THE MOVE!!!!!!

I haven't blogged in over a week because we've been moving! I'm mentally exhausted and we've decided this is (better be) the most challenging move we'll ever have to do. Our brains are mush...physically it wasn't too hard (the moving company did most of the work), but the mental prep has been draining. We put our house on the market early to hopefully guarantee renters by the time we left...which worked, a military couple moves in May 1st. We are now staying with a neighbor right across the street until the end of May when we officially move to Germany. For the prep we had to sort things we want to ship to Germany now, things we don't want to take to Germany at all (the military will store it in California), and things we still need at our neighbors' that will go in a second shipment to Germany at the end of the month. Doesn't seem too too hard, but when you throw in working full time and a 4 year old and a 19 month old, things get complicated real fast! We didn't have room to create our "piles" of junk because Kailee would turn them into her own "piles". It left a lot to do at the last minute (like the night before!!). We are somewhat settled in across the street...we have plenty of room (two bedrooms), but a non-childproofed home with minimal toys leave two tired parents at the end of the day. The movers for our Germany things came on Thursday and the movers for the storage things came Monday (we had to store most electrical things because the voltage is different over there and we also stored some large items because we don't know yet where we will be living). Leevi will be working in Heidelberg, but we are hoping to live in Mannheim...both posts' housing were built in the 50's (ughhhhh!), but the duplexes on Mannheim are much larger than the stairwell flats on Heidelberg. There is so much we don't know about Germany and we are pretty blind going into this move. I suppose that adds to the stress level. We are assuming this will be our hardest move ever for the main reason of the girls' ages...when we leave Germany they will be 7 or 8 and almost 5 or 6 (how scary is that!!!) and we probably won't be stressing about finding renters, prepping the rental or transitional moving for just a month. Say a prayer for us on May 31st as we travel across the world logging 20 something hours of flight time alone (don't know how long our layovers are) with a 4 yr old, 20 month old, and a dog! Our hair might be gray by the time we arrive in Europe!

Since we are living with a friend I didn't want to completely take over her house, so now I'm working out of Gavin's house during the days. The Buelows are sooooo gracious to open up their home to us and everyone seems to be adjusting.

Gavin, Kailee, Brooke
Kailee the escape artist...she's the youngest of the 5 but has managed to teach them how to sneak out under the fence and also showed Brooke how to climb out of her pack-n-play during naptime!! (The boys nap in a room together and the girls (not Hailey) in the other. I barely ever hear a peep from the boys room, but the girls act like they are having a sleepover!)Checking out the dogs


What a view...