The Thrills of Moving

Every time I move, I make mistakes that I vow I will not repeat the next time. From finding a place to live, to setting up cable, internet, and phone service, to going to the DMV to get our cars registered, I have yet to perform each of these tasks flawlessly. Every time, there seems to be a question I didn't ask, or something I should have done beforehand and didn't do.

This last move was no exception. While we made sure to have a friend go and look at the apartment, we made the assumption that the house would be wired for cable tv and internet. Not so. We also made the foolish assumption that there would be a dishwasher, which I didn't think to ask about, and my friend forgot to look while touring the house. I figured if it had a washer and dryer (which it does) then I wouldn't have to worry about any other so called 'standard' appliances. Oh well. I am back to hand washing dishes just like I did for our first year of marriage. It isn't so bad, but what should I do about the dish washing soap and jet dry that I transported all the way from Florida to Virginia? I just can't bear to throw them away as if I might wake up one morning and walk into the kitchen to find that a dishwasher magically appeared in the night, and I will be PREPARED with my soap and jet dry. Yeah right. A girl can dream.

Also, I forget that this happens ever time I move, but for about the first month after I move, I have bruised arms, legs, and toes. My body always has to go through the initiation of furniture and walls being in a new place, and it needs to learn where everything is accordingly. I think I stubbed my toes 5 times yesterday, and I have a line of bruises up my right leg, but just my right leg. Go figure.

Just to add to the excitement of moving in, our front door has a dead bolt as well as a lock on the door handle. But the real exciting part is that if you lock the door handle, you can still open the door from the inside, and then SURPRISE! when you shut the door, you are locked out on the outside. Do you see where this is going? Well, the tenant in the basement had already warned me about our special door locks when I asked him what happened to one of the windows in his basement. He had to break it to get back into the house after he locked himself out in his pajamas one morning. You think I would learn and take my keys every time I leave my house, even if I try to make sure the door isn't locked when I walk out. But no.
First, Tanner locked us all out last night when we went for a little trip to Home Depot. It's still a little chilly here, and we had also forgotten to grab the cell phone as well...so we had no keys, no phone, a 2 year old and a 7 week old literally 'chillin' outside our house. Tanner went from zero to hero when he was able to climb up onto our deck via a ladder and our back door to the deck was open. Phew! That was a close one, and that was last night. Did I learn my lesson then? No.
This morning was trash day, and I had some last minute stuff that I needed to run out to the curb before the trash man came. Andrew was sleeping soundly in the bassinet in our bedroom, and Clark was sitting in his chair eating cereal and yogurt, when I ran back up my front steps to a locked door. PANIC! I knew that Tanner had locked the back door on the deck since he said matter of factly last night "we need to make sure that door stays locked, because it is actually really easy to get up on the deck". Yeah great. MORE PANICKING! But, I decided to try it anyway, and I grabbed the ladder, hoisted myself up and over onto the deck, and when I did that, the ladder fell away from the deck. EVEN MORE PANICKING! So, not only were my two children stuck in the house all by themselves, I was now stuck on our deck without a hope of getting down without jumping and breaking both my legs. The door was locked, and I looked through the window and could see Clark finishing off his yogurt. I knocked on the door and motioned all fun and excitedly for Clark to come open the door for mommy. He at first looked at me like I was a crazy woman, which I am sure I was, but then he got all excited like I was playing a game. He hopped down from his chair and came to the door. I motioned for him to open the door, and he did it after two tries! My two year old saved the day, and I immediately showered him with Easter candy.
The ridiculous part is that I got locked out because I didn't have to unlock the door from the inside to get out of the house, and yet because of that feature, Clark was easily able to open the door to let me back in without having to turn any locks. I hope I learned my lesson...finally. We'll see.

One Reason I Love Blogging...

...is that when your husband says:

"Did you win the ncaa group bracket last year? I don't think you did."

And I proceed to try to verbally convince him in every way possible to no avail...

I go to the archives.

The archives don't lie.

ALERT!

My blog will be going private on: APRIL 1, 2008.

I have decided to copy my sister Melanie and make my blog private, which I know is really annoying, especially for those of you like me who do google reader and can't see if and when I have updated my blog, but please email me or post a comment and let me know if you would like to be on my invited readers list, and I will add you. Thanks!!

Send the email to chezalyn@hotmail.com

We've Arrived!

We are finally here, back in Virginia!

We have been without internet for 4 whole days and barely survived.

More details and pictures to come.

Andrew's Blessing Day

Today we blessed Andrew at church, which also happened to be our last Sunday in the ward. We were so happy that Tanner's parents could fly out from Washington to visit with us for the week and to attend the blessing. My parents and Brianna came down as well and it was a wonderful day. Tanner said some beautiful things in the blessing, but the most interesting thing was at the end when he said "Be a good example to your brothers ... umm siblings". Hmmm ... does that mean the boys are just going to keep on coming? Not that I would complain or anything, but it will be interesting to see if what he said comes to pass.
Clark was our entertainment for the evening. While sitting around chatting about whether Clark was right or left handed after observing him throwing a ball around, we realized that four of us (my mom, Tanner's mom and dad, and myself) are left handed, and Tanner, my dad, and Brianna are right handed. Us lefties, who are used to being outnumbered were pretty excited about having the majority in the room. It then became a competition to see who could get Clark to throw with his left or right hand. Clark figured this all out really quickly and was definitely milking everyone's attention for all it was worth...and we all just couldn't get enough of him.

Revenge is Mine!

Clark woke me up at 4:15 this morning ready to start the day. This has never happened before, and I know I don't want it to happen again. Only Andrew is allowed to wake me up at that time, but only to snuggle up, eat, and go right back to bed. If he is lucky, he gets a diaper change.

So, I knew I was in for A DAY. You know, when your kids don't know any other tone or language than WHINE, and when juxtaposed against a sleep deprived mom...it's not a pretty sight.

I had had it with Clark and was just about to put him down for an early nap when he begged me for lunch. Fine, I thought, maybe you'll sleep longer. Then, I caught him starting to fall asleep while he was eating and managed to get the camera going without him noticing. You may be able to wake me up at the crack of dawn buddy, but revenge is mine, because this footage will never go away.

So you just might want to think twice next time before calling my name at 4:15am.

Surprise!

We are moving!

We just didn't feel like we have had enough going on in our lives right now so we have decided to pack it up and move back to Virginia, but this time to the northern part of the state. However, we do want to make a few things perfectly clear to those of you who are wondering "What? When? Why? and How?"

1. We have loved living in Florida, especially being so close to my parents ... we can truly say we have made the most of living close to them. I think we averaged being at their house ALMOST as much as we were at our own.

2. Tanner has really enjoyed his job working at the law firm. They are phenomenal people, and they have done so much for Tanner and for us as a family ... we will never be able to fully express our gratitude to them for all they have done for us.

3. The job opportunity that Tanner has been offered is to work for EDS as a consultant to Homeland Security, and is one that he just couldn't pass up. It will be an adventure for sure, and we are really excited to see where it takes us. However, the decision was not without anguish and it took a lot of praying, fasting and pretty much every other spiritual tool out there.

Now that the important points are taken care of ... this is what I have been doing for the last few weeks, while NOT blogging:

1. Finding a place to live in Northern Virginia. I have to give a shout out to Craig's list since that is where we ended up finding our place. We did everything via telephone, email, and faxing. I asked one of my friends who lives in the area to go and look at it the day after it was posted online, and when the report came back as "I could live there", we had the lease signed and faxed back the next day. I love the digital age.

2. Scheduling with the movers and having them come and do a walk-through. I don't know how we would have done this if we had to move everything ourselves, so I am glad the company is moving everything and that the moving guy said things like "don't pack anything before we come because we can't insure anything we don't pack". Excellent. Less work for me, I can do that ... no problemo.

3. Nursing Andrew 8-10 times a day ... man those 2 or 3 hours go by REALLY fast.

4. Keeping Clark occupied by allowing him to watch as much tv as he wants, which is ALWAYS Thomas the Tank Engine. He knows all of the engines names and their corresponding engine color. I would under normal circumstances say this means he is a genius, but seriously, that kid has watched A LOT of Thomas ... so really, it would be ridiculous if he didn't know who they all were by now.

5. Tending to Tanner after he got the flu for a week and then we all came down with colds this last week ... FUN!

6. Spending as much time with family and friends as possible before we leave Florida ... which by the way is next Thursday, March 13th. We will arrive at our new address in Vienna, VA on Saturday, March 15th.

You might think we are crazy ... which may or may not be true, depending on who you ask in our families, but we definitely know how to keep things interesting! See you in our nation's capital!!