On July 16th, Eric received a job offer from a company located in Dothan, Alabama that he had interviewed with almost a month prior and although he had a great job in Kent, WA (where we had been living the last year) this offer was too good to pass up. After a little negotiations and clarifications on the offer, he accepted that same day. And from that moment on everything moved quickly.
Monday: job offer made and accepted
Tuesday: July 17th at 5:30pm I received a call from Tauna (the gal who would be handling the move of our belongings) letting me know that we would be doing things a bit backwards and at 8am the next morning the packers would be there and around 2pm the 'estimator' would arrive. Typically the estimator arrives days or even weeks before a scheduled move to calculate how many pounds of stuff we had, how many boxes, custom boxes, and the size of truck(s) we would need.
Wednesday: July 18th at 8am, five packers, a ton of boxes, packing material, and tape entered my house. By noon my entire house was packed. At 2pm the estimator arrived and let us know since they didn't need a second day to pack, we would be able to load either Thursday or Friday, we chose Thursday because last we had heard Eric's car would be picked up by the shipping company.
Thursday: July 19th at 10am two moving trucks and six movers showed up and by 2pm our house was empty! Unfortunately around that same time we received a call letting us know that our car wouldn't be picked up today as the driver was having mechanical problems with his truck, but we would be the first pick up in the morning. Now it's time to clean the house!!! Why we didn't negotiate cleaners into our moving package I have no idea. At 8pm Eric gets a wild hair up his.... and decides we are going to clean the carpets, even though we are not required too. Oh and we chose to stay in the house overnight! Let's just say it was a long...interesting....exhausting night.
Friday: July 20th at 9am, in the pouring down rain, Eric's car was loaded. Back at the house the final cleaning was being done and the car was being packed. 11am we did our move out inspection with our landlord, who was devastated we were leaving (believe me if I could have moved that entire house, I would have!!!) and by 11:30 we were heading to Hillsboro, OR to say our goodbyes to my family. We arrived in Hillsboro around 3pm and throughout the rest of the day we had family trickle in and out and the kids and I were able to go and visit my grandfather.
Saturday: July 21st around 11am after repacking the car and running a few errands we were on the road. Our initial plan was to get through Salt Lake City, UT and stop for the night, which would have been about midnight. But during our drive Eric got another wild hair and decided we should drive all night long. So I chose to drive from Hillsboro to Provo, UT and then Eric would take over driving. We made amazing time, until we were close to Salt Lake City, where we continually hit road construction, over and over and over again. But even hitting and sitting in so much construction we still made great time and Eric took over driving about 11:30pm (UT time).
Sunday: July 22nd 2am, although before I fell asleep (just a few hours before) and had discussed the driving route for the night, I was woken up to do a quick direction check. And by quick, I mean I had 2 seconds to make a decision and of course my phone couldn't log onto the app we were using quick enough so we decided to stick with our initial route, even though EVERY SINGLE CAR AND SEMI was taking another route...When in doubt follow the semi's!!!! Long story short, our route, even though our app said it was the quicker route...wasn't, my phone almost made it out the window multiple times, and well there was some interesting choice words yelled that woke up the dead. But we did get to travel through Indian territory where every animal runs free. We almost killed 4 horses, a dog or maybe even a wolf, a deer, and a few other animals. I did, however kill a hawk...well he committed hawk suicide right into my windshield. By 6am I was back in the drivers seat, Jarom in the passenger seat to help keep me awake and was my witness of the 'hawk suicide'. A quick stop for a bathroom break and a cup of coffee to help keep me awake, and I was back on the road until it was time to get gas. We stopped in Albuquerque, NM (9am NM time) for gas a breakfast and then were back on the road. Our goal for the day was to get through Houston, grab a hotel for the night, and make final arrangements to pick up Eric's kids the following day and head either on a mini vacation in Panama City, Destin, or just head to Dothan. And here is where I get/ got frustrated...the kids had plans/ events they had already committed too. So we rushed to get them to only have to stay in the area so they didn't miss any of their plans. Deep breath.... By 9:30pm we were on the other side of Houston, grabbed a bite to eat, and were checking into a hotel. Believe me we were ALL excited to grab some clean clothes, take a shower, and to sleep in a bed...all night.
Monday: July 23rd 4pm we picked up the kids...well we actually had Joey drive his car and we all headed to Foley, AL where we grabbed dinner and a hotel for the night. We also did a little shopping to get everyone new swimsuits, took a quick dip in the hotel pool, and decided what we were going to do until Friday, when we could head to Dothan, AL. We had a hard time choosing between staying in the current hotel or for an extra $150 staying in a condo on the beach. Eventually, the condo won...it was a very long, drawn out discussion.
Tuesday: July 24th we picked up the keys for the condo and headed to Bon Secure, AL, and stayed until Friday July 27th for our little mini vacation which allowed the kids to be close enough to their events to stay with us.
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