August 6, 2005

And we have moved!

Be forwarned -- this post is going to serve as my official recount of our move and this past week so it will be long! :-) It has been one week since our move and all is great! So, let's go to the details....

On Saturday, July 30th, Kalonji and I started loading up the Uhaul truck. I had gone on Friday night with a friend to go pick it up and was very nervous. I have driven a Uhaul truck before and loved it, so I was not nervous about driving the actual truck. But since we had to tow my car behind it, that had me concerned b/c I have had friends that have had some interesting experiences with a tow dolly -- but all was fine. I managed to get the truck and tow home that night. It took us about 5 hours to load up the truck and it was hot! But then we hooked up the car and got on the road to go to Memphis.

Because this was being paid for by the military, they required us to get the truck weighed both before being loaded and after being loaded. To do this, we took the truck to a truck stop about 15 miles down the highway. That was cool! We were in the same areas as all the big tractor trailers and truckers and I almost felt like part of the culture -- and it is a culture - you could just tell that being among them. So, we got the truck weighed and proceeded down the highway.

Memphis is only about 3 hours from Nashville, so we did not have to go far. The drive was without incident. I kept worrying the car would somehow fall off the dolly and I would not know it (b/c I couldn't see the car) but then realized that was not going to happen so finally stopped obsessing about it after an hour or so. We got to our house around 8 pm.

We are renting this 3 BR house that is not too far from the base. It is so cute! I will get pictures of the house up later, but I think we were lucky in finding something so convenient. I do have to say though that the town we are in (outside of Memphis) has to be the smallest town I've ever lived in -- and it feels like a small town. Kind of surprising to me since we are 10 miles outside the Memphis city limits. I guess I'll deal with it -- memphis is just a hop, skip and a jump away! As we started to unload the truck, we met our neighbors and they helped us, so it only took about 2 hours to unload everything. We went out to get something to eat then came home and went to bed. What an exhausting day.

But the fun was not over yet. On Sunday morning, we got up, went to the airport to pick up our rental van, and headed to Indiana to go get the boys. We drove all the way to Evansville and back (6 hours each way) in one day. Didn't get back home until 1 am! The van we rented is very neat - has a DVD player and satellite radio -- we are not going to want to give it back tomorrow :-). The kids all loved it too.

So, we have had the boys all week and am leaving this morning to take them back to Evansville. We are going to drive up and back today just like last week so I will be one tired camper tomorrow. We had a great week though. The boys went to visit Kalonji at work so they could get new ID cards made; we went to Walmart almost every night this week it feels like and Kaleya got to hang out with her brothers - Kamau & Miles especially doted on her. She was crawling after them and trying to keep up with them too.. she is going to be such a tomboy :-)

I hope to post again in a couple more days.. until then, bear with me if you've emailed me and I've not responded!

2 comments:

Froggie said...

I'm glad to hear you are all moved in! This Wednesday night (7-9 pm) is the Summer Concert Series at Court Square (downtown Memphis) and it's free! DH is playing this week with the Dani band. Come on out. We'd love to see ya!

Shannon said...

Congratulations on the move :) Glad to hear it went well.