A Simple Life

Moving across the country from Colin's point of view

1. California

2. Arizona

3. New Mexico

4. Texas

5. Oklahoma

6. Kansas

7. Missouri

7. Illinois

8. Kentucky

9. Tennessee

10. Virginia

11. West Virginia

12. Maryland

13. Pennsylvania

14. New Jersey

15. New York

Living in an empty house

Our California house was packed up on January 24th and our nomad life began. We originally thought we would be in Mint house on February 14th, but that turned into the 28th. After a full month of living displaced, we were ready to be in our new home!

Unfortunately, it didn't turn out as rosy as we needed. Mint house needed a lot of love. It needed love and elbow grease and a lot of repairs. It was overwhelming. AND our truck still hadn't left California. We lived in an empty house for 8 days and we spent every minute of those 8 days cleaning and repairing and painting. We found Walmart and bought some cheap chairs, bedding and dishes. We had just enough to function, but we were basically camping. While we were thankful to not be in and out of places, it was still kinda creepy living in an empty, old house.

Ben bought a Lego set along our travels and this was the perfect time to work on it.

You don't realize how important furniture is, until you don't have it. Every morning was a debate over who got the 2 comfy bean bags.

Master bedroom:

Colin did NOT like his bedroom while the house was empty, so he ended up camping out with us or with Eli.

There wasn't a whole lot for the kids to do during this time. Colin resorted to playing with boxes and then Maya would claim it as her house.

We did find some perks. 7-11 is right across the street and we can walk to get slushies. There is also really good food here and lots of good choices close to our house.

The day our truck finally showed up, was just like Christmas! We had been without our belongings for 6 weeks!

This sums up our trucks journey:

They told us that first the truck's transmission broke and they had to wait for a new one (COVID has messed up the supply chain) and then 2 drivers quit. I wanted to hug the driver that didn't quit and got our stuff here. And while we were excited to see our belongings, it also was quickly apparent that the packers were terrible. We had lots of things broken or damaged or missing. This was our first PCS that they didn't have a checklist and by this point, we just had to roll with it and pray that most of our stuff was there. Funny things from the day: they unloaded several things that weren't ours. Somehow, someone else's decorative pillow was packed in my china cabinet. Also, our basement has very low beams and the movers kept smacking their heads on them.

Welcome to New York!

From Tennessee, we stayed the night in Virginia and did some night swimming. Whatever hotel we stayed at had the worst food in history. By this point, we had been eating lots of terrible food, but we won't forget how bad this hotel was.

Since learning we were moving to Long Island, I was most nervous about the day we would drive through New York City. It was definitely an experience I won't forget. I would say that LA drivers prepared us for some of it, but New York drivers are a whole other ball game. It's weird to say that a city can be breathtaking, but there were definitely some gasps as we first saw the city.

Since it was our first rodeo and we didn't fully know what we were doing, we got in one wrong lane and ended up having to drive straight through Manhattan!

That's one way to say hello to a new city. I'm hoping to never make that drive again, but at least I can say that I've driven through New York. We crawled our way to Long Island and ventured up to a hotel in Roslyn, just a few miles from our new house...that we couldn't get into for a few more days. This hotel was a night and day difference from the last, with good food and cozy spots to relax. I slipped away a few times for some quiet and it was just what I needed after all our adventures.

Welcome to Long Island!

Tennessee

Weather wasn't always our friend on this trip and we drove through a thunderstorm to get to Tennessee. We got to meet Charlee and have dinner with Rachel, Shannon and Madisyn.

Our drive from there down to Franklin, was in my top least-favorite drives. We both hit a pothole that was so bad, it sounded like when I was rear-ended and I even had to take my car in to get looked at the next day. But we made it...Ben and the boys stayed at Rick's, while Alison, Maya and I stayed at a hotel (they have a cat and we figured they might want the cat to keep living). Madisyn and Charlee also came down to stay at Rick's, so we got a few days of lots of baby loving.

We got to meet Abigail!

The Louise's

Rick took Colin to play some basketball

and there was some game playing...

And we had a little birthday celebration for Ben and Jordan.

The girls went out for tea one day :)

We had a scare with Maya while there. I went back to the hotel to let her out and found she had eaten a chocolate muffin that was accidentally left out. Let's just say that I was worried and firmly let her know that she had to be okay...she obeyed.

Grace LOVED Colin. She did not want to leave his side or let go of his hand.

The Gateway Arch

We stopped in St. Louis on our last cross-country move, but the Arch was closed down for renovations. This time we booked a hotel within walking distance to the Arch and planned out our travel day so we would make it in time to get in a tour.