So as most of you know, Andrew and I left the familiarity and security of Ames, Iowa to embark on a bit of an adventure and moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado. Why you ask? It certainly would have been much easier to stay and continue with our day to day lives with secure jobs and good friends. But, for a few years now we've known our house was on the chopping block, so to speak- an obstacle that needed removing in order to expand a parking lot for Wheatsfield Market, the organic food co-op next door. So after being told "it'll be this year" multiple years in a row, it finally become official. So, we had to move anyways, why not make it a big move?
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| Our old home |
Reason two: the mountains.
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| Colorado Springs and the mountains |
Reason three: my sister, Sally.
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| Sally |
She's lived in Colorado Springs over 10 years and has been our ambassador and promoter of living here for a long time. She has shamelessly and relentlessly pointed out every positive of the Springs and has wisely told us the areas to avoid. Without her, we definitely would not have had the courage to make this huge leap into the unknown. Plus, free future babysitter.
So the big day finally came, and although the timing wasn't perfect with me 29 weeks pregnant, we had no say in the matter and March 8th we left 910 5th St. I had done my best to pack what I could (Andrew had left for 2 weeks to find a place and start a job), but as anyone who has ever moved knows, stuff just appears that you had no idea existed! We had lived there 5 1/2 years and it was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath with basement and garage. Our new home is 2 bed, one bath, no basement, and a shed. Less than half the square footage! Luckily, Goodwill has no limit on how much stuff you can give them (that I'm aware of) and we still had to rent a storage unit.
Somehow, Andrew and his amazing friends crammed all of our belongings into a 24' Budget rental truck and Andrew's motorcycles onto an 8' trailer. Saturday was a blur of packing and throwing away and watching with amazement as they "tetrised" (ie. the game where you have to fit shapes together) boxes and furniture onto the truck. We are forever indebted to the efforts of our dear friends and family: Aaron, Brandon, Brian, Kris, Mandy, Michael, Nash, Sally, and Susan. We couldn't have done it without you!!!
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| It was very muddy! |
Another thing we had to figure out how to move were 3 cats.
As some of you know, Izzy, Marvin and Shishky are our furry children and I was worried that moving them 12 hours away would be rough on them. So I did some research, splurged on the expensive pharamone diffuser and spray, and did my best to keep everything calm and familiar. Saturday, during the packing, they were kept in a room with a sign that read "do not enter- cats will escape!" But they knew something was up. That night, we let them roam the empty house, and we awoke to all three sleeping with us, which was a first.
Sunday, they all traveled in cat carriers with me in the Buick. I laid towels and blankets that had their scent on them on the seats so that they'd have familiar smells around them while we traveled. During the ride, I had planned on letting them out for stretch breaks whenever we stopped but every time I did, they would just hide under the seat and be impossible when the time came to get back into their carriers, so the last 7 hours or so I just let them stay in the carriers. They meowed the first half hour of the trip, and would occasionally let me know "this sucks" with a faint mew every now and then but other than that they slept or stared at the side of their carrier. They did surprisingly well, especially considering a trip we had hoped would take 14 hours ended up taking 17 instead, due to a flat tire.
As I said, we left before the sun was up, around 6 am, in 4 vehicles.
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| Our last moment in the old house |
I was the leader, Andrew in the big rental truck second, Andrew's mom, Susan, third, and Sally in the back with the trailer. We all (except Susan) had an app on our phones called Voxer, sort of like a walkie talkie. Around a half and hour into the trip Sally calls out "Mayday! Take next exit! Flat tire! Flat tire!" One of the tires on the trailer had gone flat. Luckily we were in Des Moines and not far from an exit with a gas station right there. But since it was Sunday, we had to wait until 9 am for a tire store to open. So much for getting an early start! By 10 am Andrew and Sally has successfully purchased and mounted two new tires on the trailer and we were on the road again. The rest of the trip was uneventful but extremely long. Our caravan rolled into Colorado Springs around 10:30 pm. We were all exhausted and glad to finally be in our new home.
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| The view of part of the caravan from the big truck's rearview mirror |
Unloading happened Monday, a bunch of Sally's friends helped us, and I quickly set to unpacking and settling in. With some of our belongings in storage, most of which our friends had packed for us, it was sometimes difficult to locate important items. Andrew was very discouraged when we couldn't find his motorcycle helmet for 3 days, but with some persistence we located it in a box with a baby swing, coat racks, and cat toys labeled "baby things and helmet" buried in the corner of the storage unit.
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| We found it! |
The rest of last week and this week has been filled with miscellaneous business, exploring our new town, and making our new house a home.
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| In the mountains |
