Moving Day and the Flight to NYC

12/3 was the moving day we had long been planning for. Dave and I both woke up groggy and fuzzy headed--having stayed up until 2AM the previous night doing last minute packing and not being able to sleep due to those "night before" butterflies in our bellies. What were we thinking? Moving two kids, ourselves, a neurotic cat and a downsized collection of our belongings to New York City in the dead of Winter?? And right before Christmas. When we told people our plans, we either received looks of horror, or big smiles with a reassuring glint of adventure reflected back to us in their eyes.

Dave rented us a very large SUV for the moving day, and although I teased him that it was overkill--thank goodness he did! We had six things of luggage--one of them with a live animal in it--and we needed all that space. After loading our luggage into the monster car, we hung out and watched the packers and movers do their thing. The crew from United movers were wonderful. They swooped in and took care of everything. It was strange to have people packing our things, but also so nice. Plus, with them doing all the packing I was able to harass one of the packers to tell me stories about the strangest houses he has packed up. He told me stories of a man who had a jerkey room and people boiling their underthings on the stove. He thanked us for being normal!


Dave and I were having a tough time watching all of our stuff being packed and loaded so we decided to do one last walk through Ballard. We drowned our sadness in burgers at a great place called Scooters where we had never been before. Connor enjoyed his "handurger" and then we walked back to the house to watch the final touches being done. By 3pm they had finished moving all of our stuff into the big truck and we watched as it drove away. They fit 4-5 different family's households in those big trucks--all our belongings only took up 1/4 of it!



After some tearful goodbyes to friends and our beloved house, we piled into the monster SUV and headed to the hotel. We were both out of sorts, and luckily the children didn't cry during the drive--but they did manage to both start sobbing as Dave checked us in. Hysterically sobbing. I was juggling them outside of the hotel and already dreading the plane ride when Dave showed up with warm chocolate chip cookies. All his traveling has its perks--he gets warm cookies upon check in! I could no longer hear the children crying:) We had an adventurous night at the hotel with Dave being woken by Connor every 1/2 hour as he tossed and turned and me getting woken up by Tallie who was using all the furniture as scratching posts right by my head. Fun times.



Thursday was the big day and we woke up even more fuzzy-headed than the previous day, grabbed the kids and jumped back into the monster SUV. Which, by the way, was practically out of gas. The genius employees at Enterprise had been joy riding in the car to get McDonalds before getting it to Dave and had run it out of gas! We didn't think it would be a problem until we couldn't figure out where to return it at the airport. We were already behind schedule, which was torture for Dave (anyone that knows his travel preferences can imagine how stressed he was) and now we were literally going in circles to return the beast of a car. And of course, with two kids, a cat and oodles of luggage we are about to run out of gas searching for the rental return office. I had visions of flagging down cars and begging people to drive us to the airport. But who would have room for all our crap?!?! Dave called information on his cell phone and then hung up on the woman he was talking to when we found an airport garage employee who told us where the office was. Where else would the car return be but directly next door to our hotel. After floating down the road on fumes, we made our way into the office where the first airport shuttle driver took one look at what we were unloading and shook his finger "no-no" at us. He jumped in and took off. Luckily, a very nice man was the next driver and he not only helped us load up our stuff onto the shuttle--he then insisted that he drop us off at departures instead of where he was dropping off the other people on the shuttle because "you have children and too much luggage--it is a far walk." We thought this was nice, but it turned into a flashback from earlier that morning because we got to drive around the airport another TWO times! I felt like we needed circus music to go along with the drive and me jumping up every two seconds to make sure that Tallie's carrier didn't fall off the luggage rack.

We made it inside the airport and got the looks from people as we chased down Connor to get him strapped into the stroller and then dragged poor Tallie out of her carrier to give her the kitty valium. Dave had to hold her mouth open with both hands while I threw the pill into her throat--not a pretty sight. Then we got into line and pissed off the people in line as we took up 20+ minutes to get everything organized and extra heavy luggage paid for. I ran around looking for large plastic bags to cover the carseats. Connor cried in his stroller. Kea was strapped to me in the Bjorn falling asleep. And we were almost an hour behind schedule. But we made it, and besides some hysterical sobbing when Connor had to put his shoes through the x-ray machine at security, getting onto the plane was easy.


The flight was ok. It is now a blur. There was a lot of crying and some yelling from Connor about not wanting a certain Curious George episode played. Kea got pretty upset every now and then and would scream and scream and then suddenly be smiling away at people sitting near us. So pretty much a typical flight with two kiddos.



The last part of the trip that we were nervous about was getting our luggage to the car that would be picking us up (yet another monster SUV--and again, we barely fit in it) and the drive into the city. We had a really nice driver that took one look at us and left to pick up the car and pick us up right outside of baggage claim. We gathered all our luggage and Tallie and braved the rain that was falling to pile into the car. Connor was so exhausted and hungry at this point that he was sobbing and demanding "cocholat". (Due to parental guilt for the move and much needed bribery for cooperation during the packing process, Connor was fed small pieces of chocolate that have now turned him into quite the "cocholat" addict). Needless to say, we are now deep in the detox phase of getting him off chocolate.

The drive into the city wasn't bad. Trafficky yes, but nothing like highway 520 in Seattle that I drove three times a week for my internship. And the views here are gorgeous--the Manhattan skyline is really amazing. We got to our apartment and were pleasantly surprised to find a bigger place than expected. There are two good sized bedrooms and a decent living area. The kitchen is teeny tiny-but we are already familiarizing ourselves with the endless choices of takeout. And it is less expensive to have things delivered than it was in Seattle! This is dangerous.....

Our first day in the city was sunny and gorgeous. Chilly outside, but nothing bad. Connor was fascinated with all the shadows and sunshine being on all his clothes. I know he's seen sun in Seattle-but this is a brighter sun. We are one block from Central Park and found a great playground for Connor. And it is fenced in so he can't escape! There is a Whole Foods and a few smaller markets all a few blocks from our place. And surprisingly, there are fruit stands on most corners around here. I can walk right outside and buy grapes, oranges, and apples. The kids and I could conceivably never go any further than four blocks and we have everything we need.

We tried out the subway today and Connor was wide eyed. Kea slept through it all. I don't think I'll be able to do subway trips on my own with the two kids yet--but once I get it all figured out--we'll do some exploring.