We Moved!!

Be prepared people - this is a very long post!

Oh what a crazy month we have had!  We sold our house on February 12th after three weeks on the market.  That may seem like a very short time to some, however those three weeks seemed like an eternity to us.  We were actually expecting it would go a little faster but it was the middle of winter, I don't know what we were thinking.  After the sale of the house, we were so relieved!  We were actually able to focus on getting ourselves packed up for the move and spending time with our favorite people in Kentucky.

First my three best friends in my neighborhood took me to a goodbye dinner.  We spend A LOT of time together.  Our kids go to the same preschool, we see each other several times a week and text non-stop.  If one of us needed something, someone was always available to help.  And these ladies definitely got me through the most insane time of my life thus far.

I wasn't expecting to cry through most of our dinner but I did of course - they made me this precious book of pictures of our kiddos from the time they met until now.  Our kids LOVE each other so much and they will all always be like family to us.

Then we needed to spend as much time with our cousins as possible....

 And we did just that....

We went out one last night with a group of our friends to Pies and Pints.  It was so fun to have an adult night out and I feel so blessed to have been able to spend time with my favorites at one very long and very crowded table.

The boys had a sleepover with Max and Luke that night and Rena babysat.  Kristin and I used to babysit for Rena when she was a baby.  Kristin started watching her when she was 6 months old and when she graduated college I took over so we babysat for her family for over 8 years.  How beautiful is this young lady?!

Outside of all the fun we were having with our friends and family, we had a LOT to get done before our March 6th move date.  We packed up most of the house except the bare necessities the week before the move.  Our garage was filled to the brim!

 This is a tip I learned from Pinterest - and honestly it worked like a charm!  I bagged everyone's hanging clothes and wrote their names on them so we knew where to take them in our new house.  Less boxes wasted and much less time wasted!  Just hang them up when we get there and cut open the bags, voila!

This next portion is a little lengthy but I wanted to remember every last detail because it happened to be a bit dramatic!

Our moving weekend plan was to take the kids to Cincinnati to meet Brad's parents on Thursday morning so that they could keep the boys for the weekend.  Then we would drive back to Lexington, pick up the truck Thursday afternoon and movers were supposed to start helping us at 5:30 AM Friday morning.
All week the weather channel was talking about this huge snow storm we were supposed to receive in Lexington starting late Wednesday night into early Thursday morning.  And I was trying to believe that it wouldn't be as bad as everyone was saying, boy was I wrong.  It started right on time and actually ended up being worse than they expected.  First it was raining, then sleeting, and then big accumulating snowflakes.

The snow did not stop either - it continued into late Thursday morning with a total of around 17 inches.  That is a LOT of snow, but especially in Lexington.  We decided to go ahead with our plan and try to make this work.  I was nervous - very nervous to drive to Cincinnati but we did it.  The side roads, main roads and interstate were all pretty terrible!  It took us twice as long to get to where we were going but once we were just south of Cincinnati the roads were perfectly clear and not much snow on the ground.

We finally got back to Lexington after taking the kids to see Mimi and Poppy and went straight to the truck rental to pick up our moving truck.  When we finally got to the Penske store they had closed early.  What?!?  We were not happy.  While we were frantically calling other truck companies in the parking lot we saw someone pull up - it was the store owner.  We told him we scheduled our truck pick up over a month ago and no one called to tell us that they would be closing early.  We needed our truck and could he please figure out how to help us do so.  The owner said no, that he didn't have his keys.  So Brad said "Where are your keys?  We can wait here until you go get them."  The owner of the store was horribly offended by Brad's question and got in face yelling obscenities at him.  Brad and I actually think he would have physically hurt him if Brad had been more confrontational than he was.  So we left upset and worried that our move might get pushed back again.  

Luckily we were able to get ahold of someone at the corporate Penske office who was absolutely appalled by this story and found us a truck and a store that was still open and let us have the truck for free. So we were back on track, or so I thought....

I came home and realized I needed to shovel the driveway before Brad got back with the truck but I was locked out of the house and the keys and garage door opener were with Fred and Suzanne in Piqua.  I was locked out, my phone was dead and I needed to shovel the 17 inches of snow off the driveway so that Brad could get that massive moving truck in the driveway.  Our neighbors and family came to our rescue.  The Oakley's, Marc, Meg and the kids, and Tim, Kristin and their kids started shoveling the driveway.  We found another realtor in our neighborhood who was able to get into our realtor lockbox and unlock the door (we had a key inside the house) and we were able to park the truck to get ready for our busy day.  

Everyone came inside and helped us finish packing the rest of the house, taking the tv's off the walls, the beds apart, carrying heavy furniture to the garage, etc.  We seriously would have been up all night if it weren't for all of our amazing friends and family!  Brad and I got to sleep in our room one last time and say goodbye to our sweet Lexington house that we love so very much!  

 On Friday morning the roads were still snow covered in Lexington but much better than the day before.  We had the truck packed and were on the road by 10:00 AM.  I had a few very sad moments as I was the last one to leave.  I had to sweep and mop before the locking the doors one last time.  In that moment the house was silent and empty and so was I.  I had many emotions running through my head but most of all I felt sad.  I felt sad that Owen and Grayson would never return to that home again and really never say a proper goodbye.  I felt sad because my kids would not grow up in that house or that neighborhood as I had once dreamed they would.  My world was changing and it was starting right there on my drive away from our old home.