More photos of our trip to Grandma's

Holly's spaghetti extravaganza!

The Trip Begins

We hung around Norfolk, at our home away from home, The Residence Inn, until August 30, when the girls and I began our trip to Winston-Salem to visit Grandma Candy. The 4 1/2 hour trip was pretty painless given the fancy new tv set-up in the Expedition! Daddy had to stay behind to finish up the walk-through at the house and check out of the sqaudron. Poor Daddy was a wanderer, staying with friends night to night... thanks to those of you who put him up!

When we arrived at Grandma's we discovered that she had worked really hard to set up a nice room for the girls and a special place for Mommy and baby to sleep! Our visit was a whirlwind of play... lots of coloring, "working" with Grandma and shopping.

Here is a photo of Hailey with Daisy

The Suite Life of Hannah, Hailey and Holly.

We spent the day on Saturday lounging around the hotel suite, making the most of our small space. We watched tv, played Bratz babies, Littlest Pet Shop and ate snacks... fun, fun fun!

Desirae came around 6:30pm and Aaron and I finally got to celebrate our anniversary. We visited the new Ruth Chris Steakhouse in Virginia Beach... yum! We returned to the hotel before "pumpkin time" and went to bed...

Load day! We woke up early and Aaron rushed to the house to meet the movers in case they decided to show up on time, they didn't... go figure. Desirae came to the hotel to watch the kids, again, and I went to the house to pick up Foster for a new hair-do. He seemed nervous after the Sassy incident, but I assured him we would be back to get him!

Aaron stayed at the house to supervise while I ran errands. Box after box after box they loaded our stuff into the truck.... the tv, the table, the fridge, bye stuff... see you in CA!

In addition to load day, today is another important day.... My and Aaron's 4th anniversary! Time sure does move fast! It truly seems that just yesterday we were getting married, now, 3 kids, 2 houses and an upcoming move later it has been 4 years! Wow! It has been a bumpy ride, although well worth the effort.

The movers finished at about 5 or so and then Aaron stayed at the house cleaning and clearing away the remainder of the junk until around 6 or so. Then we got cleaned up and went to Waylon and Nikie's house to grill out and visit. We left at around 11:30 - tired kids in tow and passed out in bed the moment we got back!

Tomorrow is another day ----

Pack day #2 began much the same as Pack day #1... The packers were late and Aaron was waiting at the house for them when they finally did show. I stayed at the hotel and managed the kids until our faithful babysitter and friend showed up to relieve me. The packing continued in a flurry of dumping, stuffing and taping, much to my chagrin.

My assignment of the day.... Take Sassy, our cat friend of 2 years, to the Cat Rescue so she can find a new family. Not an easy task, but something that will be in her best interest, as we are unable to have her once we move into base housing -- 2 pet minimum. I have to say that I have never given a pet away before and it may have been one of the most difficult things I have had to do. I honestly hope she finds a nice family to love her.

After completing the dastardly deed I stopped at the Sprint Store to try and obtain an Air Card for our trip..... long story short, we are claiming irreconsirrable differences with Sprint and have changed our service to Cingular... our numbers are the same however, the voicemail is still not set up at this point in time. We are working on it!

The day ended late with a popcorn and M&M dinner at the hotel--

Here is the house packed and ready to be loaded tommorrow! ---




The kitchen - seems like there is still a bunch of junk!




The big girl's room -- no toys?









The office









The baby's room

Well, now that we have started the moving adventure we decided to start a running documentation of our experiences. We hope you all enjoy following us on this exciting journey as we leave end one chapter of our lives and begin another.

I guess I will start with the beginning! -- Wednesday, August 24, 2005
I woke up early as usual to the sad crying of baby Chunkin butt, got out of bed and scooped her out of her crib and walked to the kitchen to make some coffee. Aaron was dressing for morning PT and on his way out the door.

Still clouded in the morning haze of my mind, it suddenly dawned on me that today was the day -- the first day of our big adventure. I move into overdrive, finishing the packing, trying to clean up the rest of the mess in the kitchen, getting dressed... so much to do, so little time.

So far the business has curbed my nervousness. If I stop to think about it all; the move, the drive, a new life, I start to feel anxious. It is all very exciting, but still very scary. Here we are leaving the comfortable zone which we have created here over the past 8 years -- and entering the unknown -- that is why I have decided it will be an adventure -- a family adventure with my girls, 2 dogs and my best friend. I am sure it will not be smooth, how could it with the "triple H threat", but together we will make the best of it. -- ok, back to the story---

The girls and I checked into the local Residence Inn at around 10:00am with Desirae in tow. Aaron ended up taking the day off from work The "packers" showed up at our house LATE, at about 12:00pm. The two ladies busied themselves by literally dumping all of our wordly belongings into brown boxes. Polly pockets are now mixed with Care Bears and I am sure my silverware is probably packed with dirty laundry! Oh well, unpacking should be fun! They sure worked up a sweat (pee-yew!) and then left about 3 hours later with little more than the girl's room and the office packed into boxes! We were bewildered as to how they would finish in any reasonable amount of time the next day.

Aaron and I stayed at the house cleaning out the contents of our attic, ok, Aaron did most of the hauling, I did some sorting and then had to leave to relieve Desirae! It is amazing how much stuff you can accumulate over 4 years of marriage with 3 small children! Wow! did we have a lot of stuff..... Here is our impressive trash pile!

After a long day of sorting and moving I headed for the hotel to fight off the little ones! What a long day, but the journey has begun!

More to follow!