The Big Move

Well, I finally have a free minute to post about our move. Our huge Penske truck was completely full! I really didn't think we had that much stuff or that we would fill a truck that size. Driving out of Vermont was awfully hard. I actually shed a few tears. I love Vermont. It will always be a special place to me. The kids were terrific on our road trip. Our DVD player is broken so they didn't even watch a movie in the two days of driving that we did! I was pretty impressed. Bennett did great and never let out a cry. He was such a trooper, he just chilled in his car seat if he was not sleeping. The girls were highly entertained in the front seat of the moving truck. They took turns riding with Bryan and his brother, Denton. Who needs movies when you can ride in a big truck?! We left Thursday at about lunch time, got to Rochester at 10:00 pm, headed out in the morning at 9:30 and got to South Bend at 8:30 pm. The only catastrophe we had wasn't actually that bad. The tire on the car carrier blew about an hour outside of Rochester, NY. Bryan and Denton waited for the Penske guy to come fix it while the kids and I continued on to our friends' house that we were staying at. (The Mickelsens were great for letting us use their house!)

Here we are on our front porch in Vermont. I miss this place so much.

Here is Denton, Niah, and Bryan waiting to get on the ferry. We had to take the ferry across Lake Champlain because they blew up the bridge. It was fun. Bryan had never done that so it was a good way to leave Vermont! The girls did so great on the ride. We played lots of games: The Banana Game- you have to find yellow vehicles and you get points for the ones you find, the License Plate Game- I think we saw almost every state, Team Storytelling- we got the giggles on this one- somehow it always ended up being a story about someone peeing their pants!
Bennett is such a good kid! I still can't believe how good he did while being in the car so long.
All the boxes were great entertainment for Bennett.

Driving into South Bend was exciting. Niah was anxious to get there and kept asking, "How much longer?", "Where's our new house?", and "Where's our toll road?!" When we got to our house, the Smith's (our friends from Vermont) were there to meet us with our house keys. They were nice enough to mow our lawn for us and to buy a few groceries to get us through the night and next day. Looking through the house, I quickly became overwhelmed by it. It was dirty and there was pet hair (there was no sign of a pet when I looked at it in April!) all over. I was a little discouraged, but we got to work and after about a week of cleaning and unpacking our house is clean and put together. It still feels like I'm on vacation and living in someone else's house, but once we get into a routine I'm sure it will start to feel more like home. We have so much space!! I have empty cupboards in my kitchen, empty rooms, and empty corners! The kids are loving the backyard and the basement. They have spent most of their time playing in the hose and on the slip n' slide we got them. They also love to watch a Robin tend to her new babies. There is a nest on our pergola. We named the bird Maid Marian and the daddy bird (I can't say for sure it's the daddy bird, but the girls think he is) Robin Hood! We also have a cherry tree in our backyard. We are slowly adjusting to life here. We have met some great people already.Bryan starts work in about a week. We are going to live it up this week and do some fun things because after this week Bryan will be M.I.A! Niah has made some new friends, and Chloe has too. Niah is going to soccer camp this week with some of her friends. I think she will enjoy it. We got Niah all registered for Kindergarten (weird). She LOVES that she will get a locker at school!
We are liking South Bend so far and are slowly getting settled in. Life is good!