The Move

Well, the move went fairly well, all things considered.

We thought we were mostly ready.

 So we got the truck.

And we got doughnuts and coffee. 

People from Stephen's church had volunteered to come help us load, so . . . coffee and doughnuts.  (It almost killed Theo, as you can imagine, to hear, "They're not for us; they're for the movers," seventeen times before 8am.)

So, it turned out we were not quite so almost-ready as we thought we were.  People who arrived thinking that they'd spend an hour or two throwing boxes on the truck instead packed and loaded and packed some more.  All day.

They were sweet about it, though . . .

. . . and left very kind messages, instead of the things they were really thinking, for us to find when we started unpacking.

Several of them worked on the parsonage grounds, too, making it nice for the next pastor and his family.

Amos helped.

Theo was very, very helpful, too!

(We actually did ask him to take that one off so we could put in something else first.  He's not going the wrong way.)

We got it all packed and on the truck by the end of the day Saturday.

Pop-pop came down Sunday night to help.

No, really--he came to drive the truck.

And we rolled out Monday morning!  It was a very long drive.

We tried to keep our happy faces on as much as we could.

And we stopped along the way to visit with people.

We stopped at Grandma Jackie's for lunch the first day.

She was glad that Amos was such a good eater.  (She always worries about babies not getting enough to eat.)

We stopped at The Lake to spend the night.

We stopped at Chipotle and Chick-Fil-A and our other favorite places for meals.

We enjoyed the drive as much as we could (in Tennessee, for example) and put our game faces on for the rest.  (Virginia is a lot longer than you think, especially when you're traveling on 81.)

And finally, late in the evening on Tuesday, we arrived!

Our new home, waiting for us.  Yay!