Top 10 Move Experiences!

I think its been almost 2 years since I've done a Top 10 list.  Had several mulling around in my head, but they were never quite good enough to type up.  I guess our move experience finally provided enough laughs to make a list!

10.  Camping Out - We chose to spend one night in the old house and one night in the new house "camping out" with sleeping bags and air mattresses.  This decision helped save money but it also made me not want to go camping for quite awhile.  OK, never!  The kids had fun!  The old people woke up sore and tired and had to log roll to get out of bed!

9.  Raisin Bombs - 'S' pulled a good one on us during the drive down to SC.  He loves raisins right now as a snack.  Loves taking them out of the little box.  Loves opening and closing the box over and over again.  Loves eating every last little raisin.  Loves raisins!  Except apparently on the way down he was a bit more entertained not eating the raisins.  I caught him out of the corner of my eye throwing things while I was driving.  When I would glance back and see his arm raised above his head and a small black object in his hand, I would quickly reprimand him and say "No throwing, 'S'".  He would quickly pop the raisin in his mouth with a little devilish smile on his face like he was going to do that all along.  This continued on several times.  I saw him throw a raisin 2 or 3 times, but I thought he had eaten most of the raisins.  It wasn't until we got out of the car that I realized he may have only eaten 2 or 3 of the raisins in the box, because They. Were. Everywhere!  Dude had a blast throwing those little bombs all over the van.  I found then from the front floor board all the way to the back of the van.  The boy loves to throw!

8.  No Hot Water - To add to the "camping out" fun in our new house we went more back to nature with the experience and we all took cold showers!  We would have love to have skipped bath that night, but there was some serious stink going on with all 6 of us.  Unfortunately the gas wasn't turned on yet because someone had to be in the house when the gas man came and we didn't arrive in the house till after 6 pm.  Hence the cold shower fun.  'S' was thoroughly ticked about the whole experience.  Gas man was called first thing the next morning!

7.  Trashinator - Len and I were very determined to get as unpacked as quickly as possible.  Both of us need organization to function well.  I used the girls to help one morning as I unpacked the kitchen.  They did a very good job unwrapping items and bringing them to me to put away.  However, they found the most joy and entertainment in being the "Trashinator."  They would take turns getting in the big box of paper and smashing it down.  This provided several hours of good fun and laughter for all of us.

6.  An Egg - We know packers will pack anything and everything, with no favoritism towards one item over another.  They packed our trash for us on our last move.  This time we cracked up over the half of a plastic Easter egg we found lovingly wrapped in all our boxes!  Just half!  Really, guys?  It's not a precious family heirloom!  Did you not see all the boxes of toys and other "crap" our kids already have that you had to pack half an Easter egg?

5.  Extremist Packers - So far out pack-out experiences with the Navy have been very good.  I've heard some horror stories from others, so I consider us very blessed with our dealings.  This time around we had two extreme ends of the packer spectrum.  We had one packer who was the wrapper extraordinaire.  Thankfully he was assigned to my dishes (and let me say, I have a LOT of dishes!  This obsession is second only to my photo love.  Poor dish packer man spent all day just packing my dishes.  7 hours!  I have a lot of dishes!)  This super wrapper packer at the minimum triple wrapped my dishes, but most were quadruple wrapped or even quintuple wrapped!  Dude used a LOT of paper!  The other end of the spectrum was the packer who was packing like we were just moving down the street.  He would just dump baskets of items into a box, crumple a piece of paper on top, and then close off the box.  One box we opened was some items from our living room.  This packer had put about 10 different small decorative items from around the room in the middle of a blanket and then scooped up the sides and tossed the blanket bag of goodies into a box.  Amazingly only one item was broken and its something we can glue back together.  Thankfully this packer spent most of his time with all the plastic kid toys.  We weren't heart broken that a few kid's meal toys lost their lives in the process of his speedy packing.  (In fact we were thankful!)  So luckily our two extreme packers were positioned in the right rooms to fit their packing styles!

4.  Crazy Switches - Every new house has its quirks.  While this house is hands down the nicest, biggest, and fanciest house we've ever lived in (and probably ever will live in), it still has its quirks - Light switches!  I walked around and counted today.  There are 60 light switches in this house!  60!  I have never seen so many light switches in my life!  Plus every room has at least one "mystery" switch that as far as we can tell goes to nothing.  One room has three mystery switches!  Crazy, OCD me couldn't stand it all, so I actually went out and purchased a label maker so I know what switch goes to what!

Seriously.  1 light.  3 mysteries.

3.  Cookie Sheets - Here's my tip for anyone moving -  Don't forget to check that metal drawer under your stove!  We left behind 3 cookie sheets and a muffin pan, two of which were very nice and expensive Pampered Chef stone wear!  I seriously almost cried.

2.  Hissing Cobras - Imagine yourself after a long day of cleaning, driving, and unpacking finally getting to lay down (on your not so comfy air mattress, but it's better than the hard floor so you don't complain) in a dark room whose light switches you can't figure out, when you hear a sound that can only be described as a hissing cobra!  Len and I seriously jumped up (well actually log rolled) out of bed and scrambled around for some form of light to figure out where the sound had come from.  It was the automatic room freshener!  We laughed, laid back down, and tried to go on to sleep.  We keep hearing the sound over and over again, every 9 minutes!  Seriously, do you have some kind of sensor to detect odors and do we stink that bad, Mr. Hissing Air Freshener?  After the 3rd time, Len got up and pulled the thing off the wall!  I was a creepy and disturbing sound that made it impossible to go to sleep.

1.  Our Exercise - Every one should do a move with a curious toddler!  It adds so much grey hair to your head.  Our "exercise" for the past 2-3 weeks has been keeping up with Mr. 'S'.  Trying to get ready for the move, having tools out all the time to take apart or take down items, pack what we were taking, clean the house, stay out of the way of packers and movers, and then repeat the whole process in reverse order in the new house has felt like Mission Impossible with a 20 month old!  I know God made them curious for a reason, and thank goodness he is so stinkin' cute, but my goodness this old momma is T.I.R.E.D of chasing 'S' around and keeping him out of everything!  (Can I get an Amen from you other toddler moms?)  Tom Cruise, you've got nothing on my real life job here.  Scaling the outside of a 300 story glass building in the middle of a dust storm?  No problem.  Defusing bombs while arm wrestling 5 guys with machete knives, machine guns, and black belts?  Piece of cake!  Keeping up with a 20 month, all boy, throwing & kicking machine, fearless little dude, who loves to escape outside or play with sharp objects or stick screwdrivers into electrical sockets?  That's a true mission that Hollywood can't touch yet!

Our cute "exercise"!

Life is fun!