Still here...

We are still here at Smokewood. It's been very busy, we have had several days of house hunting, my nephew has had his tonsils out and it is taking at least two adults to take care of him and we are gearing up for a wedding this weekend. whew!
However, we can knock one thing off of our list.....We found a house!!!! It is a nice three bedroom, two story home in a suburb of Cleveland. We will be like 5 minutes from Leslie's sister and then an hour and 20 minutes from our families here. I can not wait to move in and start our life there. We still have a couple of weeks to wait until the closing.
Les starts at his new station on Monday. I can't tell if he's nervous or not- probably not, he is so different from me when it comes to things like that.
Our good friend Dan is getting married this week end, Les is the best man. It's going to be a nice wedding and a great time. We are very happy for Dan and Cherie and glad to be a part of things.
That's a quick summary of what's happening here (though I did not begin to touch on the horror of force medicating a sick two year old).

O-H-I-O OHIO!!!!!!

Well. Here we are. In Ohio. I am currently blogging from Smokewood (my parents house), so there will be no photos for a bit and posting will continue to be sporadic for awhile. But, we are here and we are alive.
The movers were at our house in NC for two days, they were the best movers that we have had so that was a relief. They left and we were out of the door and on our way up the road in less than an hour. Yes, Leslie and I were a well oiled machine.The trip up wasn't bad, we spread it out over two days, though Billy Bones thinks that being in a car, while Ev was in the truck- pretty much sucks.
Evelyn eventually got on board with the move and packing and by the time the truck with our stuff on it pulled off, she was okay. Now though we do have a few issues. She does not like being without a home of her own. She is stock piling the few possessions that she has here and keeping them in a box to move to the new house. She mentions like twenty times a day, how Billy is sad to be without a house, or how he misses Carolina.
Since we have been here, we have been very busy doing alot of things. Mostly shopping. Shopping for a home. Shopping for wedding attire (our friends Dan and Cherie are getting married on the 31st). Catching up on missed out clothes shopping over the past 6 years. We have also been taking Ev to do fun things, we have checked out her new (temporary) library, she has gone to a botanical garden, we have spent an afternoon at an indoor place called Acres of fun, we have spent an afternoon at the local Carousel, we have been visiting friends....
Overall, I am feeling like being back here in Ohio is good and I am glad that we got to come here.

We're Outta Here

Kind of. We have a couple of more days but we will be without Internet, so the next that you hear from me will be from Ohio.

Bean is doing a bit better. She is no longer crying and trying to unpack our packing but she does emphatically state that, we are not moving, at irregular intervals. She is also a bit more talkative and needy than normal- but I expect that won't change until we get her settled in someplace. I am sure that it is so hard for her mind to figure this out, I feel bad for her.

In other guilt laden news, Billy Bones is runnign about outside enjoying his last bittersweet moments of freedon amongst his trees. Poor kitty.

Hey, wish us luck.

This is one wet cat

Here is Billy Bones after the second bath of his life. Quite frankly, I was afraid to go to sleep that night for fear that he was plotting my demise. Really. This is what happens when you come home soaked in muddy pond water Billy, what did you expect?

"Not Gonna Move"

The Bean woke up today to the sound of vigorous hoovering and the sight of things in the house being re-arranged and stacked for packing. This did NOT make her happy.
We have been attempting to prepare her for weeks and months for this but I guess when you see your stuff being moved about and no one but you is sad to be leaving the current location, it's rough. She has already had two breakdowns and she is sneaking around behind us undoing what we have done (for instance every time I tried to roll up the area rug, she would kick it back out and try to get it into place all on her own). She is currently walking around with a giant armload of her things singing "not gonna move, we are not gonna move! I AM NNNNOOOOTTTTT MMMMOOOOOOOOO-OOOOOVVVINGGGGG!!!!!!"
This should be fun.

G.W.I.P Recap

Here are a few of my favorite shots from Gamers Week. The attendees were as follows, Chris D, Mike D, Kathryn L, Ryan, Kristi and Olivia K, Chuck and Cheryl G, and Dowdy. Les, Evelyn and I really had a great time with all of them. Chris and Mike are Leslie's brothers and it was great to have the three of them together for more than an evening and Chuck and Ryan have been our friends for years. I will say that if I don't cook again for a week, that might be enough time to recover from the k.p. duty! I didn't really have anything fancy but it was still a bit of a logistical thing - cooking for 10 in a kitchen the size of a closet, will be that way I guess. We played at the beach, we played board games, we played video games, the guys played D&D, I think a good time was had by all. I really feel lucky that we have the kind of friends who will dedicate their vacation time from work to come and share a single bathroom and eat my cooking for a week.

In other news... the movers are here tomorrow-eeeekkk!!!! I was in the middle of getting my laundry done (post company stuff and all of the rugs and such) for the move and the washer went on the fritz-aaaaaagggghhhhh!!!!!! EEEEEEKKKKKK!!!!!!! So now I will either have to move dirty laundry or haul it all to my mom's house- because the repair people can't get here until after we are gone. OK, no biggie (I hope, I think, maybe) So we are scrambling around trying to round things up and organize and have everything ready to be packed- God Help US! I have about three working lists and I am not sure that I won't need three more- my mind is skittering from one thing to another and I am a bit put out that I have to re-arrange my thinking around a mountain of dirty laundry. No matter, we will get moved, that's the good thing about military moves- they happen.
It looks like this:
Movers here on the 6th for the storage unit
Movers here to pack the house on the 7th
Movers here to pack the boxes onto the truck on the 8th
Final clean up and last overnight on the 8th
Hitting the road on the 9th and heading north.
Resuming the house hunt on the 12th while living out of my parents basement.

The internet will be off on the 7th- so this may be my last post from the shores of North Carolina.

Gamers Week In Paradise is Underway

\

All of the guests have arrived and the gaming is well underway. It seems that even the one bathroom is not much of a hang-up. We have had beach time, Rock band, Apples to Apples, and LOTS of laughing and movie quoting. Evelyn is having a blast, I have never seen her so social, she goes to naps and bedtime completely happy and exhausted. So far I have no culinary disasters.