What a Journey!

The last time I posted I was preparing for our trip to MN.  Now we are in MN...well, Iowa actually, since that is where the temporary housing is for us.  But close enough!  So here is a run down of our trip.

Thursday the moving company sent the people to pack up our house.  They did a great job.  220 boxes later all of our stuff was ready to move. 
Friday at 8am our driver and truck arrived.  He started to do inventory and mark the big stuff that wasn't boxed (aka, furniture).  The loading guys were supposed to arrive at 8:30 to start loading stuff.  8:30 came and went, 9:00 came and went, 9:30 came and went, 10:00 came and went...We were beginning to wonder.  10:30 came and went, 11 came and went...finally one guy arrived.  He had overslept.  Oy.  What an excuse.  About 20 minutes after he came he got a phone call.  The other guy had a flat tire, on the W. Broad St. exit.  For those of you who know where I live...you know that W.Broad St isn't very far from my house.  In BAD traffic to get there and back it would MAYBE take 30 minute.  Well, an HOUR later they BOTH finally show up.  This was after our driver called the company and said, "I am ticked off, the shipper (aka, ME) is ticked off and something needs to be done about it."  By 6pm, all of our stuff was loaded (including Dan's car).

We were in an empty house, with three kids, an air mattress and some sleeping bags.  We went out to dinner at a local Bob Evans...remind us NEVER to go to THAT one again...Hubby and I were up not feeling well periodically through the night.  Oy. 

Saturday morning we got up and began the finishing touches on the house.  Hubby finished painting and touching up while I took care of the kitchen.  The kids were entertained by running around the entirely empty house.  Our plan was to leave early that morning.  Unless you consider 2pm early we didn't succeed in that.  We drove a few hours, realized how tired we were and pulled over at a hotel about 5 hours away.  We ordered pizza and hit the hay.

Bright and early (yes, on the day that we do the daylight savings time switch) Bee wakes up coughing...which leads to vomiting.  Oy.  So at 5:30am we are all up and cleaning up the mess and getting everyone settled.  By 6 we were good and I took Butterfly down to breakfast.  Hubby stayed back with Bubby and Bee.  After I returned Hubby took off for breakfast and I prepared the room for our departure.  By 8am we were off again.  Only an hour behind schedule, not to shabby.  The rest of the day entailed us trying to explain to Bee why she couldn't eat what we were and fits of crying.  She eventually did eat some applesauce and jello. 

We finally got to where our temporary temporary housing was going to be....well, where we THOUGHT it was going to be.  Hubby had gone in to get our room assignment.  I stayed in the car with the kids.  He comes out and has nothing in his hands...no key, no paper, nothing.  Oy.  We were told to go to the WRONG location.  So back in the car we go and off to the RIGHT location...in the dark...with sketchy directions...and no point of reference.  After passing the place twice we found it.  And boy were we glad that we did.  We unloaded a few things and headed BACK to the car so we could go have dinner with Dan's family and mine. 

On Tuesday morning we were to check out of that hotel and move to our real temporary housing.  Of course this story wouldn't be complete without another one of my kids getting sick...this time it was Bubby.  Poor guy.  He didn't want to eat much of anything yesterday.  And then last night it hit me too.  So far Hubby and Butterfly are the only two to escape this one.  Here's to hoping it stays that way. 

We sure packed a lot into this last weekend.  Here's to hoping our house hunting stories will be less adventurous.  We could use some normalcy.  :)
<3Alison