The Move

This week went by so fast!  We had fun at playdates, dinner with friends and going to the library, and had not quite as much fun packing.  And packing some more. And turning around to find yet more to pack. When moving day came, we were still packing.  Packing with two kids in the house sure takes a lot of time.  The missionaries came to help load the truck, and I asked a friend (Friday night) to come over on Saturday morning to watch the kids while we finished.  She was a lifesaver.  We had packed all the toys and she had thought about that and brought a soccer ball for Big E to play with.  We couldn't have finished packing and cleaning and be driving out of town by 12:30 without her help.  Thank you again, Friend!

The Lord was looking out for us.  We still hadn't sold Steve's bike yet.  He listed it on Craigslist and some used bike sites, but no one called about it until Friday night.  The guy asked if we would be willing to do a swap, but Steve said that we were moving over seas and trying to lighten our load.  So the guy said he'd see if he could come up with the money.  On Saturday morning, he calls back and asks how low Steve would be willing to go.  And somewhere in the conversation Steve asked if he had any smartphones he would be willing to swap for the bike.  (We had been looking into getting some in Doha so that we could have GPS access among other things.)  It turns out he did!  So we did a swap.  Our neighbor bought the bike rack that the buyer of the bike didn't want.  On Friday two people from church came and took our couch and bathroom coordinates and a bunch of other things that we didn't know what else to do with.  One of them bought our lawn mower.  He drove up while Steve was mowing the front yard.  The back yard didn't get mowed. Our neighbors across the street took some other random things.  So we got rid of everything we wanted to and found something we needed for relatively cheap.

To get to my parents house from Carthage, you have to drive on a toll road for most of the way.  We have a pike pass for the car, but needed change for the moving truck.  I gave Steve all the change I had and a few dollar bills.  He left the same time as I did, but I ran a few errands in town before leaving so he was about 15 minutes ahead of me.  But as I pulled off the highway, there was Steve hopping out of the truck at the toll booth.  It's an unmanned one and he was 10 cents short for the toll.  The lady behind him only had 5 cents.  I only had 5 cents and a bunch of pennies which the toll doesn't accept (come on - pennies are still money).  But with with both of our contributions Steve wasn't stuck at the toll booth and we could move on.  In all these things we saw the Lord helping us do what we need to be doing.

We planned to be in Broken Arrow in time to unload the truck at Mom and Dad's and drop it off at the Budget store before the listed close time, which was 4 pm.  We made it with plenty of time, though that meant that the living room was filled with our stuff just thrown in there.  Like so:


But all the rushing was for nothing as the Budget truck rental place was closed before the listed time.  Oh well; they had after hours drop off.

We will hopefully close on our house next week or the week after.  We're still waiting on the buyers loan to go through.  Our realtor mentioned on Friday when we went to sign preliminary closing papers that the buyers wanted to do the final walkthrough on Saturday, but he knew were moving that day and suggested another day.  Thanks you!  There's no way we could have done that as well as finishing moving.

We are practically homeless now, living with parents again and with what can fit in a couple of suite cases.  Now the adventure really begins.