Moving to NC

I can't believe how far behind I am on posting on this blog. SOO much to catch up on...

Well we made our move from Illinois to North Carolina! The whole process was long, a lot of work, and pretty sad, but we did it.

A quick note, these pictures are SOO out of order but just bare with me!

We decided on Friday afternoon that we should hold a garage sale the next Saturday since we had all this stuff we were going to get rid of. We called our goof friends, the Christensen's, to see if they wanted to join us since they would be moving for school about a week after us. Despite the heat and the super late notice, we were really successful!!

My lens fogged up as soon as I took the cap off to take this pic. SOO humid!

Luckily, Ruby was pretty content in her bouncer.

The girls armoire/dresser. This was one item I was SOO sad to part with. Unfortunately it just wasn't practical for us and we needed a 6-drawer dresser instead. We have yet to find a dresser for cheap and are currently using our changing table :)

Later that day we headed to our friends place to celebrate Melissa's birthday. Can you believe this cake? She made it all by herself and it was actually DELICIOUS (sometimes it seems like pretty cakes aren't always tasty)!!!!

Moving on... We seriousily have some of the best friends out in the Chicago area. Seriously they are great and we miss them tons! The couple of weeks before we moved were just full of goodbye's and packing.

Girls night, minus a few of the girls...

In the midst of packing I got a couple of cute pics of Ruby wearing a beanie!

Our ward threw us and the Christensen's (another family moving for B-school) a goodbye party and I hardly got any pictures from that! But here is one of Lyla and her good friend Jaxon being silly.

Thank heavens for empty boxes to keep my girls entertained!

My good friend Julie also threw a smaller goodbye get-together for us and the Christensen's as well. Of course, I didn't get any pictures of the group! But here is a cute one of Ruby and Diane...

We also celebrated Drake's 16th birthday that night. This is the only picture with the most people in it that I have!!

Our old pantry. I miss this pantry SO MUCH! Seriously, it is HUGE! The place we are in now has a lot of cupboard space but no pantry. So now, all of our food is in the cupboards, refrigerator, and in our huge Shelf Reliance Rolling Can Shelf in our kitchen :)

What our apt looked like for a couple of weeks...

My ward is awesome and a bunch of women DEEP cleaned our apartment for us. Seriously, I have never seen my apartment so clean! Hopefully my landlord was just as grateful!

The living/dining rooms & kitchen.

Our old bedroom

We also had a ton of friends from the ward come to help us pack up. They were also pretty awesome.

Since we took off that same day, it was time for us to say our tearful goodbye's to some really great friends. Here is Lyla with one of her best bud's! I swear they had a little crush on each other!

We had a really great and smooth trip to NC. My step-dad, Rik, came out to help us move and drove with me and the kids while Nate drove the truck. The girls did great, the truck worked fine (minus no air conditioning :( ), and we made great time.

**The only cruddy part was the HORRIBLE motel room we stayed in. We drove for about an hour looking for a decently priced and quality place to stay and nothing was meeting our wants/needs. Since it was arond 3am, we gave up. I was trying to be a "good wife" and save money by staying in one of those cheap-o motels and OH man was it awful. We asked for non-smoking, they gave us smoking. The room had not been cleaned thoroughly and the bathroom was horrific (pee on toilet, overall smell of urine) and just entering in there and then the thought of going in there made me GAG! I would have said something had it not been 3:30 in the morning. I think the guys was mad at us for waking him up in the middle of the night. The beds also had cigarette burns. So I just laid on top of the covers and brushed my teeth with bottled water outside. Never again, sweetie! Sorry!**

Anyhoo, we finally made the long journey to our amazing house in good ol' Durham, North Carolina! Rik was awesome and helped get us about 95% unpacked during the week he stayed with us. Thanks Rik!! Anyway, we love it here and we just feel like this is where we are supposed to be, which is such a great feeling!

Stay tuned while I continue playing catch up!