The Big Move

The Big Move

Let me tell you how this went. A Wednesday night call revealed that one of my grandmothers was in poor health (keep Granny in your prayers), so we found ourselves in Kentucky that weekend. Thursday we drove to Bowling Green, had dinner with Sam's family, and spent the night. Friday we drove to Lawrenceburg. Over the course of the weekend we: took crazy amounts of pictures of the new house and got the keys to show the house, visited with Granny, visited with friends from college I haven't seen in three years, took our friends to see the new house, met up with Sam's family and took Sam's family to see the new house, canned tomato juice at Nene and Papa's with the help of Sam's family, watched the sunset on the front porch of the new house, made grape pie (twice), made a quiche, went to the lake, gave the keys to the house back to Anne, and drove back to Georgia. 

This was the weekend of August 31st. At the beginning of the weekend, the plan was to move back to Ky the weekend of September 21st...three weeks away. When we learned that we were going to have to make repairs to the new house before the bank would give us the loan, we were thinking of shortening it a week. We wanted to get back as soon as possible to start making repairs on the house so we wouldn't have to push back the closing date (September 27th) as much. By the time we made the eight hour drive back to Georgia, we had decided that we were going to move the weekend of September 7th. Long story short...we arrived back in Georgia late Monday evening, and I had until Friday evening to get the entire house packed so that we could move in five days. Feeling anxious yet?

First, pictures from the busy weekend trip to Kentucky:

The entrance to our future home. 

Mommy and Rylee!

Touring the property with this little squirt. 

Rylee got to ride her first horse. The horse's name is Black Beauty. 

So sleepy after visiting the house, and walking around to take pictures and inspect the place. 

We found this beautiful flowering vine in several places on the property including on the fence coming in the driveway. We believe it's Sweet Autumn Clematis

The flowers were beautiful, and they smelled so good!

Rylee swimming in the lake for the first time. She loved it!

She's going to be a little water baby! Look at her splashing!

The only pictures I have from the five days of crazy packing that we did are these two. Thank goodness I had my sister, Taylor, with me to help or we would never have finished everything. Here's Rylee helping her Daddy pack up the basement. 

We cleaned up the shed and FINALLY got rid of all the junk that we inherited with the house. Too bad we didn't do this years sooner. The shed looks so good, now! Here's how much we took out of the shed and from behind it. I'd say 85% we inherited. 

Drum roll for moving day.... a BIG, HUGE, SUPER ENORMOUS shoutout to all of our AMAZINGLY AWESOME family and friends who drove 7 1/2 hours to Georgia to help us pack up our entire house in an extremely unorganized manner on one of the hottest weekends of the summer only to turn around and drive another 7 1/2 hours back to Kentucky while hauling parts and pieces of our said house. 

With cars driving slow because of hauling, a pregnant lady bladder, and a baby, a 7 1/2 hour drive turns into a 8 1/2 - 9 hour drive. That's before I lock my keys in the car at a rest stop and end up waiting two hours for road side assistance to show up. That in itself is another crazy story. 

Sam was an hour and a half of driving away (there + back), so we decided to call roadside assistance who said they would be there within the hour (we were estimated 45 mins). We were anxious because my cats and dogs were in the back of my car, and it was hot outside. Fast forward 35 minutes. By this time, the cats and dogs have been in there an hour, the dogs are fine, but Pippin is panting hard. At an hour we get a call from roadside assistance. They sent them to the wrong rest stop. It will be another hour before someone can get to us. We call someone else and are told 25 minutes. It took them 35 minutes to get there. Taylor G., Taylor T., Mom, and I were freaking out the entire time trying decide whether we should break a window to save Pippin or just hold out a little bit longer. 

We put a sun visor on the back windshield, and the sun finally went down behind the mountain. We could tell it was cooling off. The guy got there, unlocked my car, we watered everyone down (the cats of course did not want to hydrate), paid the guy, and finally got back on the road. We ended up getting home around midnight. A rough ending to a rough weekend, but we finally, finally made it back to Kentucky-- home sweet home. 

Here's pictures from that weekend. 

Loading up the covered 6 x12 trailer with the rough sawn lumber we had in the basement. 

Rylee eating a chocolate chip cookie on the couch while we pack. 

Highlights of the weekend! Photo credit: Cynthia.

Final picture of the moving caravan--seven vehicles and four trailers. Photo credit: Cynthia.

Now is the perfect opportunity to thank someone else who made this weekend possible....our wonderful, wonderful neighbor Cynthia. This lady hung out with me almost all week before the move, going out to meals with us, helping me move, and playing with Rylee. She brought dinner for the moving crew, opened her house to us so that we could shower and have beds to sleep in. She stayed up late with us, woke up early, constantly checked in to make sure we had enough food and drinks. She brought us fresh baked biscuits with cheese and jam! And to top it all off, she let us leave stuff at the house for her to take care of after we left. Trash and recycling that she took to the country drop off site for us. Furniture in our basement that she coordinated selling that weekend. Boxes she loaded in her car and returned to UHAUL for us. There were several pieces of furniture that she is in the process of giving away/selling. She even blew out the garage and shed with a leaf blower for us so that it would look nice for the buyers. To top it all off, she agreed to be our power of attorney on September 27th to close our house so that we don't have to drive back down to Georgia. She has been a blessing in my life, and I can not tell you what a privilege it has been to know her and hang out with her over these past few years. It was people like Cynthia who helped us survive down in Georgia without family. She was our family. We love you, Cynthia, and we will miss you dearly!

Rylee Anne turned 9 months old that weekend, but we didn't get around to taking the picture until now. She's almost 9 1/2 months old. She's getting so big!!

We were here for Ankay's birthday, so we made her a cake and played cards. 

Since moving back we've run into problems trying to get a plumber, run into problems getting the electric turned on, run into problems trying to get the title, and run into problems getting the gas turned on. It's always one step forward and three steps back with this house.

A plumber couldn't come out to look at the house for three or four weeks. Sam and I are working on fixing the plumbing this weekend; I'll be sure to take pictures of the progress. The title company is having problems straightening out the title, so they are going to have to resurvey the land. The gas company found a leak in their pipes up by the road that they fixed and discovered that our furnace was not properly vented. We are now having to figure out how to run a ventilation pipe up through the kitchen, attic, and roof.

The electric company wouldn't turn the power on until we got an inspection and reattached the conduit (big metal pole in picture) to the house. I should have taken a picture of the giant (and I do mean giant) poison ivy vine Sam had to battle to reattach the pole.

While Sam battled bushes, weeds, and poison ivy, I tackled the front yard. Rylee and I picked up sticks, cut weeds, and I mowed the yard. This place is really going to be beautiful after we fix it up!

After getting the water turned back on, we discovered that one of the bathroom shower heads is leaking profusely, and we found a giant wet spot in the yard (it hasn't rained in three weeks). Sigh. Uncle Travis and Sam dug for thirty minutes until they found the drain to the pool had been leaking. They turned that sucker on only to suck up leaves and clog the pipes. The pool is another issue we have to take care of before we can get the loan. The pool has to be drained and covered.

Found this little guy while they were digging. It's a box turtle. 

This photo was taken about two seconds before she put the muddy spoon (that we found in the yard) in her mouth. 

Keep us in your prayers as we continue to push forward to closing on the Bachs Place house and fixing up the Beaumont Ave house so that we can get approved for the loan. In the meantime, if you have any desire to learn how to fix plumbing or feel like getting your hands dirty cleaning up a yard...let us know!

Pax Domini cum spirito tuo temper sit,

Torey, Sam & Rylee

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