We made it to Raleigh!

Ok, so hopefully I haven't lost many blog stalkers in my hiatus from blogging.  I tried to fit it in, but something always comes up.  My last blog was on my last night in Blacksburg.  I slept like crap because I was way too excited about he move they had packed up my white noise maker.  So anyway, on Thursday, August 25 the movers came and loaded the truck.  The landscapers finally came (at the very last second) to fix the damage my neighbor across the street had done with her car and in the afternoon I went to the closing and was there all of 10 minutes.  The family buying our house was really reserved, but also very excited.  It was their first home purchase after living in an apartment for 15 years.  They have 2 kids who are 10 and 9.  I was so happy for them.  Gave me a little more motivation to make sure the house was clean for them.

After the movers finished up, my dad drove home and I drove to Durham to stay at Doug and Lynette's.  Our final walk-thru at the new house wasn't until 1:30 on Friday so it was weird not having anything to do all morning and having none of my kids around, especially after being so busy for the past 2 months.  But the final walk-thru went well and the closing was fine too.  The attorney was very comical and actually made it fun.  Our realtor said it was the strangest closing she'd ever been to.

Our stuff wasn't being delivered until Monday, so we had all weekend to knock out stuff around the house.  Hanging window treatments, grocery shopping, etc.  Was hoping to do some painting in the screened porch on Saturday, but Hurricane Irene had other plans.  So Saturday was wet and windy.  In the morning on Saturday I looked out the window in Ethan's new room and noticed a tall tree that was leaning A LOT.  I swear as I stood there, it leaned even more.  The base of the tree was just on the other side of our property line (in the common area) and was going to be in the way of the fence we wanted to put up.  Made me wonder how long it would take the developer to take it down because we wanted to start the fence a few days later.  About an hour or so  later that problem was solved.  Unfortunately it was solved by falling on our screened porch.

The good news is that because it was leaning so much already, it didn't do much damage.  Just a few bent shingles really.  And the builder took care of getting the tree removed, so that was good too.

Sunday cleared up, so we were able to paint/seal the screened porch floor and then head back over to Doug's to finally see the kids and hang out at the pool.  I hadn't seen Blythe or Ethan in 10 days at that point and hadn't seen Brynn in 6 days.  Finally we had our whole family back together again!

Monday our moving truck came.  Gommy and Lynette took Harper, Ada, Brynn, and Ethan to the Life and Science museum in Durham.  Blythe got up early with Braden and I and came to the house so we could be there for the movers at 7:30 in the morning.  At 8:45 I took Blythe to her kindergarten visitation day.  They do a staggered kindergarten entry here, where each kindergartner goes to school for one full day sometime between Aug. 25 and Aug. 30.  They meet all of the teachers and counselors, they get familiar with the school, and they are assessed on their language, math, reading, etc levels.  Then they are placed in a kindergarten class and start officially on Sept. 1.  They also recommend they take home whatever transportation they normally would.  In Blythe's case that is the bus.  I was a nervous wreck about her taking the bus home, considering she'd never even slept in that home or really knew what it looked like.  I put a lot of faith in the school to get her on the right bus and the bus driver to make sure she got off on the right stop.  But she made it and she loved it!  Here she is before school that day:

While Blythe was at school, Braden, Poppa, Doug, and I unpacked like crazy people as they were unloading the truck. The motivation being that any box that was unpacked could be thrown right back in the truck and they would take them away.  The movers finished up by 1:30 though, so although we got tons of boxes out of the way, we were still left with a whole lot.  And mounds and mounds of packing paper.

But we were in our new house!  All of us under one roof again and ready to start our new adventures!

VERY grateful for all of the help provided by Gommy, Poppa, Laura, Doug, Lynette, Grams, and Peep.  Couldn't have done it without you guys!