How it all shook out

Our week of miracles was soon followed by a week of WORK! It is clear that faith and actions are not separate and that was very clear during our last week in Arkansas.

Our original plan: (and God laughed!)

Monday: Packers would come and pack the majority of our earthly belongings, which let me tell you, moving every couple of years helps weed out the dare I say CRAP! from the stuff that we need.

Tuesday: Packers inventory and the big truck comes and crates all our things and loads the infamous "BIG TRUCK", which I am still baffled how they can manage to get that thing in our subdivision, but better them then I.

Wednesday: The quick ship packers come, we are allowed 1000 lbs of things to be shipped to Japan a little quicker than our normal shipment, but the catch is if it weighs more that 1000 lbs, they have to leave it in the states. The dilemma becomes this; the stuff you want quick shipped is usually the important stuff, stuff you need, so if it weighs more, you're out of luck. We would pack up the computer and the girls beds so they would have some normalcy as soon as possible. We were also going to have some contractors work on our dry wall in the house, the only stipulation our buyers needed to have fixed.

Thursday: Do our last clean up and load the U-haul with things we didn't need in Japan but things we wanted to keep ie: my wedding dress, some furniture that wouldn't fit in our new house...

Friday: Do the last little clean up and have a fun day with friends.

The weekend: Play play play

Monday: Close on our house and leave around noon and head for Colorado.


What REALLY Happened: (Oh so different!)

Monday: We didn't get our things sorted like planned so the packers didn't have an off limits room so they were constantly asked if we wanted various things as they packed. Man they are fast, usually great news, but when you aren't very organized it turns into a little bit of a nightmare. They left a little early as there was an ice storm moving in and they needed to get home. Bottom line:packing NOT done.

Tuesday: NOTHING happened because the ice storm paralyzed the entire state. We hung out and rested. Played with the girls and took it easy. We moved into temporary housing, the military equivalent to a fully furnished apartment. YEAH with a play room and a beneficial ratio of people and TVs.

Wednesday: Packers come to finish the last bit of packing and start the inventory. The big truck comes and things are slowly loaded on the truck during the coldest day of the year, Oh man it was cold. The dry wall guys came and got started with making a HUGE mess, but progress was being made.

Thursday: Quick ship people show up and we were thankfully told by the regular movers that furniture could not be packed so the kids beds ended up on the slow boat to Japan, so really all we had was the computer, so that was quick.

Friday: Finished the cleaning as the dry wall guys fixed the ceiling.

Saturday: Loaded the U-Haul, which by the time all was said and done, we were so tired and a little stressed, that most of the stuff just got thrown into the U-Haul and the door was very quickly closed so the remaining memories of our unorganized move would be behind us. Thank you Wendy and the cell phone for recruiting much needed help, she saw the reality of what was left to do as we blissfully expected to load the U-haul in an hour or so, but in reality took 4 hours with 8 people. Oops, thanks again Wendy, Tyler and Thrasher family, for coming on short notice and helping us.

Monday; Our closing time was changed from 10 am to 2:30 to 4:30, but we did close a week after we turned in the original paperwork! It was amazing, how God worked out the details. The dry wall guys finished that evening and the new owners were able to start painting and changing our house into theirs.

The Griswald caravan got on the road singing "Holiday Road", sing with me people, at around noon when the final packing from our temporary housing was complete. PHEW! We made it to Denver on Wednesday evening after driving across Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas (Oh God help us!) and into Colorado. The kids were amazing and everything went smoothly, thank you God!