Yep.... Still here, again! "The Move"

I know I said this last time but, we're still here!!! Except now we're "still here" from Charlotte, NC. We made it! There have been a lot of stressful things that have happened over the past 6 months but moving to Charlotte has been the most taxing on us. Never again. That's what I said a little over 5 years ago when we moved ourselves (with a LOT of help from Louie's parents) from Houston to Rochester. Never again will we move ourselves. Well, finances had a different plan. Meaning we had to move on a budget, which included Louie driving a 26 ftt UHaul truck and towing my car, me driving the Tahoe, 2 kids, 3 dogs, and my sister (THANK GOD SHE WAS WITH US!!) towing a 5x8 trailer. I won't bore you with ALL the details but here are a "few" in list format: :)

• After some research on Pinterest, I decided to code all our boxes with colored dots and numbers. The dots were for the movers to know what box goes in what room and the numbers went along with my master list, which detailed what items were in what box. 
• Even after cleaning out all closets and drawers and donating/trashing a bunch of stuff, we still had a TON of stuff to pack. In fact, too much stuff to fit into our 26ft UHaul. We had the loaders/moving company come by and do a walk through beforehand and he assured us it would all fit in the Uhaul. He was wrong. About 1pm on loading day, as they were closing in on filling up the truck and there was still a lot of stuff sitting on our driveway, panic started to set in... it's not all going to fit. Hence the reason I was towing a trailer. This was not originally in our plans. 
• Louie took his boards on July 12, we spent the next 4 days FRANTICALLY packing. I had accomplished a bunch, but was pretty limited in the amount I could get done each day with two kids under 3. This meant there was a lot left to pack between the 12th and 17th.
• There is no way we could have accomplished what we did without the help of my sister, Victoria. She was such a trooper. The week was miserable. The kids were whiney and tired and a handful but she just kept on with a smile on her face. I'll never forget coming in from the garage about midnight the night before we were supposed to leave to see Victoria walking circles in our empty basement with a finally sleeping Aubrey in the Ergo (baby carrier) attached to her front side. She walked and walked and walked until Aubrey finally allowed her to sit down on the stairs for a bit. Or watching her crawl in the back of the Tahoe countless times to sit in between the girls on a large bin to feed Aubrey or find a lost paci or get a snack or hold Aubrey's hand or make another bottle.... Thank you, Victoria! We are forever in your debt!
• Louie only had one "freak-out" moment (I had too many to count) on the night before we left. We still had an entire garage full of stuff we were trying to fit into the trailer. He had been working on it for about 2 hours when he came up to get me. His face had this look of panic and he said I don't think it's all going to fit. I went down to survey what was left and there was a lot. We managed to jigsaw the rest of it (minus a patio lounge chair, a ladder, and the base to our patio table) into the trailer. It was truly a miracle. 
• We traveled 16 hours - from Rochester to Indianapolis - the first day on the road. We had scheduled 10-12. Mapquest said 10 and we planned on a few stops. Man, was I way off base with planning how long and how frequent we'd have to take stops. We got to the hotel at 1am and there had been a LOT of tears from both girls. I made the decision we weren't going to be able to do that again the next day so our 2 day trip was stretched to 3 with a stop around 7pm that evening in Knoxville, TN. Louie continued on with the truck after getting us dinner and putting gas in the Tahoe. He arrived in Charlotte around 2:30am, unloaded my car, took it off the tow-dolly and unhooked it from the the truck. He slept for two hours on the wood floors of our new home and then managed to back the truck into our long windy driveway to the back of the house. The unloaders showed up at 8AM on Thursday morning. I did not realize this at the time (and it's a good thing because I would not have let him go), but Louie had to drive through the mountains in the middle of the night to get from Knoxville to Charlotte. When we drove the same drive the next morning, although it was beautiful scenery, I could not believe how dangerous the drive was... I'm still thanking God for our safe travels. 
• Moving was wayyyyy more challenging on the girls than I had expected. It has taken us a good month to really and truly get settled. Most rooms were unpacked after the first week but Kinsley was very, very out of sorts for the last month. She has basically been acting like she's sick - very whiny and needy, completely regressed with potty training, refused to sleep in her room for the first week, multiple night wakings once she did move to her room, very tired, and had complete break-downs when there was a transition to a new thing (such as a friend going home or changing from playing to eating lunch, etc). Aubrey was not sleeping well to begin with but her night wakings became more frequent (6-8times/night) and was taking 4-5 short (30-45 min) naps/day. This meant that EVERYONE was sleep deprived and lacking patience. I knew the physical move would be tough but did not anticipate the longevity of the adjustment period. You'd think as an early-childhood major and teacher I would have been a little more "in the know." Oh well... you live, you learn. Even though both girls have colds right now, we're doing much better. Kinsley still asks to go back to her old home about twice a week. Breaks my heart, but it's just a part of life. I remind her that Charlotte is our new home and that the most important thing about a home are the people living in it... Daddy, Mommy, Aubrey and all the dogs are here together with her and that we all love her very much. If anyone else has any suggestions about how to help her make sense of all this, I'm all ears - please share!

And here are the pictures from our move! Pure craziness!!

The master list of "dots" for the unloaders. Louie posted this on the doors in Charlotte so they could know what box goes where. Thank you Pinterest! :)

This is what all our boxes looked like... dot and number in the top right of every corner. Louie's numbers did not look quite as neat. :)

Our master list. This page is obviously for the kitchen.

Kinsley's travel binder. Another Pinterest find.

It had colors, markers and all my leftover dots from moving. She could also earn "Car Cash" from the bank and put it in her piggy bank for good behavior and nice manners. When we stopped to get gas or to placate a screaming Aubrey, she could use her money to buy something. It worked pretty well all things considered. In fact, just last week she said "Thank you very much." Followed by "Mommy! I just earned a dollar." No Sweet Pea, doesn't quite work that way. :)

She had fun with the sticker dots and Victoria did her teacher-ly duty and showed Kins how far we traveled each day on the map.

Kinsley had fun with the Vis-a-vis wet-erase markers. She's got a little work to do on her smiley faces.

Last girls night out with my Rochester ladies.  Mel, Em, me, Reba, and Sari -  missing Danielle. Oh, how I miss these ladies... :( They were so sweet and put together a cookbook with recipes from all of us as well as photos from the last 4 years.  Did it make me cry? Maybe a little...

The loaders working on the truck in Rochester.

Take notice of our couches on either side of the truck, stood on end! I have to give them credit, they definitely used every inch of space in that truck.

Trout was pretty uneasy with all the chaos. Our sweet old man.

THIS was what did not fit in the truck...

This was where it was all supposed to fit. Cue Louie's "freak-out" moment. I wish I would have remembered to take a picture of what it looked like after we packed it.  Let's just say closing the door was quite an undertaking.

The morning we left, the ladies and their kiddos came to bid us farewell. They also brought us coffee and doughnuts.  Here is the last picture of all the kids. I hope to have another one in a few years. 

This is right before we pulled away to begin our trip to Charlotte.

Striper and Hope were too hyper and were already loaded in the back of the Tahoe.

Saying goodbye was very emotional. Here are Kinsley, Witten, and Ella (you can just make out Ella's sweet hand on Kinsley's back) hugging goodbye. 

So here is the set-up of the Tahoe. Victoria was in the front passenger, Kins behind her, Aubrey behind me, and the three dogs were supposed to be in the back. You can see the trailer in the back window. About every 200 miles or so, Striper would make her way up front and manage to get stuck. There was so much stuff on the ground that she couldn't completely turn herself around to get in the back again. Here she is wedged in between all the stuff and the two seats.  I was hollering at her to get in the back and she was doing her best. 

This is at one of our stops. Kinsley was trying to be Papa with the mustache. :)

Kinsley had bubbles, sidewalk chalk, and a ball for our stops. 

Louie was good at helping Kinsley get some energy out at each stop. Here they are working on shadow puppets.

Love this one! Great job photographer, Victoria! (Who, by the way, managed to not be in a SINGLE picture! Thank you for being our sanity when we lost ours, Sis!)

Poor Aubrey isn't in many of the pictures because she was either in her carseat, getting a diaper changed, or eating at each stop but here she is exploring the front seat.

Kinsley thought throwing rocks in this nasty puddle was so entertaining. You can see my car on the dolly behind them.

Not sure what either of them are doing in this picture but here is the only shot of the truck I got...

I told Kinsley I was tired of driving and it was her turn. This was on our last day of driving. Louie was already in Charlotte and this was our LAST stop before we got there. Phew!

At the new house... we were all so gross and exhausted. I look like I'd definitely been traveling for 3 days!

Kinsley checking out her new room. Louie worked so hard to have as much set up as possible, including both of the girls' beds. He's such a good daddy!

We have a tree swing in our back yard! Kinsley loves it!

Soooo happy to be out of the car!

This is a few days after we got to Charlotte. I was working on unpacking and Kinsley was entertaining Aubrey with her "train."

My sweet girls.

And here is Aubrey's room all put together. It's so nice that she finally has a real room instead of a laundry room! :)

I think Kinsley's room is bigger than ours! 

Here is our room. So glad the king bed fits.

Here is the girls bathroom. It's small but doable. 

That's all for now. I have already blogged about Aubrey's 6 month and 7 month, as well as Kinsley's 3rd birthday, but still need to add pictures. Will try and get to that ASAP. :)
Much love!
The Strykers