Here we are!

SO, we made it to NC. Whew. The last week has been such a blur. We celebrated Jake's birthday, had several good-bye parties and did our final packing. But nothing can really prepare you for a 11 hour day of moving with 2 small kids. Yes, 11 hours. The truck arrived at 9am and didn't get done until 8pm. And that's not including all the stuff we loaded ourselves in the moving POD last month. The crew was slow. And inexperienced. And it was hot - 95 most of the day. And despite all the wonderful support by our neighbors and friends in the home stretch, by 6pm we realized we really needed to get the kids fed and on the road so we left.

I will not bore everyone with the details, but suffice it to say we got a call while on the road to NC that made us believe we would not be seeing our possessions the next day as planned. And we didn't get to NC until after 10:30pm. Bedtime on moving day #1? Midnight!

Moving day #2 was a bit better. Started with a call from the driver asking for our address, which he had lost. But proceeded with much better pace and by 4pm we were unloaded, had tipped our new crew of very young and energetic movers, and could see that our new house was marvelous.

Now, we've been here 4 days. We've been to Lowes, two bookstores, Ace, the public library, the kids' museum, tons of restaurants, an outlet mall, a frozen yogurt place, a new pool complex, and thanks to Grandma Lynne's arrival by plane yesterday, Mike and I even got a date night out last night and listened to live music downtown. What a treat! We are happy about our location and all the services that are close. We are not happy that the garbage disposal and the dishwasher seem to have broken after the first day. Or the fact that one of our cats is literally sick with stress and we had to rush her to the vet this morning. Each day we fight to figure out what we can get done, and who does what as we deal with visits from various utility people daily. Mike, heroically, spent nearly a full day running the internet cable between our offices through the attic so we can both work. The kids are whacked out. Going to bed at 11 pm and then not napping the next day, hysterical with fatigue.

And then, we have a moment, like the one pictured above. Mike bought Abby a picture book about some fish at the bookstore and read it to her tonight. There's a word joke in it and every time he read it, she burst out with belly laughs - she got her first pun! It was delightful to listen to and clearly delightful for her too - she made him read the book 4 times and then sat up and said "That is so funny! and slapped her knee.

Yes, sweet Abby, it was. And we hope that you and Jake get lots of belly laughs from our new life here.