Our Big Move

** So I have disappeared from the blog for the last several months, but I have a good excuse. We unexpectedly and suddenly moved to Saratoga Springs, New York! It has been a whirlwind of busy, but as I'm finally getting settled it's time for me to get caught up! I want to be able to go back and recap everything that has happened but stay in chronological order for my own sanity, so even though I have a lot to catch up on I'll do my best to recap the crazy last few months!**


   To start- I'll explain how this move came about. It was June 9 when I was sitting at swimming lessons during the second week of summer break when I get an email from Luke, who was away on business, and he said he just became aware of this controller position opening in Saratoga Springs, and he was pretty sure he could get it. The person who currently held the position was our friend from Denver- Luke had filled his job in Denver when his family moved to New York, and they went to church with us and so we had kept in touch. They were moving back to Denver now and though we had never considered moving to NY before, it suddenly seemed like it might be just the thing that Luke had been looking for. Even though Luke currently had a great manager position, Luke felt like it was time for him to move on and gain some additional experience.
   Ten days later Luke officially applied for the position and they immediately contacted him and did a phone interview, and flew him out for a face interview the following Monday. Exactly one month from when the idea of this started, Luke was finally offered the position on July 9, and he accepted.
   As soon as he accepted, the whirlwind of craziness began. Not only was there so much to do in terms of packing and getting the house suddenly ready to sell, a two month old baby to take care of along with 2 bored boys, and vacations coming up, but there seemed to be a nonstop flow of emails, calls, and alerts about our relocation and we needed to be informed of the whole confusing process and handle different representatives which covered every single aspect of the move. On one hand, it was nice to know that we had a relocation package and things would be taken care of, but the next few months of being on top of everything was literally exhausting.
   We had barely told anyone that we were thinking about moving either, and once we found out I don't even think I got to tell a lot of my friends in person, everything moved so quickly.
   The next weekend we actually went out of town- we made a road trip to Utah for a Decker reunion. While we were gone we had carpet cleaners come, contractors come do some work on our kitchen wall, and after we got home I had just a few more days of deep cleaning and getting the house staged. By Thursday, July 24 the house went on the market at about 4pm. I was going to wait until Friday but the realtor had stuck a sign in front of our house without me noticing and we were already getting calls. My friends from church were already throwing a goodbye party for me (and another girl moving) that night. Just in the few hours while I was at the party I already received 2 offers. We continued to do showings the next day on Friday, which ended up being 8 more showings that day. Thankfully it was nice enough weather to be at the park all day, and to visit with friends that we were sad to soon leave.

   That Friday evening we went in to our realtor's office to sign something, when they surprised us by saying we had just received our 3rd offer. After talking it over, it was too good to turn down and we accepted the offer that night, and cancelled the next 16 showings that were already booked for the remainder of the weekend.  We couldn't believe that after being on the market for 24 hours we were already done with showings, and had gotten an offer too good to be true. It was an amazing blessing! (And we were lucky the market in Denver was perfect for us as sellers at the most perfect time!) We were able to go home and feel like we could finally relax, just a little.

  But that Sunday, Luke was already leaving for New York- he officially started work Monday, July 27. We were sad to see him go already, but at least we had already done the hard part of getting the house ready. The next step was finding a house in New York, so the very next weekend Luke's parents flew to Denver to watch the boys while me and Ava flew to Saratoga Springs the first weekend in August. I was there from Friday-Tuesday. We looked at my favorite 4 houses as soon as I got in on Friday, maybe 5-6 more on Saturday, and on Monday evening we made an offer on our favorite. On Tuesday, as I was at the airport about to get on the plane home, I got the text from our realtor that they accepted our offer. It was a relief to go home knowing that the weekend had been a success and we were right on track.

Our new home :)

   I know I'm making this process sound so easy but it was a ton of work, and I promise things do get a little crazier.
   I came home and started getting us ready for our next trip- our 15 hour drive to Montana for the bi-annual Schow reunion. It was terrible timing for us but we didn't want to miss it, and was a good opportunity to visit with a lot of family before the move. Luke was supposed to fly home Friday night and we would start driving Saturday but Luke had terrible luck with flight after flight kicking all the passengers off and having them board other planes. He was up all night at airports trying to get home, and finally did Saturday morning. After getting just a few hours of sleep, he then still needed to mow the lawn, go through a stack of urgent paperwork to physically sign and mail off, finish some other errands, and THEN we could start driving all day. Luckily we made it safely to Montana by Sunday evening, and had a wonderful relaxing week, only needing to take care of business and check in on final arrangements a little each day.
   As we finally made the drive home at the end of the week on Friday, things started out fine and then our check engine light came on that evening. We stopped at the next city but no one at the dealership would take a look or talk to us, said that we were probably fine. So we kept driving to get to our destination that night, and an hour later, in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, our car made an awful pop sound and we had no idea what was wrong, but were only 10 miles until the next town and so we were able to crawl in, thank goodness. We luckily had a place to sleep for the night but were still about 6 hours from home. The next morning Luke was able to get the car into a shop but we had a very unusual (and expensive!) part that we needed to replace so we knew that we weren't going to be able to get the car back for awhile, possibly weeks!
   Ok time to cue freak-out: our movers were coming to our house to pack us up in 2 days! We were going to be getting on a plane 5 days from now- how were we going to get home?! And now we were wasting a whole day being stuck in Wyoming. Since it is such a small town we didn't even have anywhere we could rent a car, or U-haul, or even take a bus. For a little while Luke thought he could get a rental car from the biggest town back a half hour. The mechanic from the shop even started giving him a ride, but halfway there, he realized they didn't have a car for him that he could take to Denver.    
   Meanwhile, housekeeping at the hotel was getting frustrated with me because I hadn't checked out of the room yet and it was an hour past time. I'm not sure what the big deal was, we were literally like the only ones at the whole place. Even when I tried to explain our situation, she had no sympathy and basically kicked me and the 3 kids out on the sidewalk with all our luggage while I was trying to feed the baby and get her back to sleep. It took everything in me to not have a breakdown. We had already spent over an hour at the fast food joint across the street (which had no play place). So we walked next door to a Five Below and the kids wandered to the toy aisle while I sat at a desk meant for people applying for work just so I could charge my phone, and make some calls.
  Finally we decided to have Luke's dad who was driving to Utah from the reunion to get dropped off in Butte, and rent a car, and come drive 8 hours to us and help us get home. After just walking around all day, getting dinner, and then ice cream, John got to us by Saturday night but we were too exhausted to drive, so we got a new hotel and then took off early Sunday morning. I was pretty disappointed we weren't going to make it to 9am church- we were supposed to be there to say goodbye to all our friends. We had been gone so much we'd hardly seen anyone, and so it was hard knowing we weren't going to get the chance to see everyone one last time. But we had a rental Tahoe, a better version of our own Tahoe, and we were so lucky to at least get home Sunday and dropped John off at the airport.

  We had just enough time to do the laundry, pack aside the bags we were taking with us, so that the movers could come first thing in the morning. So it was NOT a good time to get a blue pen in the load of laundry with ALL our favorite clothes that we needed to re-pack. I feel like through the whole moving process I had held myself together pretty well, but after the weekend I'd had, and then getting out the laundry and finding nearly all our clothes were ruined with blue ink stains- yeah, I lost it. So many tears, so much stress. But I packed it up anyway, figuring I could work on fixing it at my mom's house- since the kids and I would be stopping there before NY.

   Point is, the movers came first thing Monday morning, and it took them 3 full days to pack us up. We got to still sleep in our house each night, until the last day, which felt like another blessing. Once they finished, we made our final rounds of goodbyes- to the house, our neighbors, and a few friends, and then went to our hotel by the airport, and left Denver Thursday, August 20. (Jacob normally would have been going back to school the day before, but lucky again that school in NY wouldn't start for 2.5 more weeks, and we needed that extra time. Our goal was to be in our new house before the first day of school.)

 

We may be smiling but it was sad saying goodbye to our house and our friends :(

  The kids and I flew to Maryland first to stay with my parents for a week, since we were homeless anyway we figured we might as well kill some time. And good thing we did because Luke turned out to really need the time at work.
   Luke had terrible luck flying in to Albany again, but needed to get back to work on Friday. Oh, did I mention that while the movers were packing our house that he got a call that his boss was quitting and Friday would be her last day? Luke was able to find a flight to get in very late Thursday night, but his bag wasn't as lucky- so he had to go buy new clothes that morning so that he could go to work on Friday. He had been really looking forward to working with his new boss and so he was sad to see her go and was now in a new job with no training or guidance. I know- cue the pity party. It was pretty bad luck though.
   But after a week in MD, the kids and I flew to NY on August 28, and got settled in our temporary townhouse in Cohoes, NY- about a half hour south of Saratoga Springs. We enjoyed having a spacious and accommodating place to stay while we were in limbo- which only turned out to be another week.

At least the townhouse had a community pool for us to enjoy for the week!

  We were able to close on our new house Friday, September 4 and with some begging we were able to get the movers to deliver our truck to our house the next day, even though they don't typically do moves on Saturday. We were relieved to have Labor Day weekend to settle in, and then the boys started school a few days later on Wednesday, September 9. What a blessing that was to get into our new house right in time! 

   Luke's car was shipped from Denver and arrived at our house by Tuesday, the night before school started. Which was a relief that I didn't have to worry about driving Luke to work and still getting Jacob off for his first day. Mostly, I was simply tired of dropping Luke off and picking him up at work for over a week! The Tahoe on the other hand, was repaired in Wyoming after getting the part shipped, and then we arranged to have it shipped from the shop in Wyoming to our house in New York, which took an extra week to get shipped after getting back Luke's car. But it felt good to have it back mid-September and working again, and for the move to feel officially complete.
   Overall, besides a few bumps along the way, everything worked out according to plan! It was such a whirlwind it feels like a weird dream. Like, I blinked and suddenly I have a new life in New York. And as soon as we moved in life picked right back up with school starting for Jacob, and preschool every day for Blake, and Ava suddenly so big! We unpacked quickly and tried to get as settled as possible so that it feels like home, but time has still flown by! I will try to get caught up and post about other things that have been going on but know that we are doing well and adjusting, but still miss our simple Colorado life at times too. I've been so proud of the boys too who have adapted tremendously well and have been so patient and brave with all the new changes. I hope we made the right decision moving here to NY, and maybe time will tell, but for now we are embracing this crazy new adventure and chapter in our lives!