The first week of June was hard. The kids were out of
school. They went to a tennis camp with friends in the mornings, and had play dates every
afternoon to keep them busy, and let them see friends. But, it was a hard week
of goodbyes.
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| Ryan with Michael Montemuno and Sean in back |
The one thing that made it easier was staying with our
friends, the Bridges. They traveled with the military, and understood that
even though we owned our house the last week, staying there once the packing
started would not really be feasible. They offered to let us stay at their house the last week, and their kids
and ours are good friends…and the same ages. So, while all of our Legos were
packed…..Ryan could play Legos with Jack at night. Same with Lauren, who could
play with Allison. Being able to go there made such a huge difference in the
transition.
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| Celebrating Jack's birthday! |
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| Another meal with friends....TJ, Luka, Jack and Ryan |
June 3: We shipped our 3 cats, Shadow, Socks and Hunter to Colorado.
Mark’s mom, Nancy, was nice enough to pick them up and keep them at her house
for a week for us. The veterinarian suggested that we board them before the
chaos of packing started, and that was such a good suggestion.
June 4: Packers arrive. They worked from 8 a.m. - 9:30 p.m. Mark was gone and the kids had their morning camp, afternoon play dates and then, I thought we'd be done. They were troopers, and hung out at the house as the packing was finished. Then we headed to the Bridges, exhausted!
June 6: The 55 ft. truck arrives. They loaded from 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. and packed it in like a puzzle, filling every space. We were trying to fit my mom's storage unit into the same truck. As it turns out, they weren't able to fit all of it onto this truck with our stuff, and there was an "overflow shipment" with the rest of her things. The total weight was 30,180 lbs. (4,820 was my mom’s). Continental paid for 18,000 lbs. Arg.
June 7: Clean house, say goodbye to 43 Golden Shadow Circle, The Woodlands,TX 77381
June 8: Supposed to close on TX house. Auto transport picks
up Denise’s car.
June 9: Denise and kids fly to Denver.
(There’s a funny story here. We had the highest “standby” tickets, but at the
last minute they called my name, because the flight was overbooked and they had
been asking for volunteers. I had a
sinking feeling, and they asked me if I was a “must ride.” I said "yes", as tears
filled my eyes! Then I back-pedaled, because technically we weren’t. That
means, “if you don’t get on the flight, will you jeopardize the operations of
the airline?” Obviously no, we were not
“must rides,” but I have 2 emotional kids with an emotional mom and we had just
said goodbye to everything and everyone, and we need to get on that plane….not
to be stuck in the Houston airport
for another 9 hours until they put us on the last flight to Denver. I was seriously on the verge. Somehow it worked out and they were able to
put enough people on other planes that we actually got the whole row together.
Thank you!!! )
Nancy (Mark's mom) picked us up at the Denver
airport and let us stay with her until our house closed. We were reunited with
the cats at her condo! Mark started driving Saturday evening, after going to
training all day, picking up 2 aquariums and picking up the boat! He stopped somewhere past Dallas!
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Lauren reunited with Hunter!
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June 10: Mark arrived, fish alive and boat in tact!
June 11: We were supposed to close on the Denver
house this day and move in Tuesday, but there were delays in closing the TX house
and we were extremely frustrated with the Loan company. (Don’t EVER use United
Veteran’s, or accept an offer from someone using them). Instead, we went on a hike.
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Lair o' the Bear Hike
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June 14: We FINALLY closed on both houses, and spent our
first night at 9875 Glenstone Trail with cats, on air mattresses, with sleeping bags
and a mini-fridge. All of our belongings went into storage, and couldn’t be
delivered until June 18. But, we were so happy to have closed, and there wasn’t
much we could do, except to play! (the play set came with the house!)
We had an unusually “free” weekend…without a house to keep
clean, or things to put away, or food to cook (no pots and pans!)…..we were
able to enjoy Colorado! Saturday
we went to my nephew’s baseball game, took the kids up Cheyenne
Canyon where I used to play when I
was little, drove by my old High School, and ……
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Shep Saabye baseball
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Cheyenne Canyon
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This is also, when coming out of the canyon, we noticed a
large plume of smoke from the Colorado Springs
mountains. As it turned out, it was the very beginning of the Waldo Canyon fire….which
ended up burning 150 homes, and causing my brother and his wife to store things
here….just in case they needed to evacuate, they could with 1 car, all kids and
one dog…knowing that their special things were safe. It was a scary time. We
almost felt like we brought the heat and fires with us, as Texas
was on fire last year.
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| Waldo Canyon fire |
