August 2022

A lot happened in August! We moved into our new house on August 5th, the first day of the school year was August 18th, and our first load of HHG arrived on August 24th.

Brady discovered that he was now tall enough to see over the shopping cart when pushing it, so he's been loving being in charge of pushing the cart whenever we have errands to run.

On July 8th, all of our HHG were loaded onto a moving truck in Helotes, Texas. On August 24th, we finally got most of our HHG back! All of our things went onto a regular moving truck in Helotes, then they were crated in San Antonio before making the trek to Seattle, then they went onto a barge to Anchorage before making the final trek to our new house in Eagle River. One of our couches & our dining room table/benches were the only things that didn't make it onto the first barge, so they were about 2 weeks behind the rest of our HHG.

This was definitely the most chaotic unloading experience we've ever had. First of all, it was raining...again. Secondly, all of the houses in our neighborhood are three level houses. For all of our previous moves, they would bring the stuff directly into the house to unwrap, etc., but the layout of this house didn't allow for that. So they were essentially unwrapping everything in the drizzle on our driveway or in the garage--it was pure chaos. On top of that, there just wasn't space in the house for all of our stuff to go to (because this house is almost 2,000 square feet smaller than our previous house), so there was just stuff everywhere. We've also never had our stuff in crates before, so this was a new experience. They could fit 5-6 crates on each truckload. Once they unpacked it, they would drive back to pick up the rest.

Our best loading/unloading experience was the same two-man team that loaded us up in Las Vegas, drove our things to Texas, and unloaded in Helotes. They were phenomenal! For this move, there were about fifteen different people in our house over the course of the day, and it still didn't all get done. They are supposed to put all of the beds/furniture together for you. Despite them showing up on time around 9am, they still weren't finished by 5pm and Derek just asked them to leave as we had a school function for Shelby that evening.

Around lunchtime, Brady and I decided to escape the madness! We went out for lunch & ran a few errands before picking up the girls from school. Once we had Shelby & Hadley with us, we went to the library until Derek told us the coast was clear to come home. Whew, it was a day! But we were so glad to finally have our things again!

The day after the movers left, I was so happy to have two rooms done-ish! The picture below was taken on August 25th--Brady's first nap in his own bed since before the Fourth of July.

The days following the arrival of our HHG were busy. I was constantly donating things, selling furniture on Facebook Marketplace, and trashing items to make room for what we absolutely needed in this house. Then this care package arrived from my dear friend Nicole, and it was just what we needed to lift our sprirts!

{the house was still a mess...but we were making progress!}

{We really had to get creative and efficient with storage. Our last house had 3 linen closets & this house has none!}

{Brady riding his bike down our street...look at that view!!}

{right after Shelby got her new cello!}

{excited for new glasses!}

Due to the packers showing up at our house the day after Brady's 6th birthday in Texas, we never got the opportunity to take his annual birthday trip to Barnes & Noble. We finally made that happen at the very end of August! We went book shopping, met Dada for lunch, and then went out for ice cream! It was such a fun afternoon with my favorite six year old.