A Really Long Day

As you may have already heard me recount, last Thursday/Friday/Saturday was kind of like one really long (but good) day.

I got up early Thursday morning at MOVE in Florida, spent a lot of that day hanging out in airports (4 to be exact) and eventually crawled into bed at 12:30am (Friday morning). I managed to sleep almost 6 hours, got up, showered, had breakfast and started packing the last of our stuff. At 9am on Friday, Brittany and I went to close on the house we were selling and the one we now own (kind of tipping my hand there).

All went according to plan, both houses closed without incident and by 11am we were on our way back to McCoy to load the truck. The moving truck (picked up by my dad), Brittany and I, my mom, and Brittany's dad all converged on the McCoy house at the same time. From there it was just short of a race to move everything we own over to Chandler.

By about 5:30pm we had moved virtually everything (a very few items remained at McCoy for different reasons) and a lot of it was in place. My wife has this rare quality where she wants everything done right now (she says it comes from her dad, thanks David). So by the time I got back with the second truck full of stuff, the furniture was all in place, beds were made, decor was hung (mostly on existing nails), and thanks to 6 hours of work by Grandma Judy, my mom, and Britt's mom the kitchen and bathrooms were cleaned.

Sometime around 7:30 I finally convinced Brittany that she had to stop long enough to let me eat or I was going on strike (did I mention none of us got lunch?). She relented and we headed for Del Rio (conveniently located 3 minutes from our new house!) with my parents, and her mom and step dad in tow. After waiting an eternity (who eats dinner that late? How could there be a waiting list at 8pm?) we ate dinner and got back to the house around 9:30 or 10:00 (I had pretty much lost track by then).

Britt had agreed that we could stop for the night, but her step dad talked me into setting up the new entertainment center - this meant taking it out of the crates (there were 4 pieces to this sucker by the way), putting the feet and door pulls on, etc. What he was really after was a glimpse of the new TV. I finally figured this out around 11:30 or midnight and started working toward getting the plasma set up and turned on - realizing this was the only thing that was going to bring this night to a conclusion.

Finally around 1:30am (Saturday morning) we crawled into bed just in time for the phone to ring - for the love of everything good and holy leave me alone (thought it, didn't say it). I let the first round of rings go, but the voice on the machine made me know that something was going on, so when it immediately started to ring again I picked up to hear the operator from CIY's security system telling me that the alarm had gone off and wanting to know if I want to go check it out. About half coherent (as I usually am anytime after 11pm) I responded, "Not really, it's 1:30am." She replied, "I'll send the police out to check on it." I thought, "Good, that's their job."

Only after I crawled back into bed did I realize that it must have been someone involved with MOVE returning from Florida that had set it off. So far I haven't heard who it was or if the police showed up.

After that I was able to finally get some sleep.

It was a great couple of days and it all went as well as it could have in our opinion. We are very blessed to have families that care about us and are determined to help us. And the Believe team even rolled out to help along with Andy Hansen - they were about the only people in town that day, so we were honored and very appreciative of them coming to our aid.

One other side note. Before we started moving anything on Friday morning I sent the Firehawk to an undisclosed location for safe-keeping during the process. Brittany had arranged this for me and I knew it would not be bothered. What I wasn't expecting was to get it back clean (it was really dusty from not having been washed in a long time). At some point in the process someone told me that Grandpa Bob had washed my car while he had it. What was funny was that I didn't even realize he was gone long enough to have done that. There are only a couple of people I could be told had washed that car and not worry about the outcome - he's one of them. Now I just have to get Brittany's cleaned up - the good news is it might stay clean for more than 1 day now that it is parked inside at night.