Thursday, March 30, 2017

Brent, Diesel & Oscar have arrived in North Carolina!!

Wanapum State Park - crossing the Columbia River in Washington State
Brent's first day on the road was a late start after finishing cleaning the house, packing the Highlander with a deer and an elk head, returning unused boxes to U-Haul, and getting the "dog lounge" ready in the backseat of the Tundra. Still, he drove 7 1/2 hours that day - great start!
Deer Lodge, Montana
The first two days were clear, but windy and cold. Once he passed the mountains in Montana, he felt it was just big country - you could see mountains a long way off, dips in the landscape, blue skies and clouds.
Whitehall, Montana

Hardin, Montana
The dogs did okay on the trek. They are used to napping, but a little different when you're not able to spread out in the back of the truck. Brent did a great job making it cozy and made it a point to let them stretch their legs at every stop.
BROTHERS!
I asked Brent to take photos of the state crossing signs.... he managed to get a few. :) I love geography and was really intrigued as to what route he was going to take!
Sioux City
If we didn't have Brock & Kade, I think I would have liked to travel with him for the week... however extending the trip a bit to sight-see just a tad more at some places!

Helloooo Mississippi River!
St. Louis, Missouri 
He entered four states on Day 4 of his drive - Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee!
Oak Grove, Kentucky
He made such great time, Brent was able to stay in Nashville for two nights to visit his parents, niece & nephew, sister and meet his new brother-in-law! Brent made the most of his time in Nashville, eating local barbecue and visiting his Aunt Joyce and Uncle Marion, whom he hasn't seen in almost 20 years! 
Fines Creek
FINALLY, he hit North Carolina..... and traffic. An eight hour day turned in to a ten hour day with construction traffic around Asheville. But alas, he made it before bedtime routines and the boys were so excited!!

Brent backing down Grandma's shared driveway
Brock even made Brent a welcome sign! (He decorated it with dinosaur stickers and (reluctantly) wrote his "B" at the bottom.

 All in all that was quite a lot of driving in six days!

The second best part (after Brent arriving here safely) was getting yummy homemade muffins from Grammy! We ALL had a muffin that night! Thank you!!

 So happy to have Daddy back in the South with us! :)


Tuesday, March 28, 2017

"Homeless" at Grandma's

After being here for four full days now, I can say with 100% certainty, we are all going to roast come summer. You will find me soaking in our neighborhood pool until about July and then we will be making our box freezer in to an ice pool. ;)

Winters in Western Washington are the same. every. day. No exceptions. 44 and cloudy & rainy, 45 and cloudy & rainy, 48 and cloudy & rainy, 50 and cloudy & rainy, 47 and cloudy & rainy, 46 and cloudy and rainy.... do you see the pattern? We have gotten soooo soft!! I know, so terrible - I'm complaining about the beautiful weather!! We will adjust!

It is gorgeous here though. So nice to actually be able to go outside and walk around without jackets and actually PLAY on the playground (didn't have to take a towel with me to wipe down the slide!).

Grandma left us to do some errands, so we decided to walk along the Greenway to the playground.... I forgot how slow a toddler can walk..... thank goodness for the stroller! It's about a mile and a half from my mom's house to the park and Brock rocked it!

Sad part was when we got there, the "big boy" playground was closed for repairs so we only had the baby playground to play on. Oh well, it was still fun.
 Brock so wanted to push little brother! Here's a cute video of just that!



After dinner and a quick drive-by to our new home, we stopped for some frozen yogurt. Good thing for the sample cups - they were the perfect size for Kade! And Brock chose gummy bears to add to his creation!
Hey Kade! Your spoon blends in with your shirt!
 On Saturday, Grandma found a Touch-A-Truck event going on at Southpoint Mall in Durham. Apparently she also forgot how loud all those horns can be. ;)

Brock and Kade needed a minute to warm up to all of this, but by the end, they really did have fun!
Yeah, yeah - no pictures Mom. 
 I think Kade was a little unsure of where all the noises were coming from. I lifted him up in to the bed of the pickup truck, but he was a little wary.


Brock waited his turn for a chance at the bounce house and we picked up some cool Durham-oriented schwag to use in the new home - Yay big green cups will be perfect for our new water table!

Best part of the day was watching the Air Ambulance take off! Everyone had to clear out for the takeoff!

Look at that Carolina Blue sky! ;)

Feels a little weird this visit waiting for our home to close and being "homeless", but Brock and Kade seem to be managing just fine!

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Goodbye Washington!


This past week was a blur finalizing everything we needed to do to get the house packed and cleaned before we all headed east. 


Kade may have reached my phone a time or two when I wasn't looking!

Moving day was upon us! Trailer had arrived the morning before, Brent was en route to drop off the kids for the day at Adventure Kids, packers arrived to box the kitchen, and movers started hauling everything we own out! It was a whirlwind!

The only actual pictures I took were of the four movers loading Brent's 600-pound safe in to the truck.
Oh yeah.... and it was raining..... 
This is about the time where things got crazy. After realizing that not everything was going to fit in the 28-foot long trailer, it was time to go to Plan B! Originally we had intended for Brent to pull the Highlander with his Tundra on a rented trailer, but it was obvious we needed more cargo space. Off he went to U-Haul to rent the largest cargo trailer they had while I started phoning car transporters to reserve a space for the Highlander! Within an hour everything was good to go and we were back on track - Brent picked up the additional trailer and let the movers start packing the remaining items in there!

.....there may have been one smelly dog chair that did not make the second trailer..... sorry Oscar, but that chair STUNK! Know anyone that wants it? I can tell you where we left it... ;)

Back to our last night in Renton... after picking up the boys at Adventure Kids at 5:30PM, (So that's what it feels like to be a "working mom".... you really look forward to seeing the little buggers after a day away from them! Just kidding... ;) ) we all headed for dinner at Pagliacci's pizza in Bellevue.


Brent opted to stay home and sleep on the floor in the empty house and watch all our possessions in the driveway, so I went solo to our reserved hotel room with the boys. I was so focused on getting a hotel that was dog-friendly, I neglected to check if the hotel stocked cribs/playpens. That was a fun night sleeping in the bed with Kade.

Woke up for an early flight on Alaska Airlines nonstop to Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

It was a fairly decent flight with my two little travelers. Kade even managed to sleep for an hour! Brock is doing a good job with his photography - here's another one he captured!

The following day, our house officially sold! Goodbye house, you were a lovely home and a fabulous investment!

We are staying with my mother for a week before our Apex house closes and to give Brent time to drive here! This is his route below - he has made some AMAZING time pulling a trailer and traveling with two very large dogs - good thing they're used to sleeping all day.
Day 1 - Renton, Washington to Missoula, Montana (468 miles)
Day 2 - Missoula, Montana to Rapid City, South Dakota (660 miles)
Day 3 - Rapid City, South Dakota to Kansas City, Missouri (705 miles)
Day 4 - Kansas City, Missouri to Nashville, Tennessee (555 miles)
Day 5 - Stay in Nashville and visit family
Day 6 - Nashville, Tennessee to Apex, North Carolina (528 miles)

Monday, March 20, 2017

Sunny in Renton!

GORGEOUS day on Sunday! Ended up with a high of 52 degrees yesterday, but in the morning it was frigid - sunny, but cold!

My desire was to do a fun Renton-area activity with the family one more time before getting back on our packing kick. Let's head to Coulon one more time and walk around the water - we always have smiles when we visit Gene Coulon Memorial Beach Park!!

Seattle/Rainier Beach (not to be confused with Mt. Rainier which would be completely behind me) area - Olympic Mountains FAR in the distance 
 All bundled up, watching the geese!



A group of people took advantage of the amazingly still water and were on the dock sailing miniature sailboats.


Brock, my photographer-in-training, took this photo off me after climbing to the top of this lookout area!

Here's Brock pointing/covering where we are on the map!

These stairs were a little steep and Brock was not such a fan!

What a difference of temperature from the shade back to the sun!

In a few months, this beach will be littered with people clamoring for sunshine and wading in that refreshing cold water. The beaches here are all so clean!

Kade found one little pebble and was trying to kick it around on the sand
 Finally it was warm enough to go play on the playground. This was Kade's first time at Coulon's playground! Wow did he figure it out way faster than Brock originally did! Once he realized the slide was at the top of the steps/ladder, away he ran to conquer them again!

How cute - both brothers love this motorcycle bouncy toy!

Here again, I don't think Brock entered this tunnel until he was about 2 1/2 - Kade was fearless and followed in right after big brother!

Ummm.... okay - he's playing in the "big kid" section and now he's following brother up to the tallest slide at the whole park! I will say Brock was very helpful with him and continued to give him positive encouragement the whole way!

First comes Brock!

Next in line - little brother! Wow, does that slide look tall!

What a fun morning! Back to packing! This week is going to be crazy with movers and airplane trips and loooooong car rides!

Diesel says he's ready to go!