Day 2 on the road

I don't know how we did it but we got the house packed up, loaded into the pods and the car and van. Three kids, two cats, and three fish piled into the car and van. We left Durham Saturday evening around 9:00 and checked into the Residence Inn, Winsten-Salem just before Midnight.

Sunday Morning we ate breakfast at the Hotel and got everything/everyone loaded back in the car/van and were back on the road by 10:00. We had one false start; Michelle left somting in the room and we had to backtrack a couple miles. We ate lunch outside a Subway sub shop, and got the cats out of the car for a little while then back at it. We checked into the Residence Inn, Nashville aroung 6:00 Central time. We had a nice dinner at Macaroni grill. Michelle and I took a quick dip in the pool and now we are all setteling in for the night.

Molly has been great. She is not happy but is not causing any trouble. I won't go into the details but the first couple hours were challenging. He still yells at us every once in a while, he is still freaking out but he has settled down a bit.

The kids are handling things well.... It's an adventure!

More updates later

Tim

What a Pain

Literally, What a Pain.

Karen warned me but I did not listen. Moving is hard on your body. My back told me so around 11:30 Sunday morning. Add on top of that the suspected cracked (or at least bruised) rib sustained in a soccer game the week before....

The first POD arrived Friday afternoon. We started loading it Saturday morning. At this point we have around 8' of the 16' pod filled to the ceiling. Today we start putting some desks and beds and the more bulky stuff in. The PODS folks are picking up this Pod Tuesday some time and dropping off the second pod. So we have to get whatever is gonna be in storage in this pod this evening...

Tyler has been REALLY helpful over the past several weeks. Specially the past few days. Bob has helped move stuff, Michelle and Kyle less so but Tyler has been there for us whenever we ask. Little to no complaints. He stopped working at Harris Teeter a week early so he could help pack. He has helped me arrange and re-arrange the stuff in the POD to make it as secure and efficient as we can make it.

So a BIG thank you to Tyler.

I know this is tough on everyone. Bob will be without a permanent place to stay in Durham while he works at the bulls. He has made arrangements to stay a few nights here and there with friends or the parents of friends. He is use to popping home for weekends. He does not need us close as much as he use to. He has a house in Greenville but I think he still depends on us being close when he needs us.

Tyler, while he will be back, is leaving his girlfriend for a few weeks. But primarily he will be on his own his freshman year. Bob had us close so we could help him adjust and buy him stuff he needs and fix the little issues that arise on occasions. He came home weekends etc. Tyler will not have that comfort zone. Though Melodies mom insists she will take care of Tyler for us.

Kyle is leaving a girlfriend of several months. His friends and his HS. It is very hard on him and we have tried to be as flexible as we can and understanding as we can about the situation. He is not happy but is, at least on the outside dealing with it about as well to be expected.

I think it is just starting to hit Michelle. Her friends started school this past week. And Saturday some threw a going away pool party for her. Overall She is doing well. Though she has been conveniently absent when it comes times to moving boxes etc. I think part of her is looking forward to a new adventure, though I am not sure she would agree to that.

Karen is leaving her friends of many years. She is leaving 2 of her babies behind in NC. Her friends are here, her Bowling league. She is leaving the comfort of knowing the Pediatrician, Dentists, The pharmacist, The Bank tellers, and the produce guy at the grocery store.... Never mind much of the arrangements for the move has fallen on her shoulders. The house situation. And the strain she sees in everyone else....

I do not like I am putting the family through all of this. I do not like seeing the pain in their eyes. I do not like leaving my kids 1100 miles away. I don't like moving that much further from my family. I don't like the financial uncertainty the move has put us in. So far the gods have not looked down on us. The house not selling is the biggest thing but just so many little gotchas that keep thinks difficult. But I truly feel this can be, in the end, a really good thing. Better schools, better job opportunities, a different environment, different landscape. A fresh beginning in so many ways. This is the hope.

We just have to get through the next week.

I have not communicated with folks much lately. Been busy as you can imagine but Karen and I do think of everyone quite a bit. I am not a religious man so your prayers will fall on deaf ears but be thinking about us over the next couple of weeks.

Waiting Game

Still no offers on the house. We are just gonna move forward and hope things work out. We will just have to keep lowering the price of the house until it sells :-
We did another open house Sunday. (It is getting old for all of us) The turnout was disappointing but it was something.

It is really frustrating because by all accounts (realtor and those who have viewed it up to now), the house is very well kept, It's Clean it shows well, the lot is pretty, its a good locations.... And the other houses in the neighborhood have sold and are selling for more $/sq. ft. than ours. I guess it is just not the right house for this area and the people looking.... Not much more we can do to the house. We have repainted many of the rooms, removed wallpaper and such. Other than re-do the kitchen with gourmet appliances and solid surface countertops, and perhaps expanding the living room (yeah right) there is not much more we can do other than lower the price and be patient I guess.

We have started packing in Ernest at this point. Getting the stuff that will be stored in boxes, numbered, labeled and down to the garage so when the Pod shows up Friday we can get it loaded up. Then we will work on the stuff we are going to have in the apartment.

Other than that we did family pictures this morning. The last time we had professional pictures with all 6 of us done was probably 8 years ago. And I am not sure when all 6 of us will be in one place at one time again for a while. So expect a picture in the mail. If you want to perhaps look at the proofs or order some prints for yourselves there is a web site you can go to I think and pick them out and order them. Contact Karen or myself for that information.

The new house is done framing at this point from what we have heard and they have started the mechanical; Plubming, HVAC, Electrical etc.. Howard and Nancy have taken some pictures and are going to send them to us hopefully soon.



Gotta run

T-16 days and counting

It's been a while since I blogged and so much has happened. So much has happened yet there is SO much to do. This is not going to be eloquent.

In a nutshell the move to TX moves forward. We have not yet sold our house. We were confident we would have sold it by now based on the other activity in the neighborhood but here we sit. We are having another open house Sunday. We lowered the price again but regardless the move date is pretty much set for July 29th.

Our new house will not be ready until the end of September so we have a 3 month lease on an apartment in Richardson Texas, Half way between Wylie, where our new house is being built, and the Nortel office in Richardson.

We are moving ourselves so in stead of renting a big truck and driving it across country we are going to use "PODS". Basically the PODS company will drop off a 16'x 8'x 8' shipping container on our driveway on the 7/21, In that pod we are going to put all of the things we don't plan on using before we get into our house. They will pick that POD up on the 25th and drop off a second POD. In that POD we will put all off the things we will need in the apartment. The second pod will be picked up the 29th with the last of our belongings and both will travel together to Dallas. The first pod will be kept at the "PODS" storage facility in Dallas through September then dropped off at the new house. The second pod will be dropped off in the parking lot of the apartment complex sometime between the 5th and the 8th. We will unload it and they will come pick it up the next day.

Michelle, Kyle, Tyler, Karen and I will be pulling out of Durham, PROBABLY the 29th. We will be driving both the van and the Volvo taking turns driving and keeping each other awake etc. The cats will be in the Volvo. Let me tell you that will be interesting. I do not know honestly where Bob will be staying. His job in Durham will keep him in NC through the beginning of school.

We will arrive in Fairview Texas on the 1st of August. This is where my in-laws now live. We will stay at their house until the furniture arrives at the apartment. Howard and Nancy on the other hand will be riding a boat down some river in Germany for 3 weeks or something of that sort. So we will have the house to ourselves.

The kids ended up their school years with a Bang. I do not recall all of the grades etc. but overall we were pleased.

Tyler Graduated with a 4.6+ Weighted GPA and was something like 45th in his class of around 380. I am sure I got those number wrong but Bottom line I think it comes to around the top 11-12% of his class. He took the AP calculus test and received a score of 5 out of 5 and a 4 out of 5 on the AP Psychology test. We took him to his orientation at UNC-CH a couple of weeks ago. He is now all registered, his books ordered, his dorm room and room-mate are all assigned etc. He is going to participate in the Marching band at UNC..... He is very excited... but mostly because he received his Laptop computer. He spend much of his day on that thing.

Kyle was able to pull things together at school. It was a rough year for him in some ways. He took Physics as a sophomore which is hard enough but he probably needed to have had the math he was taking at the same time as physics, BEFORE he took physics. It made things more difficult than they probably would have been otherwise. He got his Driver Learners permit yesterday. He has not driven yet other than the behind the wheel class offered by the schools but soon I am sure.

Michelle is at Band camp this week. It is the same camp that Bob and Tyler went to at UNC-Greensboro. She and a couple of her friends from school all went. I have not heard from her so I will assume she is doing fine. We will know on Friday when we go to pick her up.

Karen has been busy with move preparations, plus keeping the house clean (cleaner than usual) in case a perspective buyer requests a showing. Driving kids around etc. Never mind painting and stripping wall paper and trimming bushes and .... You get the picture. All of this is very stressful on us all but it seems much of the details seem to fall on her. She has been a rock through all of the turmoil. I love you hon!

I have been busy with work and move preparations. I have been riding my bike to work more often which has turned out to be nice. I get some time to think as a ride in. It's a little less than 6 miles one way and it takes me around 35-45 minutes. I take a shower at work then ride home in the evening.

The Volvo is in the shop due to a little mishap between Tyler and a concrete structure in the parking lot at school so this week I have ridden in 3 out of the 4 days so far. And yesterday I rode in, played soccer at lunch then immediately rode home. That was probably a mistake. It was hot and muggy. I was pretty much worthless when I got home.

Anyway, That, in a nutshell is the news from NC.

Tim