The MOVE

The move:

*I should preface this by saying don't move when you have a two week old if you can help it!! It is great to be here but boy, was this a LONG trip!

Family left from attending Yale Graduation on Tuesday May 25. We officially started packing on Wednesday May 26. Liesl was just 6 days old. Thankfully my mom stayed in CT to help us pack. She singlehandedly packed my entire kitchen. Thanks mom for working so hard!

It is amazing how much stuff one aquires over the years...we have so much stuff!! Even though we had previously cleared out a bunch of stuff when we moved from our home in Hamden to the apartment, we still took a bunch of stuff to the Goodwill. Even then, we BARELY fit into 16 linear feet of space on the ABF Van we rented (we packed it, they shipped it). Whew!

Thanks to the ward for helping us out so much when we moved. We had to move in two stages--move all the stuff from the apartment to the storage unit where the van was parked and our other stuff was, and two, move all the stuff in storage and our apartment stuff into the van. It took two full days with lots of help from the ward. The missionaries came on the first day and ended up getting stuck in the elevator with our washing machines!! Like the pic? We left on my birthday, June 7th and drove to Gettysburg, PA. We had planned to leave about 10 in the morning after dropping off our apartment keys, etc. However, it took till about 2:30pm to get the apartment totally cleaned (that was after already having a cleaning lady come in and clean the apartment top to bottom) and run the last minute errands. It was a sort of bittersweet experience leaving. We miss so many of our friends in Connecticut and had such a fun time living back east. However, we were really excited to move closer to home and for this new opportunity in our life.

We had my birthday celebration at a greasy spoon diner in PA. I didn't mind though--Sean had already given me my birthday gift by graduating!!
Our next stop along the way was just outside of Indianapolis, Indiana followed by Nauvoo, Illinois. We figured we would stop at some fun places along the way to help make the trip more manageable and better for the kids. We stayed two nights in Nauvoo. Randomly we met up with Sean's mom JaNice in Nauvoo--she was also driving cross country with her niece and kids and had stopped the same night as us in Nauvoo. We didn't know of each other's plans but randomly Annie wanted to call "Nana" and when we called her, we discovered that both of us were in Nauvoo. It was a fun reunion to see each other for a few hours.


Annie met a little friend at the Carthage Jail....

Nauvoo Visitor's Center
Annie and Nana
The other little girl in the picture is Sean's cousin's little girl. What a ham!
At the blacksmith's shop
I love this pic of Annie. So sweet!

After stopping in Nauvoo, we pushed on to Sioux City, Iowa and onto Rapid City, SD. We drove through the Badlands in South Dakota along the way.


In Rapid City, we drove about a half hour to see Mt. Rushmore. It was not nearly as big as it seems in the movies. Annie was in a horrible mood when we stopped there and had a HUGE tantrum while in the visitor's center. I think she was just DONE with the trip (we still had 3 days to go though at that point!).

After Mt. Rushmore, we stopped at Sean's mission president's house outside of Missoula, MT. They have a beautiful cabin on a lake and Annie loved running around.

The only way we made the trip bearable (besides the massive amounts of treats, games, movies and a new present each day for Annie) was the pool in every hotel we stayed in. We'd leave about 6am in the morning and get to our next destination by about 4pm in the afternoon. We'd keep Annie going by telling her she could go swimming in the pool once we got there. She loved swimming every day. It was the LONGEST trip our lives (9 days total!!) but we were so glad to finally arrive in Seattle on June 15. We are so glad to be here!

Next post--pics of our new life in Seattle!