I know you guys are getting impatient!

So without further adieu...... I present the episode of the lost camera cord.... moving and other intricacies (like the kid I found as I opened a box! LOL).....

All names other than our family's have been changed to protect the criminal, er, innocent I mean!

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Here are a few shots of the kids helping me pack and "such." LOL

Keenan making the most of boxes.....

Tristen defrosting the freezer....

Oh MOM!!! It's sooooo heavy!!! (The box is empty BTW!)

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Friday night (9-1), DH and I were sitting outside talking and he was on the phone to his friend, Mike who still works for the same company he used to. This small box truck comes down the road. I start laughing at the irony, thinking it was someone else moving and mebbe lost or the ppl across the road had a roomie moving out or something. DH starts laughing REALLY hard, like a almost in joyous tears laugh, when it hit me. It was Mike. Robert had told him about the issues we'd had the last time we got a truck (U-haul refunded us about 60% of what we paid- it was THAT bad). He also had told him that everyone that had either said they'd help, or any of the probes we put out for help had sprouted nil. Mike wanted us to 1) know that SOMEONE cared and 2) be sure that if U-haul did a royal repeat, that even if we had to make 3 trips, that we at least had a truck. I told Robert that since we had a backup, U-haul would work out perfectly.

Well Mike and his wife and 2 girls (ages 6 & 4) stayed for a few to visit. I got my hugs from the girls and the 4 year old and I walked to the door, her in the lead. In all the excitement, I had FORGOTTEN Keenan was sitting on the potty chair when I stepped out to toss a couple ideas at Robert. So little Miss Anna got an eyeful of ALL BOY. Imagine her shock, my shock and the pile up it caused when she stopped abruptly causing me to have to reach OVER her to swoop up a little butt-nekkid boy. Oh my face was burning!

So Robert goes to his place of work to pick up a guy that the company he now works for paid to help us. Yes, his brand spanking new employers hired someone to help us (1 single hard working guy, not to be confused with a whole moving company, as I found out SMIL was). From there, they hop on over to the old house, pick up Mike (who ALSO came by to drive them to pick up the truck- you do the math- Me, Robert, 3 kids and Tonto in a 5-seater Focus wagon, um- no!) and head off to the U-haul place. Robert comes home with a NEW U-haul. I guess it pays to threaten former woes on the same company. Now the strap for the handtruck was broken, but it was a FAR cry from the last episode.

Everything went rather smoothly, other than them getting the dryer stuck in the stairwell door and me using a medicine syringe to drizzle vegetable oil down the doorframe to loosen it (it worked by the way!!). We started loading the truck about 10:30 am and we were done unloading about 6 pm. Usually when it's just R & I, we're LUCKY if we're done unloading at 11 o'clock at night. We had McD's for brek, Domino's for lunch and McD's again (yes I know- Supersize ME!!! LOL & that was on top of ALL the other meals we ate out, R & I were so sick of it) for dinner.

So Saturday was spent, strictly moving from one house to the other- main items and boxes. Sunday (9-2) we went back to the house to get the little things with the smaller truck & the car (said Focus), then over to our storage unit to empty that out. We left several items in the storage unit that we were donating to Goodwill.

Sunday was McD's for brek AGAIN.

The boys, who never eat fast enough to be able to play on the playground, got to play this time. They had a blast.

Til I said no more.....

Monday was spent loading the smaller truck AGAIN from the old house of Goodwill things, then off to the storage unit one last time for the rest of the items. Goodwill made out like bandits. We loaded that 14-footer 1 level FULL of bikes, furniture, toys and boxes of all sorts of misc. items. Oh and 4 small vending machines.

Monday night was the first night spent in our house, completely done with the move.

A few more pics:

> Tristen helping with boxes at the new house.

> is our "survival basket." It contains paper & plastic goods- napkins, plates, forks, spoons, cups, etc. This was GREAT especially when once we got into the new house, it took 5 days to loacte the plates.
> the kids sitting on the back of a fully unloaded truck!
> Tris in the 14-foot truck. The Elders got to take turns riding in each of the trucks.
> The "poppy-paper" (buble wrap) dance
> Kee (after I was able to help subside his fear of the poppy paper) & big Bubs..

This is the shelf liner I picked out for the cabinets. The old liner had been in this house, prolly almost since it was built, LOL.....

And last but not least, it's AMAZING what you find when you unpack at a new house!