Moving Sucks!

Moving with a toddler is insane. It’s even worse when things don’t go smoothly. For weeks we prepared Noah by explaining that we were going to move to a new house in the mountains. He was very curious about the idea of it, and frequently asked us if bears and wolves and bats live in the mountains. Every night when I picked him up from daycare he would ask me if we were going to the new house. Last week we counted down the days, and on Thursday night we prepped him for the actual move. Friday he spent his last day at daycare while we packed up the last of our stuff and cleaned. We hired movers to take care of everything. Our closing appointment was set for 4:00pm. It was a gorgeous day. What could go wrong?

Pretty much everything.

The house we bought was a foreclosure, and not just any foreclosure, but a VA loan foreclosure. Friday morning Brian got a call saying that the closing was canceled because the VA’s computers had been down for the past 24 hours and they couldn’t get all of the documents needed. Several phone calls later, they determined that they had everything minus the deed and we might still be able to close. The movers arrived right on time and with the knowledge that we had to be out by midnight either way, we allowed them to load the truck. About 15 minutes before their departure, we got the call that we would not be able to close or move until Monday. Cue panic. The movers arranged to place our belongings into storage, and we paid them for our first round of moving. I was beyond pissed at this point knowing that we would be paying for two moves. Hiring movers was a bit of a splurge on our part, and paying for it twice was not in the plan. When the truck left, I walked through the house and noticed that a significant number of rather bulky odds and ends did not make it onto the truck. Cue panic again. Brian and I both own compact sedans, and we couldn’t possibly fit the remaining items into our two cars. We called the local U-Haul but the area we lived in is such a hot market right now that no trucks were available. So Brian drove up the mountain to our new local U-Haul where he was able to get a 17-foot truck. On his way back down to the city, our realtor called and asked if we could both come up to the office and sign all of the closing papers. It would ensure that we could actually move on Monday. I dropped everything and Brian did a u-turn and we signed all the papers around 5:00pm. Then we hauled ass back to town to pack the truck and finish cleaning. In between all of this chaos, Brian had arranged for us to stay at his coworker’s family’s cabin in the mountains for the weekend. His coworker came down to help us pack the rest of our stuff into the truck and clean out the garage. We literally filled the entire U-Haul which made me question why in the hell we tipped the movers. What a joke! We finally had the whole house packed and cleaned by 9:15pm. At that point we picked up Noah from a friend’s house and began the nearly hour drive to the cabin. We got in just before 10:30pm, and Noah was a mess. He was tired and upset, and began hysterically crying and repeating over and over, “I want to go home and sleep in my bed!” It was heartbreaking. We got him to bed around 11:00pm and then scrounged around for food. None of us had eaten dinner. Brian’s coworker found some canned soup, so at 11:45pm we finally ate our soup dinner and then headed to bed. In the morning we woke to a gorgeous view, and with nothing to do for the entire weekend, it forced us to relax and make the best of a tough situation. Noah enjoyed playing outside in their horseshoe pit, and we all got a kick out of watching the wildlife including deer, foxes, and hummingbirds.

Gorgeous cabin view

Playing Don't Break the Ice with Daddy and Josh

Brian’s amazing coworker left us with a 6-pound stuffed chicken and chopped potatoes and carrots to cook for dinner, then returned back to his house in Denver. It turned out to be a fairly decent weekend, and my dad arrived Sunday evening so that he could watch Noah this week. (Considering we only have a few weeks of school left, we’re not arranging daycare until the fall.) All in all, apart from the total f-ing nightmare that was Friday, it wasn’t a terrible weekend.

Noah and Grandpa Jeff howling like wolves. Gilbert was not impressed.

But wait.

Monday morning I made the 45-50 minute commute to work in the only outfit I could assemble from what I had with me that was considered “work appropriate.” We had been told that the deed would be delivered via UPS around 12:00-1:00pm. We had arrangements with the movers to arrive at 1:30. By 1:00, the deed had not arrived. Cue panic again. Brian drove the U-Haul to our new house and greeted the movers at 1:30. Since he was given the key Monday morning, he showed the movers around the house and waited for the green light to actually take possession. Our realtor called and reported that the deed was not going to be delivered until Tuesday. Come again? I pretty much lost it at this point, imagining that we would now be paying for not one, not two, but three professional moves. However, we finally got a break and the VA took pity on us, accepted our down payment, and allowed us to take possession without the deed. THANK GOD!

We are now finally moved into our new house and I’m slowly adjusting to the altitude. Our house is on a mountain side at about 9000 feet elevation. Since moving to Denver we have always been close to 6000 feet, and that was a hard adjustment coming from Minneapolis! I’m hoping the smaller increase of just 3000 feet will make for a quicker acclimatization for me. Brian has no issues since he’s been working up there for the last 8 years.

So, there you have it. My take-aways from this experience are: 1) make sure that if you hire movers they bring a big enough truck, and 2) NEVER EVER under any circumstance buy a VA foreclosure unless you enjoy getting kicked in the head repeatedly.

I have more I want to share about our first few days as mountain folk, but I’ll save it for another day. I won’t have internet access at home until Monday, so until then enjoy the weekend!