Our Move

Well, we made it! We are officially residents of North Carolina, and after today, I will have a new state driver's license, which may be a little hard for me to swallow, but at least people won't inspect my ID like it's fake every time they ask to see it.

We have been here for about three weeks (minus a week for a family vacation we took), but I want to go back to pre-move to document some of our last days in Houston.

When we first decided on coming to NC, my mind already started worrying about how in the world we were going to get all of our stuff here. On the other hand, Matt's mind started planning the best roadtrip ever! After much persuasion, I talked him into NOT driving a 28-foot UHaul truck with our entire house in the back, our dog in the passenger seat, and my car being pulled behind by a trailer (making the entire ensemble about 40 feet long! Did I mention HE wanted to be driving the thing? Ya, all of that terrified me and gave me nightmares (and I am not exaggerating about the nightmares).

I knew that in order to ruin his "best roadtrip ever" plan, I had to come up with something good, so I did my research, and I found some companies, and one in particular that matched our budget, that would send our stuff across the country to let us meet it there. The company we used was called U-Pack, and it was exactly what it sounds like... YOU (us) PACK. Here's the deal: you pack everything you own in boxes, and then a driver comes to your house, drops off a trailer and then leaves. You then pack all of your boxes/stuff in that trailer as best you can (crossing your fingers that it makes the 1,200 mile journey without being completely destroyed). Then, for a small fee, you can actually choose the day your stuff is delivered to your new house. So, this is what we chose to do.

I wasn't aware at first, but I apparently married a master-packer, which is awesome. Single ladies, add that quality to your "Must Haves" for your future hubby. Seriously, he worked so hard to get all of our things packed and packed well. I owe our stuff not getting destroyed to him. Just check out some of our furniture items... #saranwrapisyourbestfriendwhenmoving <-- that hashtag should be trending.

Once we had everything pretty much packed, we took a quick trip to visit as much of our family as possible. Since my family all lives in Houston, the trip was really to see Matt's family. We got to visit both of his grandmothers, both of his parents, and his brother and our new sister-in-law. We also got to do two Texas-things that we hadn't done before. While we were in Waco visiting his brother, Sam and Sam's wife, Shannon, we went to Magnolia Market (the Texas "landmark" made famous by the hit show Fixer Upper. We also went to the Fort Worth Stockyards with Matt's mom while we were in Fort Worth.

We got back on a Saturday, and the trailer and movers came on Monday. We ended up hiring two men from a small moving company to help us load all of the boxes and furniture into the trailer. They were clutch, because they were speedy and knowledgeable about how best to pack everything in the truck. Here we are right before closing up the trailer. And below that, what our house looked like afterward. 

A very confused golden retriever and three tennis balls. Crazy, Since everything was now packed, we had planned to stay a couple of nights at my parents' house before going to the bayhouse for the Fourth of July. During our last couple of nights in Houston, some of our amazing friends threw us a Texas farewell party. We left some dear friends back in Texas and can't wait for them to come out to NC! 

After leaving Houston, we went to Galveston to stay for the Fourth of July holiday. We were there for five wonderful days, and got to spend some quality time with my family before leaving Texas. 

We came back to Houston Sunday evening, and here we are bright and early Monday morning to start our journey east. 

We drove all day on Monday, leaving at about 5:30am from Houston, stopping a few times for gas, bathroom breaks, and food, and we arrived in Atlanta, where we were staying for the night at about 8:00pm after the time change. We checked into our hotel, and immediately left to go get dinner. When we got back, we cleaned up and went to bed in an attempt to get some much-needed rest. The following morning, Tuesday, Matt woke up at about 3:30am to get on the road to meet our moving truck which got to our house at about 11am. My mom and I left at about 7:30am to make the 5 hour drive to our new home. After three days, we had every box unpacked and all pictures hung on the walls.

We left for a family vacation on that Saturday, so having everything mostly finished was a priority of mine. It felt great to be able to leave knowing that we wouldn't have a ton of work to do when we got back. We loved getting to spend eight days in Palm Springs playing golf and hanging out by the pool without any unpacking looming ahead. I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted, but here are a few from the golf course on the day of our family tournament and from the pool (with Matt's lifeproof-cased iPhone).

We got back to North Carolina on the 18th, and we hit the ground running. Matt is already in his second day of official orientation, but he has been working and studying for a couple of weeks now, and I have been working in my classroom for a couple of days, but mostly enjoying being in our new home with the dog, running errands, and exploring this new city.


Will update more soon! Happy Thursday, friends! I'm off to get my new driver's license! Fingers crossed they let me! ;)