Moving Weekend...back to Oregon!

Moving weekend at this point is all a blur. Mary and Gary got to our house Friday afternoon, after I had been without Alex for 4 days, and totally saved the move. We were able to get everything done we needed to, and play lots as well. I seriously can't say enough about how much help they were, but my facebook statuses kind of explain. My status from Friday morning is that I got into the shower with my breakfast (toaster waffles) in hand...breakfast ruined :(. Then, Saturday mid-day I said that I had gotten more sleep in two days than I could remember in weeks. The immediate turn around was amazing, and it was just really nice to see some friendly faces!

Olivia didn't take much time getting reacquainted (we had seen the Casqueiros in March, so it hadn't been too long) and was thrilled to have someone besides her boring mom to play with. Saturday morning we all got dressed nice (ok so Olivia looked great, and the rest of us just walked counted on her getting the attention) to visit Mary's Aunt Marie. This makes Marie Olivia's Great Great Aunt, and she lived about half an hour from our apartment in Fresno. We were so glad to get the opportunity to go see her before we moved back.

Just a couple happy girl pictures on the way to the car that morning. These are some of the first pictures where Olivia just looks like a kid to me. It may be her hair pulled back, but her expressions and independence contribute to the fact that her baby-ness is totally gone.

As any mom would be, I was really nervous going to visit Aunt Marie. I am bringing my 18 month old who loves to explore into a new environment. I have no idea if she will be the crazy child that occasionally appears or the angel child that normally graces us. The house is beautifully decorated with family treasures, and I only have a few toys that I brought with me in my purse. So going in, I was prepared to be rude and only talk for a minute before I took Olivia outside to play. However, Aunt Marie was so wonderful, and Olivia did very well. She did find some things she wanted to explore and see, but was careful when I asked her to be, and quiet enough to let us chat. I had a wonderful time meeting Marie, and was glad to get this picture of Marie, Mary, and Olivia before we left. She is a wonderful lady, and very fun to chat with.

Saturday afternoon we mostly packed and organized, because my parents would get to Fresno with the moving truck on Sunday morning. They spent the first half of the weekend moving Emily down to Sacramento from Corvallis, and spent the second half moving our little family back up...THANKS!

I wish I had pictures of the moving truck. I was really worried, because we had accumulated some stuff while in Fresno (mostly baby and kid stuff) and were using the same size of moving truck. I shouldn't have been worried at all though, because between the two Gary's, there was a good 2 feet left in the truck when it was fully packed. In fact, we didn't even disassemble Olivia's crib before moving it. I was amazed.

Sunday after all the packing was complete and our apartment was empty (save some overnight stuff for us and an air mattress and some clothes for Alex, who was staying behind to finish his job), we had some extra time so we went back to the splash park! I couldn't believe that we had time to play on moving day, but it was really fun to go with all the grandparents, and I basically just sat on the park bench and let them all play together. My dad was leaving that evening (to get a head start with the slow-moving truck), so we went out to dinner before he left. Alex flew into the Fresno airport at 7, so his parents picked him up and met us at the restaurant. What this meant was that Olivia, who was already WAY beyond her realm of normal and completely exhausted, went to a restaurant in pajamas at bedtime. Probably not the brightest idea, and the craziness was compounded when in walks her daddy, who she hasn't seen all week, and not a lot for the 3 weeks before that. Let's just say it was a loud meal, and I was glad we were at Applebee's :). I really wanted Olivia and Alex to be able to play and stuff, since we would be leaving him for another 10 days or so - honestly we didn't know whether it would be a week or 3 weeks - so I was okay with loud at dinner.

Here's the picture of everyone together (I'm behind the camera), and you can see Alex trying to smile through his grimace of holding Olivia, and the grandparents all holding back snickers :) I love it!

And then we started the move process. I went with my mom to the store after dinner to get moving snacks and a couple things Alex needed, and left Alex to put Olivia to bed (on her mattress with no crib). It might not have been the best plan, because Olivia refused to go to bed for him, and ended up only sleeping a few hours that night. Alex and I were in desperate need of some time together, which we didn't get enough of, and by the time morning came, I was a wreck. It was unbelievably hard to leave Alex again, not knowing when he would be able to join us in Oregon, and knowing that I was taking Olivia by myself, after doing the solo pregnant parent thing for too long already. This whole experience has really made me appreciate my wonderful husband and respect parents all over the world who face single parenting every day.

So the actual logistics of the move was a little crazy. My dad left in the moving truck Sunday evening. My mom, Olivia and I left in our Escape at 7 AM on Monday, and Mary and Gary left about an hour after that. We didn't carpool because our car was going to stop to see Emily's new place (I hadn't seen her since Christmas) in Sacramento. The morning went very well, once I got past my tears. We made goo time right up until about Shasta, then things went the way travelling with a toddler is 'supposed' to go. Olivia had three blowout diapers in the span of three hours, ran out of travel clothes (which meant unpacking the back of the car to get at more diapers and clothes, I just didn't expect to need more than two extra outfits :) ), and was overall restless and ready to get out of the car. She developed her worst diaper rash ever, and refused to sit down or lay down (diaper changing was an adventure) for the last few hours, and wasn't eating very well. Here's a picture of the outfit she ended up in...not exactly her usual matching clothes but I didn't care. We are eating at a McDonald's, where she refused to eat a bite until my mom just gave her the whole hamburger...which she ate wonderfully. At this point I was very forgiving, and feeling bad for her uncomfortable situation, so we just kept trucking until we finally got to the Johnson residence in Philomath.

Tuesday (May 29th) was truck unpacking day. Our stuff was being divided into storage and the Casqueiro house (where we are now living), so it was a slightly complicated process, and I needed to be totally involved. This was made a little difficult by the fact that I had had no sleep, had a grumpy, sick toddler, and was pregnant enough that I couldn't actually move anything, but luckily for me, my amazing family came to the rescue again :). I drove up to Salem, my dad drove the truck up, and Gary, Ashley, Andy, and Travis met us at the storage unit to help unload/babysit. Somehow in all that mess, Olivia ended up without shoes, so I was really glad Ashley was there to entertain her until we could find a bin of too-big shoes to put her in.

Unloading went very fast, and after we were fairly sure the storage stuff was in storage and the house stuff was back in the truck, my dad headed out (we were interrupting another work day for him...thanks again dad!) and the rest of us headed back to the Casqueiros for some more unloading. Again, I can't say enough about the help we received. There is NO WAY I could have pulled off this move without everyone involved, and it was 10 times easier than I thought it would be.

After returning the truck and going to lunch, we headed back home (to our new home) to relax for the afternoon. Olivia and I were actually spending the week in Philomath with my parents, so I wanted to get our stuff as out of the way and put away as possible before leaving again, but I ended up just relaxing and chatting with family, and left all the unpacking for another day.

As you can see from the next few pictures, Olivia was again enjoying the new friends and entertainment, and loved showing off for everyone who was so anxious to see her new tricks :)

She had never warmed up to a guy as fast as Travis, but the iPad was a great ice-breaker!

Watering the plants with Grandma before we left. This has become one of her favorite parts of the day, and I'm sure she will be sad when it starts raining again and the plants don't need watered every day.

Right after dinner we headed back down to Philomath for the week. I was really glad to have the chance to hang out with my family before we officially moved to Keizer, because even the hour-long trip to visit happens far less than it should. It was also a blast to let Olivia just explore. Living in apartments, especially in Fresno, has meant that she doesn't have as much freedom as I would like, and she took full advantage of the bigger house and large backyard to explore during our time in Philomath. Here she is on the first day, just discovering the dirt pile (a dirt/sand mixture) on the side of the house...hours of fun that I was thrilled to let her have, just as long as she was wearing grubb clothes!

We had lots of fun adventures during our week in Philomath, but this is officially the end of my May pictures, so they will be in the next post :) The last little gem is a picture Olivia took of her goofy grandpa...a budding photographer if I do say so myself!