We Moved to Oregon!

Our move to Oregon has been  long, exhausting, and quite uneventful for the most part. We prepared for our move by selling and giving away a LOT of our things, including tons of small organizational items, rubbermaid bins, hangars, etc, and a lot of large items like couches, dressers, and many other things. Our goal was to fit everything in to a 16ft Budget truck, as we didn't want to drive a 24ft truck over 3 mountain passes and we didn't feel like dishing out an extra $500 for the big truck. So after successfully getting rid of half of what we own, we go to pick up the truck the morning of loading and our 16ft truck had a bad tire so they gave us the 24ft truck we so desperately tried to avoid! I was quite stressed and convinced that it would be incredibly difficult to drive. I soon found out it was quite smooth and easy to drive. That didn't change the fact that I got rid of half of my belongings for no good reason!

After we brought the truck home and got it ready to load, we surprisingly had about 6 guys from church show up to help us move! We had asked for help, but had no one confirm to be able to come. As it was a Monday morning, most of the men had to work. The guy assigned to assist with moving people in/out of the ward was very dedicated and made sure we had more than enough help!  I will be eternally grateful for his dedicated service and for our awesome ward who helped us get out of there without any stress.  It was pretty awesome and as a result we loaded up VERY quickly. Our 24ft truck was only filled to 12ft. It was a half empty joke!

We spent the night at our amazing friends' house- Cazandra/Chad/Lindsay/Jared - (the kids had fun staying up to midnight going wild and were nice enough to let Dirk and I sleep on their beds!)  and planned to get up at 5am and head out early to avoid rush hour in Spokane and Portland. Unfortunately Dirk messed up setting the alarm and we didn't get on the road until 7am!! I was sooo stressed as we were now very pressed for time if we wanted to make it all the way to Portland in a truck that wasn't supposed to be able to go faster than 55mph! (Thankfully, once on the interstate, I discovered the truck could go up to 70mph!! woohoo!!)

We said our goodbyes and headed out of town. A few minutes later we got a call from our friend who said we'd left Hayden's wolf at their house!! Hayden's wolf is his special "lovey" and can not be far from Hayden at night or on long trips. I was so glad we were only 10 minutes away so he was able to drive out and meet us with Wolfy!

The rest of the drive to Portland was rather uneventful. I ended up driving the moving truck the entire way as it was more comfortable on my back. It was pretty smooth and easy to drive and I didn't have to listen to the kids! The A/C went out for an hour or so, but I figured out it was just finicky and it worked fine the rest of the way. When we got in to Portland after 11hrs of driving we were being VERY ambitious and decided to stop at Ikea and go shopping for 3 hrs with 2 very cranky and hungry kids.  As we checked out of the store with 2 couches, a fridge, bunk-beds, and various other items taking 5 people to haul to the truck loading zone, and 7 carts, I realized just how crazy we were (and how thankful I was we had a half empty truck)!  Apparently driving 11hrs messes with your brain's ability to realize when you're just being stupid... even if it was IKEA! 

After Ikea we headed across the bridge to WA to spend the night with our friends. Shortly after we got there, the boys (Dirk and Jordan) had to come in and make fun of me with just how "air-headish" I'd gotten in the last few hourrs, as I drove all the way from the gas station with the gas cap off and thankfully sitting inside the truck! oops!

That night I had the best night's sleep I'd had in quite a long time on my friend Samantha's super comfy guest bed! Thanks Samantha!!!

We got up in the morning and headed out for the last stretch of our trip in pursuit of getting keys to our new house!