Moving Boxes Mess

I couldn't believe how much stuff we had! We took 1 1/2 large moving trucks to haul all of our stuff to our new home. We were allowed 30,000 lbs by the company. We had 29,700 lbs! Over 450 boxes. Yikes! Good thing we got rid of a couple of things before we packed up and moved! It was 2 degrees outside in Chicago with snow on the ground when the moving truck was packed. It got down to 39 degrees in the house! I took a picture of the thermostat, but my external hard drive had a horrible accident so I lost my pictures from January...sniff sniff...

Here is Kerst and Kendall discovering their treasures.
Here is Jenna and Jaley folding up packing paper to give to a friend that was moving and needed our boxes and paper.

New House

John and I made a last minute house hunting trip just before Christmas. We needed to find a home quickly because our home sold in 3 weeks. We weren't prepared for it to sell that quickly. John had been house hunting for several weeks and narrowed down where we should live according to the schools.

Two days before Christmas we wrote up an offer on this home:

It was a short-sale/pre-foreclosure. Short sale is not short for the buyer! We waited almost 2 months to hear back from the bank if they were going to sell the home to us because they were losing money on the sale. We finally closed at the end of February and moved in. We stayed in our new home for 4 more weeks without any of our household goods because it would be easier to paint and finish off a room in the basement before everything was delivered. We were able to borrow some basic essential's from John's sisters (Emily and Sarah) and a couple of people from church.

Backtracking - Announcing the move to the kids

October 24, 2007
We dropped a bomb on the kids last night while eating Oberweis Icecream.

John has accepted a new job in Littleton Colorado. He will be signing the agreement today. Normal drug test (not worried about that) and then he will drop the "bomb" on his current employer. He also has to get a top secret security clearance...that will happen over the next several months.

He will be working for Lockheed Martin. He will be a Senior Electrical Engineer, staff (Manager of a group). It is an exciting new change for him...something he has been looking for for quite some time. He feels kind of "stuck" in his current job.

The kids are ok. I am mainly worried about Julia. The girls were all crying at Oberweis (I thought it wise to do this in public as they could kind of be aware of the level of wailing...and figured most people would think that the icecream was so good that it brought them to tears). While crying Jenna said, "We look ridiculous" which led Julia and Jenna into a laughing fit. When we got home Jenna was still quite upset. She stopped and thought and asked me if I was going to miss anything. I said I will but I am more concerned about them. She thought again and then said that maybe she shouldn't be so worried about herself. She is very thoughtful.

It will be an exciting change. Please keep the kids in your prayers though. It will be a bumpy emotional ride for them.

PS... A company in UT (SLC) wanted John back in August but they had budget cutbacks and wouldn't be able to revisit staffing the new group they were forming (John was going to manage a portion of it) until next summer. Hey, Denver, Littleton is only 8 or 9 hours away from Provo/Orem.

* Click on the image to see the full size scrapbook page of the kids' reactions of finding a For Sale sign in our yard.