We are moving - The process of moving

Hi everyone!
I'm coming to you today directly from our beautiful Hotel Room in Charlotte, North Carolina! It's our 4th day here now and I'm starting to adjust a little. This whole moving process is not easy, a little exciting, a little fun, but also very chaotic. It could be worse, it could have been better... I'm taking lots of pictures along the way and you can follow me on Instagram to see them coming up live if you'd like. My user name on Instagram is mpcapistran. Today I'm going to summ up the situation a bit.

Friday, July 25th.

Just to put you in context, this is when they took my car away to bring it to North Carolina. I was going to get a rental car anyway, but I preferred to have it in Avon, rather than in Charlotte. So on Friday we said goodbye to our Tiguan. The man who came to pick it up was VERY nice and let the girls climb in his big truck!!

 And then he drove away.

I didn't get my rental car right away, but since this was Friday, Patrick was going to be with us the whole weekend so we really didn't need a second car. And on Monday and Tuesday he was on a business trip so I had his car. Tuesday night, Patrick brought me my rental car. He was supposed to leave the next morning with his car to Charlotte and bring with him all our personal belonging that we didn't want to let the movers move.

Only, it didn't happen like that....
OK, so back to the big moving days. :)

Tuesday July 29th.

It all started last Tuesday, when the movers first came to our house to pack.

I was more or less ready. I had packed up the 8 boxes that I didn't want the movers to touch. 6 of them were full of scrapbooks (after hearing about Lain Ehman's story, and her moving truck not arriving for weeks and finally showing up with 50 boxes missing!, I didn't want to risk it!!) and the 2 others were filled with important paperworks, jewelry and chocolate. ;) I also had started to pack our luggages that we would need for 2 nights in Avon and 2 weeks in Charlotte.

While the movers would pack up the basement, I wanted to tidy up the rest of the house but that didn't happened. The morning the movers came, I had to go to swim lessons with Arielle and the plan was to bring my girls to my friend's house right after swimming so that they could play there while the movers were packing. When I arrived at my friend's house though, my husband's car (a brand new Acura!!) just didn't start anymore. What???! After several trials, I finally called the Acura vendor who sent me a technician, who brought me home to get the second key, who finally brought me to the garage and called a towing.

There you have it, my whole day worth of tidying the house went into taking care of this.
I arrived at the house at 4:50, just to see the movers coming out of the house. :(

(This is my scrap room. GASP!)

They had made good progress in the house and I didn't have anything to tidy up anymore: everything was packed! Even the breakfast from the morning that was still on the table! Luckily they hadn't touched my 8 boxes and my luggages! Phew!

So I went back to my friend's house where we had a last meal together.

Wednesday, July 30th.

Moving Day No.2 started with another swim lesson for Arielle. Followed by a MUCH NEEDED haircut for me (yay for daddy being back home! Since 3 months, he's on the road... it's more than time that the family gets reunited!) and by an afternoon of sitting around at the house, looking at the movers packing up and loading the truck. That didn't feel good at all. The kids were bored and I felt bad to do just nothing.... Ugh!

(Yay for my camera! It has been saving my sanity several times lately!)

And this brought us to our first night at the Residence Inn in Avon. With Patrick - who couldn't leave that day as it was planed, because his car still had to be fixed.

Thursday, July 31st.

Moving Day No.3. This was the last day of swim lessons and also our last time at our beloved pool. I was very sad to say goodbye to Arielle's teachers. We all loved them dearly and we are grateful for all they did for Arielle and for our whole family. I didn't even took a pictures that morning because I was too sad. I also figured that we already have some good pictures of the pool and of our friends.

A little before noon, Patrick got his car back and could leave! We would see him again the next day when he would pick us up at the airport.

The movers finished the packing and loading of the truck. I really didn't believe that it would take 3 days to pack our things. I feel like we really don't have that much. But I also saw that the movers weren't hanging around so, I guess this means that we really do have lots of stuff. Maybe another purge will happen when we get our boxes.

When the movers had left, it was time to clean the house and to say goodbye.

And to leave...

We ended up eating for the last time at our favorite place: Flatbread. It was sad. Thursday night is the night where they have singers at the restaurant. It made it funner.

And after dinner we met our beloved neighbors at the frozen yogourt place right next to Flatbread. The kids could play again one last time. It was a nice way to end our time in Avon. Although I have to say again that it was very sad.

(We love these kids!!)

Friday, August 1st.

Moving Day No.4. It was time to fly away. I was a bit afraid of how this would go. Bring back the rental car to Avis, take the shuttle to the airport, go through security. All this with the girls and our luggages. I had packed only two 2 small luggages that we wouldn't have to check in. One that Arielle could roll and one for me. And I had put some toys in the girl's school back packs. I thought it would work. I finished carrying 3 back packs, my luggage and the lunch that we bought at the airport. It was sporty but we made it.

(Waiting for the shuttle to the airport)

     (iPhone quality is better than no picture at all)

And just so, we were in Charlotte.
We all needed a little adjustment.
We were tired, and overwhelmed. And sad.

So we went to see the house. The girls hadn't seen the house yet, other than looking at pictures we had showed them.

It wasn't love at first sight.
But it was love at the first sight of the pool. Phew!

The day we arrived in Charlotte, there was a record temperature of 70 degrees F. They hadn't had an August 1st that cold since 1936! And there we were... it's probably because we arrived. But we won't tell them. It took 2 days for the sun and the warmer weather to show up and as soon as it did, Charlotte seemed already a little nicer.

I'll tell you the rest of our moving adventure later. The girls just woke up so we'll go get breakfast before it's too late. :)

Have a great day!
Marie