The Big Move

We are here in Iowa! Everything went really well. It was great having the movers come and pack everything and the girls had a blast playing in and around all of the boxes. Colleen and I just lounged around. Seriously, I took a nap while they were packing.


We planned to spend the night with the Cooks Friday and leave early Saturday morning but events worked against us and we ended up driving to Iowa Sunday. Ask Brian for the details. Anyway, it was nice because it gave us more time to hang out with our "Indiana Family" as we have decided to call the Cooks.

Back row: Brian, Tara and Doug
Front "row": Harry, Aleah, Colleen, Leila, Kenna, Ellie, Emily and Zoe

We had a close call with National, the cat. We were planning on picking her up at our place on the way out of town but when we got there National was nowhere to be found. We were at our place at 10am and put a noon time limit for looking for her. After many prayers Brian did a last sweep of the property at 11:50. At 12:30 he came walking toward the car holding National. I teared up. I don't know what Emily would have done if we had had to leave her cat.

Sunday night Brian and Emily decided to spend the night at our new house - without pillows or blankets (crazy) - and Aleah, Colleen and I checked into a hotel (so nice). It is amazing how much larger and calmer a hotel room feels with two less people. After our free continental breakfast we came over to the house and they were already unloading. All of the boxes were unloaded by noon and by the end of the day the living room, library and kitchen were unpacked. By the end of Tuesday all of the boxes were out of the house. There are still boxes of tools etc to be unpacked in the garage but that is it! It was all Brian. He totally unpacked everything.

I love our house and will take and post pictures later. I want it to be clean when I take pictures and somehow we haven't gotten to that point yet. The weirdest thing the first two days was being around other people. Hearing other kids playing. Other cars driving by. Having to close your blinds. Seeing other houses. People could just stop by if they wanted. No privacy. I didn't realize how use I had gotten to living in the middle of nowhere. It is feeling more normal now. Aleah thinks our yard is tiny.

Brian has gone back to work. It was sooo nice having him at home for the last two weeks. If only he could find a way to earn money by hanging out at home with the kids and I. I'll post more pictures later.