The Girls Arrive in Anacortes {July, Part 1}

Matt recently noticed that he’s severely outnumbered 5:1 in the male to female ratio of our household. That is: 2 female cats, 1 female dog, me (a girl, obvz) and our daughter, Reaghan. I’m not sure what’s wrong with that picture?

**Warning: Abundant Photos Ahead**

The last time I blogged was over a month ago. And wow, has a lot happened since then. First of all…. WE FINALLY MOVED! The packers arrived on Tuesday, June 29 to pack what I had left. Mostly the garage, storage building, kitchen and a few odds and ends. And let me tell ya… WOW! These guys can work. Holy Cow, they did in 5 hours what would  have taken me 5 weeks. So, so, so worth the money. The movers came the next day and loaded everything up into a huge truck. Again, overwhelming how fast these guys can work. It was a strange feeling to see these guys drive off will all our things. And even more strange to sit around in an empty house. I may or may not have cried.

Matt arrived home on Thursday, July 1st and we proceeded to load a U-haul with various items that either the movers would not move, or things we didn’t want them to take. We spent the evening saying goodbye to friends and neighbors and then went to my Mom’s to spend the night. Friday morning we got up early, loaded a few more things from the garage and headed out for Kansas. We had a beautiful day for a drive and I think the Flint Hills of Kansas were saying goodbye to me because I’d never seen the skies more beautiful. Driving was sloooow in my car pulling the U-haul. Going too fast caused the trailer to shake. The only thing I could think was, “I’m driving this thing across the country!?”

We finally did make it to my dad’s house in Tonganoxie. There were a few things to unload for my brother and sister-in-law, and then I actually felt up to heading into Kansas City to meet up with a few people I went to high school with. I took a quick shower and met them all just after they’d had dinner in the downtown Kansas City Power & Light District.

One of the friends I saw was, of course, Ms. Shannon Albert. I was happy that I got to see her that night, and actually ended up seeing her several times over the course of the weekend. Her mother-in-law’s house is just around the corner from my dad’s house in the small town we grew up in. I’m sure some of you have heard of her son’s desire, persistence at obtaining an iPad. Blake and I had fun playing a round of Scrabble using the iPad as our board and our iPhones/iPod Touches as the tile racks. I mean, what’s more fun than that!?

We spent the whole weekend at Dad’s. Shelby, the puppy, was spayed (my father is a veterinarian). We relaxed, and we enjoyed the company of my family. It was nice not to have [much] to worry about. At this point all the furniture was who-knows-where and we were on our way Out West.

Monday, July 5 Denise, Reaghan and I gathered our suitcases, and started our journey. It was raining that day. We didn’t leave my dad’s until around noon, but we had a good day and made it all the way to North Platte, NE. Each day we set our sights on a particular town, hoping to travel around 500 to 600 miles. We couldn’t drive extremely fast pulling the trailer, and with all the animals and the small child on board we had to stop about every 2.5 to 3 hours. So, each day we spent about 10 hours on the road. In the evenings we would check into a hotel at our destination town and go through the whole process of unloading the people, the animals, the crates, the luggage. Inevitably we ended up with an upstairs room (no elevators, natch) every time. This shouldn’t pose as such a huge problem, except that MY DOG REFUSED TO GO UP OR DOWN STAIRS. She since has learned to do it, but I can’t tell ya how crazy I felt carrying a 40 pound puppy up and down flights of stairs every time she had to go out to go potty. So the towns we stayed at were North Platte, NE; Evanston, WY and Pendleton, OR. The days went by pretty fast and we were all amazed (and grateful) that they went so well. Here are some of the things we did in the car and at the hotels to pass the time:

So finally, on Thursday afternoon, July 8… After 4 days, 1987.4 miles and 36:09 hours of driving time we arrived in Anacortes, WA. I’d never been so happy to finally arrive somewhere in my life!

I don’t think we look that bad, do you? Now would be a great time to lie if you don’t think we look great. In a blessing kind of way, the moving van with our household items was delayed due to how busy the moving company was. Although that meant we didn’t have any beds to sleep on, it also allowed us to have the weekend to rest a bit. It was nice to just work on getting the U-haul unloaded and returned without having to worry about unpacking and arranging all our furniture. The moving company provided us with air up mattresses and some money for food in the interim. Our belongings finally arrived Tuesday morning and the rest of the week was spent unpacking what I had spent 6 months packing! Washington welcomed us with beautiful weather. We’ve only been here nearly a month and I’ve already fallen in love with the place. How could you not?

Stay tuned for Parts 2 and 3 to see what we’ve been up to the last few weeks. I can’t wait to share some awesome photos with you!

Tagged as: Anacortes, Family, Pictures, Washington