Christmas: The move

Christmas has been as expected; lovely and family filled.

But I should back up to the move. As I write this we are driving through Seattle in a big giant truck (Paul’s Dad’s truck) and Paul and Joel are whistling along to the radio.

Actually I should back up to Thursday, just before the move. We had my work Christmas party. I headed home after work, had a shower and blow dried my hair – I know that sounds mundane but it’s quite the endeavor as my hair takes FOREVER to dry. We took a taxi downtown (which of course, made us feel very urban and fancy) and ended up at Catch 122 for dinner. Got to chat with coworkers, have some appies and wines, and then sit and have good conversation  over a great dinner.

It was a perfect way to spend the night before moving because it meant we got to relax and eat great food without having to dirty our kitchen that we’d already packed up.

Friday I headed to my last week day before the holidays and Paul worked with our movers to get all our furniture loaded into the moving van and then over to our new house. The movers were awesome, they wrapped all our furniture so carefully and did an amazing job of making sure all our furniture was perfectly safe. My boss let me go early to help with the move and so I arrived at the new house just as they were loading into the house and I helped navigate all the furniture to where it needed to go, which is turns out Paul didn’t know, so it was REALLY good that I was there early.  It was such a pleasure to have movers move all our furniture. Wow. So helpful. We loved it. And now our house was full of furniture, which helps make it seem way more homelike.

After the movers left we tidied up a few things and then headed over to the old house to make sure that now with the furniture out that all the random stuff was in boxes. We worked from 4 until 8 getting everything put away and doing some of the beginning of cleaning.

I tend to think I’m not like a dirty person, but when you move away bookcases and fridges and freezers, man, so dirty. Embarrassing. So dirty. So much work left to do!

Also I learned that we have lots of stuff. LOTS.

We left our house exhausted and headed out to Pho Hong for Pho (Paul) and Lemon Grass Pork w. springolls (me). It was a good way to end a draining night!

Saturday we woke up way too early to finish up the boxing at our old place since the rest of our moving crew/friends was coming to help move our boxes at 11am.  We packed up the last of the stuff and headed back to the house so I could begin organizing the house for the arrival of boxes and so that I could wait for Telus to come hook up our internet, cable and phone. Paul met up with our crew back at our house at 11am and then they started filling up all the cars with boxes and coming over to our place. 3 trips with all the cars full each time and the move was complete!

Our friends were awesome. They moved in the rain, quickly and carefully. The guys hauled boxes and Shey came to help me organie in my kitchen. To thank everyone I made Pizza, Nacho’s and mini Taco’s. Mmmm….it was a success! The food was gobbled up and it felt party like. Moving party success.

Then my sister came over to help me organize my kitchen more. It’s a big job! She was so patient! She helped me really think through where to put thing and why. She let me change things and have do overs and we made a lot of headway! In fact she helped me decide to have Paul make an extra shelf in the big pantry and it was a genius idea. Jenna left after a while and I started in on the hutch. We’d gotten a new hutch for free from the Chibota’s and I have filled it with my dishes and I’m ecstatic. It helps keep me organized to see my plates stored beautifully. Paul and I spent the next couple hours chipping away at the mass of boxes and helping to really organize the living room, dining room and kitchen. Jenna came back a few hours later and was amazed by our progress! She was so amazed and exited that she got out our vacuum to help make it perfectly beautiful.

At about 6:30 Paul told me to stop working since my back was beginning to give out. I was thankful for the permission, since my motivational drive kept saying to do more but my body was aching. I grabbed a bag of chips leftover from the party and a beer and headed downstairs to our new family room to watch some Glee while Paul headed out to finally see The Hobbit.

At 8:30 Jenna came over (as mentioned earlier) and then at 9:30 we headed over to visit with our friend Leah. We were there because our other friend Sarah was back in town and we wanted to see her and hang out with her boyfriend and her. Hanging out with Nate and Leah is always great, and adding Mark and Sarah to the mix was awesome. Great food, even better conversation and some good drinks. It was a perfect way to end a long, productive day. We stayed until midnight and only left because of the next day’s early start.

Sunday I convinced Paul to come to Ikea with me. We had Ikea Breakfast and then worked our way through my big list of Ikea needs. Cool God Story; Friday at work I’d been making a list of things to pick up at Ikea. It was a big list. 5 minutes later my boss came by with a card from our workplace to say thanks and give a Christmas gift – in it was an Ikea gift card for slightly more than the list I’d just made would cost. It was such an answer to prayer!!! We had even more fun buying what we needed because of this card. We were productive and made good price choices.

Paul hated Ikea and was so pleased  when we finally got to leave and head over to Home Depot. We walked into Home Depot and I immediately found myself quite overwhelmed. But we got base boards to finish off the room Paul put carpets in. We got a piece cut to make a desk for me and to make the extra shelf for the pantry and grabbed hooks and stuff to help around the house. We came back, installed the shelf and then headed to church! It was a productive, whirlwhind morning.

And finally, it was time to start the Christmas Vacation time. 

Oh and I found these: