
And thanks for looking...please feel free to comment, we're missing home and would love to hear from all of you!!

arrived alive - no internet yet and my phone won't let me type in the body of the post. just wanted to let you all know we are doing ok!

OK...I can type here! (in a comment) Just to quickly sum things up...we arrived in CA last Thursday night by moving truck and the boys flew in with Micah's parents. His brothers both drove out to help us tow our cars and get us unloaded. I don't know what we'd have done without all their help! We are still unpacking and getting settled in...the boys are adjusting pretty well. All in all we're doing OK, but it's going to take some time before it feels like home. Thank goodness for our phones, otherwise we'd be so out of touch since we can't get internet yet. That's one of our biggest frustrations right now. But at least we have our phones to check our emails and Facebook. When I have the time and internet I will have a ton of posts! Just wanted to thank you for checking in and being patient!!

Peppers

Devin loves peppers, actually he really loves all produce. The vegetables are always the first thing he eats on his plate, loves grabbing apples and eating them when I'm not looking, and now apparently peppers too! I was upstairs getting dressed for the day and I noticed Devin had left my room and was gone for a few minutes. And when that happens, my thought process is like "Oh goodness, what am I going to find him doing now??" He didn't leave me in suspense for too long as he came right back up to my room with a huge smile on his face and a whole pepper in his hand with some bites missing out of it. He just started chowing down on the thing like an apple and loving it.
Now I know this is pretty tame for the Devinator, and there are much worse things than your child pretty much begging for healthy food. But I will admit I'm a little nervous as to what this can turn into. He's in a big boy bed now, and can get out at will (although he has been very good, and does stay in bed when we put him in it). However they have been waking up much earlier than before, and I can just only imagine what they will start doing if they can get down to the fridge and help themselves! Oy!
So yes, the Devinator is still up to his usual antics. Just last week he squeezed a bunch of sunscreen onto the carpet, dumped an entire bag of quinoa all over the kitchen and living room floors, and has on more than one occasion destroyed the toy closet. He keeps me on my toes, and I'm going to be very grateful when they are enjoying some grandparent time over this weekend so we can finish packing the house in peace!

Stay tuned for future updates-and thank you for your patience. My posting will definitely pick up once we get all settled in next weekend!

Family

I don't know where I would be right now if it wasn't for our wonderful family. We truly have the best family ever. As you all know, we are gearing up for our big move, and have been so busy and preoccupied...and so this blog has suffered because of it. I recently had an Aunt ask me where I find the time to blog-and I told her "I don't! At least not right now!" And it's very true...I don't have the time. But I did want to take a minute to just update everyone quickly on our crazy life right now. We officially will be on the road in a week. First thing next Tuesday morning we will begin our drive across the country. And because we have the best family in the world, we won't be tackling this adventure alone. Everyone has been so wonderful and generous with their help and support, and doing everything they can to help make this juncture in our life a little bit easier to handle. Whether it be making the trip with us, helping us pack, watching the boys, or making food for our going away parties-each and every one of them has blessed us with their time and talents to help us out. We love you all and seriously cannot express to you how grateful we are for all you have/will do for us!!
I also have some of the best friends in the world-and I cannot tell you how sad I am to have to leave them so soon. I know it will probably be years before we will be able to see one another again. But as soon as we are all done with residency/fellowship we are going to have girls weekends :) And I'm holding you all to that! haha :)
Last week I wanted to make sure to get a few family pictures taken (especially now that I have dark hair again) before we left, and asked Laura if she could take them for us. She is so very talented and I love all the pictures she takes. And as crazy as our lives are right now, she took the time out of her very busy schedule to do this for us. I was supposed to return the favor, but Aiden gave James a black eye (an accident, they ran into each other, and Aiden just got away with a small cut in his lip while James' eye swelled immediately and now looks just awful!). Hopefully it will go down enough so we can take that picture before we all leave! But here are a few of our favorites. Thank you Laura!!

And might I mention that those boys were just not cooperative at all...and both of these pictures were taken within the first few of over a hundred I think! She was so patient...thanks Laura!

Condo

Well, we made a trip out to CA to find our housing, and we are excited to say that we accomplished what we set out to do! It was a bit overwhelming to say the least, and if it wasn't for our friends we probably would not have found this place or have been as pleased as we are. Micah and I easily saw between 20-30 properties in the three days we looked. On our first day of hunting we went to see this 3 bedroom condo. Although already looking at the price (the max of what I had originally budgeted for) we went in knowing it was probably a 'no go' and that we would have to LOVE it to even consider it. Well, of course what happened...we loved it. The condos were only 4 years old, so it was still fairly new construction, and we probably wouldn't run into too many issues. It was 3 bedrooms, which was great because we really figured we would only be able to afford a 2 bedroom, it was in the best school district, it was centrally located for Micah, it had underground parking, a park ON SITE, a pool and hot tub, a workout facility in the club house, cute community, and STORAGE! That was one thing we were having the hardest time finding, was places with storage. And it was great to know that the previous tenants also had small children and loved living there. So what's the catch besides being at our price limit? Well, it had laundry hookups but we would have to get the unit if we wanted it. Or we could use the on-sight laundry for $3 a load. Then the guy said we would have to help pay his HOA which would add another $150 a month to the already high rent rate. Ugh.
We left feeling a little hopeful though because he said he could work with us a bit. But in the mean time we needed to continue our search. Well what happens when you are looking but now have a place in mind that you really love? You begin comparing everything else to it. And that is what we did. We found some ok places but not it great locations. We found some good locations but the building and rooms were filthy. We found places that really would fit our family but didn't have an inch of storage for our bikes. It was getting disheartening. Especially the second day. By the end Micah and I were feeling pretty deflated.
Lucky for us our hotel was right next door to another resident and his family who we have been talking with a lot during our relocation process and have grown to consider them dear friends. They invited us over to relax and we took the opportunity to run some prospects by them. In the end we described the condo we really liked, but came to the conclusion that it just wasn't feasible with our budget. The next morning we were holding high hopes for a few new properties we were going to look at and praying that something would just jump out and scream that it was our new home. I was checking my email quite frequently because that was the main means of communication between us and Realtors/landlords. And I got an email from Marissa, our friend, who stated that she felt bad because she didn't think they really helped us much the night before, and so she looked online for us and came across an ad for a condo that sounded just like the one we described...and it was $200 cheaper. She was thinking it was the same one and that the guy was giving us the run around and trying to get more money out of us than he was listing online. Well, we discovered that it was the same condo, but in a different building and listed by a different person. So we jumped at it and made an appointment to see it that afternoon.
We didn't say anything that we had already looked at another condo in the complex, and looked around falling in love all over again. We were able to ask about an HOA in an off handed way and the Realtor assured us that the owner pays for that. And it had a washer/dryer unit already installed! Bonus!! In the end there was no way to pass this up. The next morning we submitted our application and played the waiting game. All our eggs were in this basket. We were leaving the following morning, and the banks closed at 6pm to get the cashiers check ready. Our only concern was that we could not move until the middle of June, and there were people wanting it who could move in right away. In the end our prayers were answered and the Realtor loved us and really had a good feeling about us, and wanted to push our application to her client. It worked. He did try and ask for rent to start on June 1st, but with the Realtor pushing a little for us, we agreed on the 15th instead. She gave us a key right then and there, and when we come back into town we will get all the other keys and gate openers. We officially now have a place to live! Woohoo! What a relief, I tell you! I could not imagine getting on a plane knowing the next time we could come out was when we move, and not know where we were moving to. Or never seen in in person. Now I know what kind of space we have and can start organizing and figuring out what we will take and won't. It's hard to believe in 6 weeks this condo will be our new home...crazy! Time has flown, and I just hope we can enjoy what little time we have left with our family and friends here.

Here is a video tour I took quick of the first condo we looked at. It was more for our use to remind ourselves of the different spaces we looked at since we were looking at so many. It's not the best video, but it helps give you a good idea of the layout. All the pictures are of the second condo-our new home. As you can tell all the units are basically the same. Both condos we got to see were second story corner condos which is also an added bonus. It lucked out for us that the one we saw first was the same side corner we ended up getting. Each unit is individually owned.

I never got a good pic of the living room area that goes out onto another balcony with more storage. But this picture is with my back to the sliding glass doors looking in on the dining area and opening to the kitchen.

This is the kitchen with the stackable laundry behind that white door. Stainless steel appliances, electric smooth cook-top, granite countertops.

Master Bedroom, I did not do a great job at taking photos, but I was also trying to be quick. It is a decent size especially compared to some other ones we saw.

We have closets on either side and you can see the edge of the sink on the left and then the tub and toilet behind the door.

Again, not a great picture, but this is the office. It is actually a bit small in size, but it's a separate space for Micah and we were happy to have found him one!

Second bathroom

The boys' room taken with my back to the sliding glass doors that go onto another balcony and storage. See how deep their closet is and it spans the width of the room as well...which is awesome since they will be sharing and all their clothes and hopefully a lot of their toys can fit in there.

Trying to get some pictures of one of the storage closets. It's nice because you can also do a lot of stacking of boxes or put a shelving unit in to utilize all the space.

Here is the on site play ground and to the left of it is the pool and hot tub. The club house is also to the left with the workout facility and mail boxes. It's great to have these amenities so close at hand!