The McCoys Buy a House

It's true. We bought a house. Sadly....it's not in the same town. It's not even in the same county. It's barley in the same time zone. (Okay, I may be exaggerating that last part.) 

The McCoys have relocated from the east side to the west side. Yup. We are officially Michigan westsiders. It's weird. Like, really weird. The west side of Michigan is gorgeous, don't get me wrong. But it might as well be a whole other state. It's so different from the east side. I swear that even the accents are different. Seriously. 

You may be curious as to why we decided to jump ship from our lovely little town and buy a house 77 miles away. Well, I'll tell ya.....the hubs got a new job. Not just any job. A job he'd been trying for for almost a year. He swears he loves it and it's fabulous and the company is wonderful. Whatever. All I know is that I had to do some serious soul searching to be "okay" with this. I'm still not 100% okay with it. I miss my old stores. The meijer here isn't the same. Neither is the target. And Costco is 30 mins away!! 30 mins! 😫 it's torture. 

We found out we'd be moving here back in February. We decided to let the kids finish the school year before we moved. Which turned out to be a moot point anyway since it took us almost 3 months to close on our house. Accepted offer in April ...and we closed the day we got home from our week up north for the 4th of July. Seriously. 

We are slowly getting settled. Trying to get unpacked and fix up the house at the same time has been a challenge. Unfortunately, there was no money tree growing in our new backyard...and we have yet to run into those guys from Kitchen Crashers at Home Depot sooooo it's taking longer than I'd hoped to get this place looking how we want. But such is life, right? First world problems and all that.  

Ahhh...home ownership. The worst best thing ever. 😳

a wedding and a move.. oh my!

Oh my.... such a slacker!! Not sure anyone even reads this anymore.... I guess I really do it for myself anyway...... instead of (in addition too) a journal. I've been meaning to get my old blog printed into a book... it's on my to-do list. ;-)

So... the weeks leading up to our BIG MOVE were quite busy. I had so many last minute sessions, I'm still buried in editing. I should be editing now... but the blog was looking so sad and neglected... ;) Anyhow, as I was saying, the weeks before the move we very eventful. I really did kick myself Monday, the day before we left, for not having packed sooner, as the Hubs had told me to do.. sooooo many times over. We had birthday parties... family get togethers, and a wedding! (see photo below).

Do you see me?? Kinda like "Where's Waldo?".. But it's "Where's Whitna?".. hee hee

In hindsight I should have probably taken the last week or two off work in order to gt things handled and what not, but I didn't... and so I was scrambling Monday to get everything done and packed and all that. I have to say.. if it had not been for my AMAZING sister.. we would probably still be in California trying to get packed and such. ;) She's pretty much my hero. ;-)

But.... thanks to her and the hubs we were able to leave Tuesday morning as planned. :) It took us 6 hours to get from June Lake to Ely Nevada (normally a 4 hour trip...), that was due in part to having to pull over 3 times because Marley threw up, two more times because the cat, who was in the cat carrier, slid off the cooler into the litter box (we then moved him to the back of the truck), and once because the trailer came a little loose.

After we hit Ely, Day One went a little more smoothly. Besides the typical I-swear-I-will-turn-this-car-around-if-you-don't-leave-your-sister-alone threats..... we made it to our first stop with only a few minor hiccups. Due largely in part to the rough start, and the limited amount of sleep we all got the night before, ... it's understandable that we were ready to kill each other once we hit Rock Springs, WY. We also discovered that I-80 is quite popular in August. Proven by the fact that just about every single hotel was sold out! We ended up finding a room at some place called "Budget Host". We pulled in and almost immediately pulled back out. Needless to say it was pretty ghetto and there was no way any of us felt comfortable staying there, leaving the trucks, and trailer and the Pathfinder in the parking lot to get robbed. So... we ended up back tracking about 10 miles to the small town of Green River, which was also just about sold out. Thankfully we found a much less ghetto hotel where we all crashed out for the night.

Day Two was MUCH easier. We were all in a pretty good rhythm, Ricky in front in his truck, Meredith in the middle in her truck and trailer, and me bringing up the rear in the Path. We were smarter on Day two (or so we thought) and started calling hotels in Des Moines about 5 hours before we actually got there. Unfortunately... other people must have had the same idea, as practically every hotel there was full as well.So.. we settled on a hotel in West Des Moines. Which in the end worked out much better, since we didn't even get there until 1am, and I really doubt any of us had enough energy to make it the next 15 miles to Des Moines.

Day Three... well... Day Three always seems like the longest as we know that's the day we make it HOME. And this Day Three was no exception. We lost each other after a stop at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop, and then I took a roundabout way just before we hit Illinois.... getting of I-80 when I guess I didn't need too. We were about 10-20 miles apart for about two hours or so. But finally caught back up with each other when we stopped at a Wendy's in De Kalb Illinois. Then after some horrid traffic just outside Chicago, seriously..... 45 mins to go one mile!!?? WTH??!! I felt like I was back in LA. *sigh*

We ended up pulling into my parents driveway about 7pm EST. :) *ahhhhhhhhhh*

All in all it wasn't too horrible. I mean... all the kids made it alive, barely. ;-) And we didn't lose anything on the way. All three vehicles made it without a problem. We lucked out last year... the kids were angels and I think it helped that we were all together in one vehicle. It was tough this year... trying to drive with only one parent per car. If a kid wants something... you can't very well turn around and grab it for them as you are driving down the freeway. But the boys did great for Meredith... which I was really grateful for that. She was stressed enough having to tow the trailer and such, I would have hated if the boys were freakin' out the whole way too.


So... we made it.... and now we are trying to get all settled and what not. The Hubs is on his fishing trip to Isle Royale. He'll be home Sunday night.... very very... very.. late. We'll see if the kids survive till then. ;-) kidding......

One of those days.....

It's been one of "those" days... You know... one of those days where things are sooo crazy that you're not sure if you're gonna make it to 6pm.. then once 6pm comes you are think."Wasn't it just lunchtime??". One of those days where when you *do* finally make it to 6pm you look at eachother and wonder..."What's for dinner??"

Tonight it was "fend for yourself" dinner. As I type this the girls are digging into frozen chicken fries, Brady is trying to wrestle open a bag of frozen frenchtoast sticks and Cohen is somewhere outside, riding his bike. Tripp is the only one somewhat taken care of this evening..... he's strapped in the highchair. And that's probably only because he's really not old enough to try and get anything for himself. ;-)

Don't judge me... you know you've all done it. ;)

The house is a disaster. The living room is a mess and I need to do laundry, and dishes in a bad way. And yet here I sit... blogging. I also need to pack. *yuck* Oh how I loathe packing.... It's even more difficult since we aren't just "packing up.moving..unpacking".

Ya see... our packing is broken down into serveral catagories: "Stuff We Can Live Without Right Now", "Stuff We NEED to Have Til August/Sept", "Stuff We NEED To Have in Michigan in August", "Stuff We Can Live Without until Sept". Ya... MUCH more difficult than just .."pack it up.. drive to the new house.... unpack". Ya........So... I have been slowly packing things up. It's really annoying... trying to figure out what we need now and what we can live wihout for a few months. Ugh..

Speaking of which.... the Hubs is telling me right now that I need to get on packing up the desk and stuff. (I did the playroom the other day with the help of my seester!). So.. time to go through the desk... *shudder* it's a scary sight. A horrid unorganized disaster!!

Wish me luck!

MOVING!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes... we are MOVING to Michigan!! After much talk and prayer, more talk.. more prayer.... the Hubbs and I have decided that we will be making the move back to the mitten state. :-) And we couldn't be happier about it. We both feel really good about this, and we can't wait to see what it brings for us.

We will spend the summer in California. Then.. August 18th we will leave for Michigan. :) The kids are all signed up for their fall activites: Cohen will be in Soccer and Ash will be in ballet class.

I am so excited to be going "home" again. I never thought I would want to move back there.... but after 8 years between Caifornia and Utah.. we both reaized that Michigan is where we want to be. I am sooooo blessed to have a husband that wants to leave *his* home state of California to move to *my* home state of Michigan. It heps that he has friends there. ;) He's pretty excied about all the fishing and stuff he can do there with his friends.

I am looking forward to taking the kids to all the amazing places I grew up going to: the DIA, The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfied Village, Hands on Museum, Spicers Orchard, Detroit Historical Museum, Detroit Zoo, Mackinac Island.... I could go on and on and on!! LOL

I really cannot wait. I know my parents are so excited as well. My mom cannot wait to take her grandkids to all the places she and my dad used to take my sister and I.

So.. the next couple of weeks I will be packing and cleaning... LOL lucky me!! Oh well... it's worth it!