We found the house on a short trip in September before we moved. Will flew back out to be present for the inspection just about two weeks after that. He flew out of San Diego where we'd been partying once more with cousins and going to Disneyland. The very next day Andrew and I drove home together, I fed him and put him to bed, then had a friend come rest on our couch (so Andrew could sleep in his bed) while I drove out to San Francisco to pick Will up at the airport at midnight coming back from the inspection trip. Whew!
As we started on the offer paperwork, etc, the sellers agreed to close about as fast as we could with all the legal requirements. That was going to be awesome because we would close just about the time that we would have to move out of our short-term housing covered by relocation. Before too long, though, they requested that we actually close two weeks later because they didn't expect the house to sell so fast and they wanted to have a place to move into themselves. We said our side - coming from across the country and not having any family or friends to go to short term and basically they met us in the middle, closing just one week after originally planned. We had another tender mercy as we were able to extend our short-term housing one week but absolutely had to be out just two days after closing.
We closed on our first house on November 12! Some new friends in the ward who have a daughter pretty close to Andrew's age kept him happy at their house while we signed paper after paper. When we were done it was approaching evening time and getting dark. We had brought a few things in the car to drop off at the house so we made the stop. Even though we'd done the final walk through that morning, of course it had a different feel then since it was officially ours (and the bank's... : ) So Andrew crawled around some and climbed the stairs, then we were on our way again. Because we'd have to drive back down to Jersey City and it was getting later (and we had dwindling food choices at the apartment) we decided to just stop somewhere. And where else would you celebrate buying your first house other than Boston Market??? : ) Probably the most extravagant part was that we actually, for the first time ever, bought Andrew his own kid's meal. We decided that was a mistake... at that particular place, at least. (I'd never been to a Boston Market before, btw (ha).)
The next day was Friday and Will was able to stay home from work to work on moving our stuff from the apartment to the house. I know it seems like it shouldn't have taken that long. But our car is only so big. We had clothes, suitcases, toys, books, toiletries, food, diapers and wipes, Andrew's old car seat, booster chair, etc to take over. We ended up taking two trips on Friday. The traffic was moderate Friday morning and the first trip didn't take too too long (but still a few hours total at least). The next trip took a lot longer because it was late afternoon on a Friday, so lots of traffic. I can't remember what took so long, if anything besides the traffic, but it was late when we were headed back. Like 8 pm? Late for Andrew. So we stopped off at Wendy's on the way to get a highly nutritious dinner. Andrew didn't care for his chicken nuggets, but was interested in my hamburger. Noted. When we got back there was still a bunch of random things that needed loaded into the car. We needed to be out by noon the next day, but at the time we thought it was 10 am. On top of that, the Elders were coming with an investigator in the morning to help us move the old fridge to the basement so that our own fridge could go into the spot when the movers came Monday. They said they could come at 9, so that meant leaving the apartment by about 8. So we didn't want to leave much loading for Saturday morning. Will had gotten a bad headache so while he rested on the couch I made a couple trips down to the car. That entails: down the elevator, through the lobby (borrow the cart and go back to the apt to load it), up the other elevator to the parking garage, then drag the cart to the car, pile things onto the seats. (We weren't sure how much space we needed to save in the trunk for an appliance dolly the next morning.)
Saturday morning we got up and ready and double checked all the nooks and crannies for stuff we'd forgotten. We did our final arm loads and took out the garbage. Once in the car we drove out of the building, then Will had to run back inside and up to the apartment to leave the keys and parking pass inside then lock it on his way out. Then we were on our way to Home Depot to pick up an appliance dolly, then to the house. We made it in plenty of time before our help came. I cover my eyes and only peek a little when something is happening like the Elders' free moving service is helping us move an extremely heavy item across floors and through doorways that we just bought a couple days before. Luckily with only a couple minor incidents they successfully got it out, around the back, and into the basement. We did have to remove the basement door with the tools that our very friendly new neighbors let us borrow. They had to get it at just the perfect angle to get it in. I was about ready to say forget it, but they did it! All the while Andrew was restless in his monkey footie pajamas and getting dirty as I let him crawl around the deck. We didn't have a ton to do the rest of the day - made sure we had some food and a way to eat it the next day (Sunday), let Andrew play around the empty house (that I desperately wished I had my vacuum to use before any stuff came in, oh well...and you can only bug your brand new neighbors so many times on day 1), went on a neighborhood walk and checked out the library, and then went out to dinner again. This time we went to.... Chili's (I think) to use a gift card we've had. No kids meal for Andrew this time : ) He's happy to share, though. And boy does he love drinking the water through the straw! Andrew could still sleep in the pack and play and Will and I slept on the floor that night.
We went to church the next day as usual and spent another day sitting on the floor. And eating dinner on the floor : ) Monday morning the movers came with our stuff!
Well, I don't know what happened to my latest work - so we're missing the entire chunk that I know you're all dying to know about. The part that due to a packing snafu (or two or three? : ) I ended up wearing only one sock for the moving fun Friday. I accidentally ended up in Jersey City with a small amount of socks in the first place. Then somehow for Friday I only had one sock... I kept forgetting to get another whenever we were at the house. How could you forget something like that??? Weird, I know. Finally Saturday when we were done running back and forth I was finally able to coddle both feet at once rather than picking one at a time. Aren't you glad I retyped a new version of that fascinating detail???? I also ended up without flip flops in Jersey City, but that really only mattered the first few days before it got colder. I forgot shoes for a family camping trip once as a teenager, but luckily that was a short overnighter in a not very primitive place (by the Clark County fair grounds?).
So here we are now! We've been making progress on unpacking and organizing things, but Andrew makes sure that we don't go too fast. Things are functional, but we still have a lot of work to do to get it how we want it (our stuff). After having our old couches moved across the country we were a little disappointed to discover that they wouldn't fit where we had planned to put them (through doorways and around corners), but we're really not that sad because they were nothing special. We gave them away to a nice guy who lives "up the street" who came to pick them up with his dad between his busy work and finals schedules. Now we're back to limited seating options as the couch we bought online several weeks ago has yet to arrive... because of some mess-ups on their end. Hopefully it will come this week!
Once the old couches were out we had room for a Christmas tree! Also plenty of room to drive our dump truck and all other vehicles.
