The LONG way to Florida

Well the first leg of our journey from PA to FL is complete.  The movers arrived around 10am on Monday the 27th and after some final packing and cleaning we were on the road by 3pm.

checking out the big truck!

my cleaning helper

saying goodbye to Jess who helped entertain the kiddos while we cleaned!

Humphrey snoozing on the drive

We made it to just outside Toledo Ohio the first night and got into our hotel room around 11pm with three two year olds who were all awake! Two-thirds of those two year olds were still awake at midnight, which we knew was going to mean a long day the next day.

What we didn't anticipate was Avery waking up screaming her head off at 2:30am and not being able to be soothed by either of her moms.  In order to preserve the sleep of the other two (and the people in neighboring rooms!) I took Avery outside and walked her around the parking lot in a carrier for an hour.  Needless to say, when everyone woke up around 7:30/8 we were all pretty weary and a little grumpy.

not happy to be awake, but happy she was finally back to sleep!

I was very thankful for the yummy shortbread
cookies our friend Erin sent us with!

If you have even a general sense of direction you might be wondering why the heck we were headed north and west when our new house is south.  But like I said at the top, we are going the circuitous route to Florida, via Chicago!  We arrived in Chicago on Tuesday afternoon after a nice little lunch stop in Sturgis MI with our good buddies Deirdre and Clodagh.  We are spending 5 or so days here in Chicago before starting south, with the bonus of having Denise join us for the drive.  Totally worth the extra time to have some time with family and to pick up extra hands for the rest of the drive and the first week or so in our new digs.

playing a little chase with Clodagh at the restaurant

Kiddos have been having fun with Grandma and the rest of the fam since we arrived.  Here are a few pics and a cute video of the kiddos squirting Tracy with their new water guns that Auntie Jess bought them today (note Jess conveniently stayed inside when the water guns came out!)

Grandpa took them out for ice cream!

at a little zoo with Grandma

This morning we officially became home owners again!  It's been a while since Michelle and I owned a house and we are looking forward to making the new house feel like home.  This morning was super stressful trying to make everything happen as quickly as possible because the moving truck was already in Florida and they were telling us if we didn't have the key by noon they would have to take our stuff to storage.  But before we could get the key we had to have all our mortgage docs notarized and sent off to the title company who would send to the lender, who would fund the loan and then once that was done the listing agent would release the key to the title company.  And we are in the midwest, ie CST, and Tallahassee is in the eastern time zone so that put us at a disadvantage.  We had a couple technical difficulties and actually missed our goal time by about an hour, but thankfully the moving company agreed to hang tight for a little longer and didn't take our stuff to storage!

Except for the craziness of this morning, this time in Chicago has been kind of a nice respite from the madness of moving.  Of course the kids are still a little out of whack from not sleeping enough and the overall stress of moving, but it does seem like a little mini-vacation.  Can't say any of us are looking forward to getting back into the car on the 4th!