Better late than never, right?
I actually have a bunch of really good excuses for not updating this blog faster, and they all start out with, "I was going to, but I was just so tired that...I went to bed at 7:00...I sat on the couch all night and never moved once...I put Bennett in his bed and woke up two hours later still in his bed with him..." Take your pick. Seriously, I am an exhausted person lately. This pregnancy has been above and BEYOND better than the last pregnancy-from-you-know-where, thanks largely to my new best friend, Zofran. But I am so tired by the end of the day I pretty much give up doing anything productive past 6:30 at night. And that includes this blog. But tonight I am putting on my big girl panties and staying up until 9:00 to do this. (Feel free to applaud my efforts. I know I am.)
As mentioned on here in the last post, we are getting out of the Army and moving to North Dakota. Mostly because we feel like that is where our family is supposed to be, partially because we are crazy. But to fill you in on this last weekend, I guess I will need to mention HOW we are going to accomplish this.
Matt will officially "retire" from the Army May 10th, 2014. However, he has built up a bunch of vacation days (paid time off days) so we will actually be cashing those in and moving the beginning of March. That way we have a two-month period where we will still be receiving a paycheck every two weeks along with all our healthcare benefits, which allows us to have a little more time to settle in/find a house/accept a job before we are totally on our own. (Oh, and by the way, Tricare will still cover 100% of this baby's birth and doctor expenses since it is a "pre-existing" condition. Thank goodness for that! You gotta love a free baby.) So financially, we are OK. The problem comes when we consider the fact that Matt has interested companies in not one, not two, but three or more different towns within the state of North Dakota. How do you move to a home you, A-have never seen, and B-are not even sure if it is in the same town as your husband's job? The answer is, you don't. That's crazy. So we came up with a plan that is only slightly less crazy than this first option...
live in a fifth-wheel trailer! With two really active kids! And one on the way! In North Dakota! Doesn't that sound exciting?!
So that's what we did this weekend. We bought a fifth-wheel. And it's actually really nice with wood floors and a kitchen and stove and fridge, and a TV and leather couch, and a room for the boys with bunk beds and a storage area for all their toys and clothes, and a room for me and Matt with a queen bed, and a bathroom with a bathtub/shower. All the necessities of life. The trick is going to be packing it so we can live there for however long we are going to be living there. We are planning on maybe a two-month period (closing is a process on any home), but if we find a home that we love but needs a little work done, ie: new floors, roofing, whatever, we could be there longer. We both agree that the deadline for being in our new home is when this baby comes. That's the goal.
So we'll pick up our new home on wheels in two weeks, park it in our driveway (we have a very long driveway here, living out in the country) and start packing it a little at a time until we are ready to move in March. Then, on March 6th-8th (or something like that) the movers will come and pack up our whole house for us on the military's dime (yay!) and then they will ship it to North Dakota for us, and store it for us for as long as we need them to. So our stuff is fine. And then we will simply hitch our house to a truck, and make our way up North, stopping whenever we decide to see an historical site or city zoo, since we will never have need for a restaurant or hotel again and can take as much time as we desire.
It sounds nuts, but I'm actually pretty excited about this idea. I realize it is going to be a little different than our normal lifestyle (I'm not delusional), but it's only for a short period, and I think we are going to get veeeeeeerrrrry close as a family :)
But guess what? You can't pull a fifth-wheel trailer with a Lexus. Which is what Matt had...until Friday morning, when he sold it and bought (in the same day) a King Ranch truck. We actually haven't even seen this truck in person yet though, because it is in San Antonio waiting for us to come pick it up Monday. But the pictures look really nice, and Wayne (Matt's dad) has driven it for us, and we trust him.
So just to recap--within the course of a weekend, we changed the entire face of our financial portfolio. It was a fun weekend.
Beyond that, we also hosted a multi-family garage sale on Saturday, where we literally sold all the stuff we didn't want to move with/just plain didn't want, and ended up making about $650 off of it. It really surprised me that people were willing to pay for the stuff we were just going to throw away. So now our house and garage are cleansed from junk, and we have a little extra cash in our pockets. Which, after all the cash that has been leaving our pockets lately, feels good.
But here's the best part--Mary and Wayne came up for the weekend!! They came to help with the garage sale, and they totally rocked it! I am pretty sure if it weren't for Mary all our stuff would still be sitting in a massive pile in the middle of the garage, because nobody would have been able to get to it or know how much it was. And Wayne was able to help Matt run the front table and set up the bigger displays, and I was able to watch the boys and make sandwiches :) I'm helpful! In the end though, it was just really fun to have them at our home for the weekend, talking and planning and eating really good food. I love it when we get to see them! Sunday night we all watched "Frozen" (in our living room, because we are members of an awesome club that lets us own any movie we want for free) and it was such a great show! I'm so happy we have it. Overall it was such a fun weekend! Stressful at times, yes. But really, we are so lucky to have so many wonderful people supporting us in all of these moves and changes. Thank you, Mary and Wayne!
Whew! Another huge post with nothing but words. Sorry about that. But I think that was most of the filling-in-the-background you needed, and now we can advance to just normal posts about how cute our kids are (which they really are) and how much fun we have as a family (which we really do) and how perfect and wonderful our lives are (OK, you know that one was stretching it just a little).
Hang in there with me.
Until next time!
I actually have a bunch of really good excuses for not updating this blog faster, and they all start out with, "I was going to, but I was just so tired that...I went to bed at 7:00...I sat on the couch all night and never moved once...I put Bennett in his bed and woke up two hours later still in his bed with him..." Take your pick. Seriously, I am an exhausted person lately. This pregnancy has been above and BEYOND better than the last pregnancy-from-you-know-where, thanks largely to my new best friend, Zofran. But I am so tired by the end of the day I pretty much give up doing anything productive past 6:30 at night. And that includes this blog. But tonight I am putting on my big girl panties and staying up until 9:00 to do this. (Feel free to applaud my efforts. I know I am.)
As mentioned on here in the last post, we are getting out of the Army and moving to North Dakota. Mostly because we feel like that is where our family is supposed to be, partially because we are crazy. But to fill you in on this last weekend, I guess I will need to mention HOW we are going to accomplish this.
Matt will officially "retire" from the Army May 10th, 2014. However, he has built up a bunch of vacation days (paid time off days) so we will actually be cashing those in and moving the beginning of March. That way we have a two-month period where we will still be receiving a paycheck every two weeks along with all our healthcare benefits, which allows us to have a little more time to settle in/find a house/accept a job before we are totally on our own. (Oh, and by the way, Tricare will still cover 100% of this baby's birth and doctor expenses since it is a "pre-existing" condition. Thank goodness for that! You gotta love a free baby.) So financially, we are OK. The problem comes when we consider the fact that Matt has interested companies in not one, not two, but three or more different towns within the state of North Dakota. How do you move to a home you, A-have never seen, and B-are not even sure if it is in the same town as your husband's job? The answer is, you don't. That's crazy. So we came up with a plan that is only slightly less crazy than this first option...
live in a fifth-wheel trailer! With two really active kids! And one on the way! In North Dakota! Doesn't that sound exciting?!
So that's what we did this weekend. We bought a fifth-wheel. And it's actually really nice with wood floors and a kitchen and stove and fridge, and a TV and leather couch, and a room for the boys with bunk beds and a storage area for all their toys and clothes, and a room for me and Matt with a queen bed, and a bathroom with a bathtub/shower. All the necessities of life. The trick is going to be packing it so we can live there for however long we are going to be living there. We are planning on maybe a two-month period (closing is a process on any home), but if we find a home that we love but needs a little work done, ie: new floors, roofing, whatever, we could be there longer. We both agree that the deadline for being in our new home is when this baby comes. That's the goal.
So we'll pick up our new home on wheels in two weeks, park it in our driveway (we have a very long driveway here, living out in the country) and start packing it a little at a time until we are ready to move in March. Then, on March 6th-8th (or something like that) the movers will come and pack up our whole house for us on the military's dime (yay!) and then they will ship it to North Dakota for us, and store it for us for as long as we need them to. So our stuff is fine. And then we will simply hitch our house to a truck, and make our way up North, stopping whenever we decide to see an historical site or city zoo, since we will never have need for a restaurant or hotel again and can take as much time as we desire.
It sounds nuts, but I'm actually pretty excited about this idea. I realize it is going to be a little different than our normal lifestyle (I'm not delusional), but it's only for a short period, and I think we are going to get veeeeeeerrrrry close as a family :)
But guess what? You can't pull a fifth-wheel trailer with a Lexus. Which is what Matt had...until Friday morning, when he sold it and bought (in the same day) a King Ranch truck. We actually haven't even seen this truck in person yet though, because it is in San Antonio waiting for us to come pick it up Monday. But the pictures look really nice, and Wayne (Matt's dad) has driven it for us, and we trust him.
So just to recap--within the course of a weekend, we changed the entire face of our financial portfolio. It was a fun weekend.
Beyond that, we also hosted a multi-family garage sale on Saturday, where we literally sold all the stuff we didn't want to move with/just plain didn't want, and ended up making about $650 off of it. It really surprised me that people were willing to pay for the stuff we were just going to throw away. So now our house and garage are cleansed from junk, and we have a little extra cash in our pockets. Which, after all the cash that has been leaving our pockets lately, feels good.
But here's the best part--Mary and Wayne came up for the weekend!! They came to help with the garage sale, and they totally rocked it! I am pretty sure if it weren't for Mary all our stuff would still be sitting in a massive pile in the middle of the garage, because nobody would have been able to get to it or know how much it was. And Wayne was able to help Matt run the front table and set up the bigger displays, and I was able to watch the boys and make sandwiches :) I'm helpful! In the end though, it was just really fun to have them at our home for the weekend, talking and planning and eating really good food. I love it when we get to see them! Sunday night we all watched "Frozen" (in our living room, because we are members of an awesome club that lets us own any movie we want for free) and it was such a great show! I'm so happy we have it. Overall it was such a fun weekend! Stressful at times, yes. But really, we are so lucky to have so many wonderful people supporting us in all of these moves and changes. Thank you, Mary and Wayne!
Whew! Another huge post with nothing but words. Sorry about that. But I think that was most of the filling-in-the-background you needed, and now we can advance to just normal posts about how cute our kids are (which they really are) and how much fun we have as a family (which we really do) and how perfect and wonderful our lives are (OK, you know that one was stretching it just a little).
Hang in there with me.
Until next time!
2 comments:
It all sounds like a pretty amazing adventure- and extremely stressful in the funnest possible way. I are excited for you guys, and we think it is awesome that you are taking these risks. I hope everything works out well for you- I'm sure it will. -L
Better late than never is right! I love to hear about all the excitement in your life, or even when it's not so exciting. Sounds like a great plan!
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