We Can Totally Do That!!

Sooo, we are pretty settled into our new house. Boxes unpacked, pictures hung, rooms pretty well organized.

But getting to this point, was not easy!!

Our move in and move out was scheduled about a week apart. So I figured we could spend a few days moving boxes and little stuff with the van, and then by Friday beg a few strong men to help lift the heavy stuff on to a rental moving van.

The first day I woke up with a feeling of dread. I couldn't believe I had really thought the kids and I (because Mike was working Tuesday and Wednesday) were going to move most of the house before Friday!! What was I thinking!!

This is where I would like to add a side note. Mike and I both have this weird brain disease. I am not sure there is a name for it, but I call it wecantotallydothatitis. When faced with a near impossible task, i.e. Running in a 200 mile relay with little or no prior running experience or moving an entire house with just four kids and a mini van, something clicks in our brains and we think "Ha, no problem!!! We can totally do THAT!!" This is not such a bad trait when the odds are favorable, but unfortunately, that is not often the case.

So Monday morning we got up and since Mike and I had to finish our walk through, he was there to help for a few hours. We managed to move the entire garage over. This is a feat of extraordinary daring and courage.  Not only did we get it moved over BUT completely organized!! Not bad for our first day.

The second day, my dad was headed out with a bed he had promised to Kylee and a desk that was my grandmothers.  So, on top of Kylee getting her new bed, I was getting the use of his rented mini van for the whole week and the kids were getting a papa who loves to hang out with them!!  Two mini vans and an extra adult would make the move even easier!

So for Tuesday, my goal was for the kids and I to single-handedly move over all their bedrooms, set up beds, book cases etc. We did it!! And Mike and I were even able to move some stuff from other rooms in the evening.

Wednesday my dad and I moved living room furniture, electronics, and a good rest of the boxes!! By the time we got to Thursday, Mike was back home to help and we worked on our room and some of the heavier furniture.  It was Wednesday evening, and on the high of getting so much accomplished, Mike and I made the bold statement, "I bet we could move just about everything without a moving van!!" Thanks to the refrigerator, we didn't try it :)

The craziest story from the move would have to be how Mike and I moved our king sized mattress from one house to the other with just a rope, a blanket and our mini van!

We bought our mattress in January of this year, from Costco.  We went with a foam mattress, which was the BEST purchase we have ever made.  I LOVE our mattress.  It is super firm, doesn't sag, and is plenty big.  Its size put it on the things-that-must-be-moved-with-a-moving-van list.  But Thursday evening, the eve of the big stuff move, we got drunk on our achievements.  Mike and I looked around the mostly empty house, and the twelve items still left to go, and wondered if we could take that list down to eleven...

Mike rationalized that our mattress came in a small box to start.

That was true.

And the delivery guy delivered it.

Also true.

So, why couldn't we just roll it up and put it in the van????

Sounds reasonable!!!  We can totally do it!!!

We did manage to get it folded in half, and tied up.  Yes, this would definitely fit in the van!!

I went into the kitchen to grab something and that is when Mike decided he could get it down the stairs.  Which he did.  What we didn't bank on was, trying to lift it from the front door to the van, without the furniture dolly that we left at the other house.

I tried to lift my end, but the combination of it being awkward, huge, soft, and heavy and the fact that by Thursday evening my body had about given up on me, made it nearly impossible for me to move.

At this point we totally could have left it in the living room and shut the front door.  We totally could have waited for the next day for our friends to help us lift it onto the moving truck.

But we had gotten this far!!!  It was so close to being in the van!!  How could we just leave it?

That is when I got the brilliant idea that would save the evening.  What if we took one our old blankets and drug it to the van, then used the blanket to lift it onto the van?  Would it work?

YES!!  It totally worked!!  We got our mammoth mattress into our mini-van and then used our blanket method to heft it up the stairs in the next house.

And as we locked the door to the old house that evening, we only had 11 odd items left to be moved.  We had done it!  We had moved a huge part of a four bedroom house with just two mini-vans, two adults, four children, and one old man, which went a long way to worsening our already bad case of wecantotallydothatitis!

Kristen