January 2015

After accepting the job offer on New Year's Eve, we had just one month left in Auburn and it was a very surreal feeling.  And very sad.  Reality kicked in and although we were excited about our new adventure, it was very sad thinking about leaving all of the wonderful friends and loved ones we had come to know over the past 11 1/2 years here.  And the thought of leaving our new house that we had only lived in for 2 years (and that we loved) was also very hard.  Leaving behind the only area that we've ever lived as a family, with all of the wonderful things that this area has to offer was very, very hard for us.  Change can be great, but it can also be hard.

I was right about 25 weeks at the beginning of January.  I was feeling pretty good, pregnancy wise, until a very brutal head cold hit right at the new year and lasted the entire month.  It really took it out of me and I had a hard time recovering.  It turned into a sinus infection and after battling it for weeks, I finally got on an antibiotic that helped, but it took a few weeks after that to start feeling myself again.  Pregnancy and sickness do not compliment each other.

As also seen in the above picture, we had just one month to do any projects we wanted/needed to before we sold the house.  The master bathroom needed some touch up painting when we moved in, 2 years ago, but we never got around to it.  Ben spent an afternoon painting it and knocked that project out pretty quickly.

Luckily, most of the projects were fairly minor.  Ben scraped some excess glue off our glass door in the kitchen.

Our back deck needed replaced badly.  The previous owners had 2 dogs that tore the deck apart.  Of course, we had every intention of replacing it as soon as we moved in, but best intentions are just that- intentions! :)

Ben's parents came up one week to help us with a few of the projects.  With Ben's dad's help, the deck wasn't too hard or long of a project.

The boards were warped, chewed on and had nails sticking up all over the place.  The spaces in between the planks were plugged with dog hair, which didn't allow for the water to properly flow through, so most of the boards were rotting as well.

I took pictures of the finished project, but somehow lost them all on my camera card (so sad!)  It looked great when it was all done!

Ben and his dad also power washed the front porch and most of the siding on the house.  Ben's mom helped me wash interior walls.  It was a very productive week.

Livy enjoyed every second that Papa wasn't working.  Papa was one of her new and favorite words of the month.

One of my biggest stresses in moving was not knowing where we would be living in Tri-Cities.  We would have loved to have found a house we LOVED to buy right away, but we knew with just a month to look (online) that finding our forever home would not likely be possible in that short amount of time.  Ben's new company would pay for temporary housing for us, either a motel or some "housing" they had, but we weren't sure what that entailed and I was pretty sure it would be a small apartment or something similar.  The thought of having soon-to-be six kids in a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment made me want to cry.  The options of renting a decent, affordable house in Tri-Cities were very slim pickings, only because there just wasn't much available.  We got lucky though and the middle of January we came across a house for rent online that was affordable and a great size.  The pictures of it looked nice, and even more lucky for us, Ben's sister had been in the house before when a friend lived there and could vouch that it was a very nice house to rent.  Our last hurdle to overcome was to try and talk the landlord in to doing a flexible lease, as we didn't want to be tied to a year or two lease, when we were hoping to find or build something before a year's time.  We lucked out again and was able to talk the landlord into a 6 month lease, going month-to-month after that.  Securing a great place to live (and bring a new baby home to) was such a huge relief for me.   

The rental has 4 bedrooms in it, all upstairs, and after hearing this, Chloe drew up a room arrangement chart with all of the different possibilities for sleeping buddies she could think of.  Luckily, Ben and I were always room partners.  :)  It was very cute.

One afternoon, the little girls and I met Ben for lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant in the area; King Wha's.  One last time here for probably a long while.

It was fabulous, as always.  We will surely miss frequenting you, King Wha.

One of our fortunes was very interesting... 

We got our 12th Man on on the 18th to watch the Seahawks play the Green Bay Packers in a playoff game to determine who would be going to the Super Bowl.  We had some wonderful friends from the ward over to watch the game.  And boy what a game it was!  It was the best NFL game I have ever seen.  The Seahawks had a rough game, with their QB Russell Wilson struggling for most of the game.  By the end of the 3rd quarter, we were pretty sure the Packers had us beat and we were all super bummed.  Seattle was down the entire game, but with just a few minutes left in the 4th quarter, they came alive unlike anything I've ever watched.  They tied the game up with some incredible "you have to see it to believe it" plays and sent the game into OT.  Their 16 point comeback was the largest ever in a conference title game.  The Hawks won with a 35 yard touchdown in OT to win 28-22.  There was so much shouting/screaming/yelling going on in the house.  It was so awesome!

Two #1's and a #3 (for Russell Wilson).

The kids were off school one Monday for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  Cynde also had the day off and asked if she could take the kids out to breakfast.  The kids could not have been more excited!

They went to IHop and each got to order whatever they wanted.

Everyone was in heaven!

 

Cynde reported that Mitchell ate 2 or 3 times as much as anyone else and that she was amazed at how much food could be consumed by one 7 year old.  Our grocery bill is already dreading feeding Mitch as a teenager!

The kids had a great time and it was so sad to think that we weren't going to get to see Cynde as much as we wanted in the very near future.

The twins and I had haircut appointments later that afternoon with a dear friend of mine in the ward, Paula.  The kids and I have been getting our hair cut from her for years, and I have been her visiting teacher for at least 6 or 7 years.  She is fabulous and we are going to miss her (and her haircuts) so much.  After cutting their hair, she asked the girls if they wanted some colored hairspray in their hair.  She and her family are HUGE Seahawk fans, so of course she had blue and green hairspray.  Leah was all over it and instantly agreed to green.  And lucky enough, she even wore her Seahawk shirt again and it matched perfectly!  Paula sprayed just one piece, which made kid and mom happy.  After Lexi got her hair cut, she reluctantly agreed to blue.  She was a bit nervous about it, but loved her little sprayed strand once she saw it.

The Friday before we moved, Ben rented a Uhaul trailer after work and packed it full of lots of heavy things from our basement: our two chest freezers and lots of our food storage.  Earlier in the week we had a lady from the moving company come out to access all of our stuff and make an estimate on how many pounds the moving company would be hauling.  Based on their estimate, we would be over the weight limit paid by Ben's company and we would have to pay for any overage.  We were estimated to be over by quite a bit and based on the rate that they would charge it, it would be cheaper for us to rent a trailer and haul some of the heavy stuff over beforehand.  It took quite awhile for him to load that trailer by himself (his pregnant wife wasn't much help with super heavy things), so he didn't pull out of town until after 7:00 pm.  With a loaded down trailer, he wasn't able to go very fast and didn't get to Tri-Cities until almost midnight.  His family helped him quickly unload the next morning at the new rental house, and he (and Mitch, his buddy for the trip) were able to start back home by 8:30 a.m.  It was quite the whirlwind 12 hours for them and they were exhausted, but it was a very helpful trip for us.

Back in September, long before we knew we would be moving, we signed Mitch up for his first year of city basketball.  He has been looking forward to being old enough to play on a team for a few years, so when we found out we would be moving, and he would only have 3 weeks to play, I was so bummed for him.  

He got to go to a number of practices, which he loved.

He only got to go to one game.  In practice, he was aggressive and and a go getter.  In his one and only game, he suddenly became timid and was very reluctant to shoot and would immediately pass the ball off as soon as he got it.  I'm sure he would have warmed up as the season went on, but sadly we had no more chances for that this season.

 Ben's co-workers threw him a small going away party the week before we moved.  Everyone signed this poster, and another poster with a Boeing plane on it.  This picture of the weird fish is funny for anyone who knows the Simpson's well and who is a nerd/engineer.  Ben thought it was very funny.

Some of our dear, life long Auburn friends invited us over for dinner one Saturday night.  They were in our Auburn ward for many years before they moved to a nearby city.  We still get together with them as often as we can.  We have children almost all the same ages and getting together with the Fletcher's is always one of our most favorite things.  When we first met 10 years ago, there was only 3 of these kids born- now there is 10!  As Fletcher's said, this wasn't a goodbye- it was a "See you later." 

The month was full of so many sad goodbyes (or see you later's).  One sweet friend stopped by after church one Sunday to bring me a gift and say a formal goodbye.  She and I were both crying within a few minutes, which then set 3 of my big kids off as well.  We all had a good cry inside about how we were going to miss so many wonderful people.  I also received so many sweet texts from friends, wishing us a great move and a goodbye.  My visiting teachers brought by dinner while we were packing and so many wonderful friends had my kids over for playdates "one last time."  I had so many offers of people willing to help us clean or pack or do whatever else we needed.  Luckily, we were getting professionally packed and moved (best thing ever), but all of the offers were so sweet and touching.  I was so overwhelmed with everyone's kindness and generosity.

The young women I work with made me this cute card on our last Sunday in our ward.

Each of them and the other leaders signed it and wrote a message.  I could barely squeak out a "thank you" and a few more words before I felt the tears coming on and had to sit down.  I look at this card whenever I feel sad and am missing everyone!

I stayed busy throughout the month finding a new OB doctor in Tri Cities, finding out information on the kids' new school, letting each of the big kids' teachers and schools know here that we were moving and when, getting all of the utilities set up at our rental house, canceling future doctor appointments we had set up and transferring doctor records, going to last and final doctor/dentist appointments and so on.  Ben and I also had to find a realtor to help sell our house, and fast!  We found one that we thought was a good fit and put all of our trust in her to try and sell the house for top dollar.  We decided with her that it was best to just wait and list the house after we had moved, because by the time we got a list price settled on and all the paper work done, it was only a week or two before we moved.  It would be so much easier to show the house once we were moved out and had it cleaned than it would be to try and show it while we were packing and sorting and with 5 kids running around, and 2 weeks wasn't really that long of a time.  That was a huge relief for me.  I had a cleaning lady come over one day to give us a quote on having the house professionally cleaned.  We set up an appointment for the cleaners to come the day we moved out, right as we were leaving town, to an empty house.  The realtor scheduled the house to be photographed for listing purposes after the cleaning was done.  It was all coming together, but so much to do and so little time.