Orlando

As mentioned earlier, we left Sunday for a few days in Orlando to celebrate the completion of move #1 as well as the completion of Joey's Master's degree (congrats baby!).  Joey's friend, Craig (Tex), met us there.  Here's a few more pictures from the trip:

The three of us Monday night at Margaritaville.

Tuesday, at Epcot, for our unofficial Disney World Beer Tour.  The three of us split a beer in each of the ten countries: Moosehead (Canada), Boddington's (UK), Kronenbourg (France), Spaten (Germany), Tsing Tsao (China), Carlsberg (Norway, which come to find out is actually Danish beer), Dos Equis (Mexico), Birra Moretti (Italy), Kirin (Japan), and finally, Casa (Morocco).  

A vacation with Joey would not be complete without a tale of his plain dumb luck (SF Joey, as his mom likes to say).  We booked this trip a while ago through Hilton Grand Vacations.  We got a great deal on the hotel in exchange for a two hour presentation on their timeshares.  (Note to Hilton: next time you want someone to buy into your property, don't put them in a room with mold on the ceiling, a crappy old A/C unit and rusty tiles in the bathroom).  Anyway, Tuesday morning we were scheduled at 9 for our tour.  We got there, waited, waited and waited - finally, at 9:30 someone came over and said they were running behind and would it be alright if we didn't go on our tour?  So she gave us our $200 certificate good toward a future night at Hilton and then sent us on our merry way - no high pressure sales pitch or anything!  Only my husband is lucky enough to get a timeshare promotional rate and then not have to attend the promotion!

This afternoon we're off to Minneapolis for the Red, White and Boom Half Marathon on the Fourth of July and a long weekend with another one of Joey's college friends, Bill.

Some Lessons Learned

We officially closed on our house Friday - so even though we had 10 days to move, we were up until 3am Friday to finish packing.  We still had a few loads to make Friday morning - one to the dumpster, one to goodwill and a final one to the loft - so we woke up at 6:30 to finish.  We took the dogs on a quick walk around the block and upon our return, someone (Joey) realized he grabbed the wrong keys.  Instead of the apartment keys, he took the car keys.  Now this was an improvement from Tuesday morning, when he didn't grab any keys and we were stranded in our hallway with all three dogs to wait for the landlord (whom Joey called from the Hotel Fort Des Moines because we didn't have our phones either).  At least now we had a car, albeit full.  So Joey emptied the SUVload from 3 am into the basement storage unit (thankfully accessible through padlock) while I struggled to keep the dogs from attacking everyone that walked by on their way to work.  We then all loaded into the car and drove first to Joey's office (West Des Moines) to get the number for the landlord, then to his house to pick up the key (Johnston), then to Home Depot (Urbandale) to make a copy, which as luck would have it, Home Depot doesn't do, so then on to Strauss Lock, back to the landlord's house and then finally home.  So after 2 1/2 hours in the car with the dogs it was 10am and I had to work at 11, so Joey had to go back to the house alone and scramble to clean everything, patch the walls, touch up the woodwork and make the dumpster run, goodwill run and pack the rest...by closing time at 3. Very long day for both of us.  Here's what I'm taking away from this experience:

1. Ten days to move may seem like a great idea but it's not.  Everything you need is always at the other place and it just makes a painful process long and drawn out.  Move like you would take off a band-aid.  Fast.

2. Added to the list of adjustments I hadn't even thought about: keys.  We never used them in our house because we'd just drive into the garage and we had the garage keypad for when we weren't driving. 

3. We still have a ton of crap.  I really thought that we had done such a good job of paring down but after the last ten days, I now disagree.  After packing all the hiding places in the house, like under the sink in the powder room, I found a ton of stupid random things that take up space and are used infrequently, but I can't really get rid of, like vases and votives.

4. The chrome shelves Mom and Dad bought Joey a few years ago for Christmas have become invaluable.

5. A post-move vacation is a really, really good idea.  All marital strife is quickly forgotten when in the presence of Tigger and Pooh - and Tex.