Moving Days

January 27th and 28th were our big moving days.  Friday evening, we loaded up the moving truck.  Before hand, our living room looked like this:

I should have taken more pictures inside the house and as the guys loaded the truck, but I was a little busy directing the "traffic."  The kids all got to play at the Schnell's house, which was a huge help.  When Kyle drove up to our house with the moving truck I thought, "We'll never fill this up; it is huge!"  Little did I know.  Even with selling and/or giving away our kitchen table, upright freezer, couch, and queen size bed, and leaving the washer, dryer and refrigerator, it still didn't fit all of our stuff!  (Kyle had to do a few trips to load up the van the following week.)  We got all the major stuff, thankfully, and did it in only two hours.  We had about six or seven Elders from the ward, plus a couple of young men who were great helpers.  There is no way we could have done it otherwise!  After loading up the truck, we picked up our kids, drove to Wilsonville, and went to bed.

Saturday morning was unloading...here is Kyle just as we were getting started:

On Saturday, we had the Barney's, Clark's, Mudaliar's and McCune's all come help!  It is so nice to have so much wonderful family living nearby to come help!  We didn't even have to bug our new ward!  Thank you, thank you.  All the kids were great helpers, too.  We unloaded in about 1.5 hours, then had Costco pizza and chips for lunch. 

Here is one section of the boys'/bonus room after unloading.  The guys joked that 95% of the boxes went in there.  That's because there is a storage/attic area right off the room where we put a lot of stuff.  Plus, it seems we have a lot more toys than I ever realized!

After unloading and eating, we headed back to Salem.  Several of my friends had offered to come help me clean our home.  I dropped the kids off at the Weber's and headed over to the house while Kyle returned the moving truck.  In about two hours, seven friends came and helped me clean the house from top to bottom.  It was amazing!  This took a huge weight off my shoulders; I had been so worried how I would ever clean it while keeping my boys (especially Andon) entertained and keep them from un-doing what I was doing, especially in an empty house. 

Then that evening, the Schnell's hosted a wonderful goodbye potluck for us.  It was so fun to relax and talk with dear friends after a long, exhausting weekend.  At one point, Margaret (their daughter and my kids' babysitter) counted 63 people in their house.  We loved it all and we loved all the love!  Thank you, Schnell's!

We were very glad that we didn't have church the next day until 1:00 p.m.  So we could be a little lazy in the morning and so we had time to dig through suitcases and boxes to find all of our church clothes! 

Here is a picture of our wonderful, first home.  Even though we had definitely outgrown this sweet little house, we will dearly miss it!

The empty (but clean!) kitchen.

Everything seems a little larger with no furniture and no people.  The living area.

Goodbye, sweet Mooseberry home!  Farewell dear friends and neighbors of the last 6 1/2 years! We will miss you but look forward to reunions whenever possible!

**Side Note: I actually took these pictures in order to post them online when I advertised our home for rent.  Yes, we have decided to become landlords.  (A "next best" option when your home won't sell.)  We decided to try just putting up a sign in the yard for a few days before listing it online.  Kyle put the sign up the Saturday after we moved.  The following day, a couple called interested.  The next day, Monday, they walked through our home and said they were interested in renting it.  That week we went through the application and screening process with them, and by Friday, we had accepted their application and we had renters!  I don't think it could have gone much faster.  Yay!  They look like they'll be great renters, so hopefully everything goes well.  Then again, I've never done this before, so it is definitely a learning process.  They are moving in March 1.)