WARNING - SUPER long blog ahead!
Where to start? We are officially residents of Michigan! Unfortunately we are renters, but we are happy to be here and as settled as we can be for now. I will document a few details of the actual move since I plan to turn these blogs into books someday.
THE MOVE:
Sadly I do not have any pictures of the actual move day. We were a little busy :) My mom flew down on Wednesday night to help with the final details and drive up to MI with us. I closed on the house on Thursday. The buyers were very nice and easy going and the whole process went smoothly. There is one side story about a shady contractor we hired to do some work for us, but that is too long of story for today.
The movers arrived on Friday morning at 9:00 am. They estimated to be finished packing us by 4:00-5:00. However, our contact person failed to let the driver know that we had stuff going to an apartment and storage, so the whole process took longer. We had to label everything by where it was going and do two different inventories. We had reservations to stay in Bowling Green that night, but at 6:00 when they were just starting to take apart the beds we knew that wasn't going to happen. After calling about 30+ hotels we finally found one in Franklin, TN with one room left. The movers finished packing at 8:00 pm and we headed out to Franklin. The moving truck could literally not fit one more item. They had to put our vacuum up in the cab with the driver because the truck was so full. (We need a huge garage sale!) The kids did really well all day all things considered- with having no toys or anything to do in our house. Brodie was really clingy and wouldn't leave me the whole day, he didn't understand what was going on and wouldn't let me out of his sight. He was so over tired by the time we hit the hotel he would not settle down. I had to basically pace with him like when he was a baby and I ended up sleeping with both boys in the king bed and my mom was on a roll away. It was quite the night ;).
We made it to my parents house on Saturday night. Alex was SO SO happy to see Eric after 3 weeks, he just hugged him and would not let go! Brodie was a little standoffish with Eric at first, like "you left me so whatever" ;).
We stayed with my parents until the movers arrived on Tuesday, April 8. The unpacking went much faster, but we ran out of room. We filled the storage unit to the MAX! So, for a little cash under the table the driver and movers agreed to make one more stop at my brother and sister-in-laws where they so graciously allowed us to use their extra garage to store the rest of our stuff.
We are as settled as we are going to be in an apartment. We are so happy to be close to family and friends again, but are definitely looking forward to being settled in a house. Top reasons why apartment life is not fun:
1. The walls are paper thin. We have a young family above us and while we are understanding about having children in an apartment, it seriously sounds like there are elephants wrestling above us all the time. No idea what they do all day but they are LOUD!
2. Our boys are sharing a room. Alex is doing awesome - Brodie thinks it is an all night party
Pros:
A lot less to clean!!!
The boys love playing in the walk in closet in their room. They pretend that it is their work. For a couple of days they apparently worked at a beer factory and played with the beer cans for literally hours:
It still feels like we are just visiting sometimes and is surreal that we are here to stay. The boys and I have been playing tourists a little bit and hitting up the zoo and some museums. Here are some pictures from the dinosaur exhibit we went to at the GR Public Museum. These were so life like and they moved and roared. Alex was really nervous at first, but after I had him touch one and see that they were pretend he really liked it.
Searching for fossils...
They also had a lego exhibit there...
The regular part of the museum had old dolls/doll house...
An old car...
We are loving being so close to family. We had a beautiful and busy Easter weekend. The weather was perfect and we spent all weekend outside. Eric and Alex got a round of golf in. Alex has already golfed two courses in Michigan. We spent Saturday night celebrating with Eric's family. The kid's had fun doing an Easter Egg Hunt and playing outside with cousins. I literally got teary eyed watching Alex with his cousins, because he was SO HAPPY and I am so thrilled that he will be able to grow up close to them.
On Sunday we went to the Easter service at Eric's parent's church then headed out to my parent's house in Grand Haven. The kids got to do another Easter Egg hunt.
