In The Midst of the Move

Well, Tuesday was pack boxes day (I didn't pack ONE!!!) and Wednesday was load the truck day. I carried just one box! I must say, it was AWESOME having movers do all the work! On Wednesday, I was able to clean the house while they packed and other than the kitchen floor and a few touch-up paint spots, the whole place was done by the time I left! It was sooooo wonderful!

The guys that helped were experienced and totally knew what they were doing. They've all been doing this for about 25-30 years! Everything was packed carefully and treated with great care. I laughed when I saw a bag of chips being carefully wrapped in paper and stacked in a box so as not to crush the chips.

When it came time to load the truck I was pretty amazed to see the guys loading the truck by carrying either one or two boxes ON THEIR BACKS! It was really interesting to watch. I tried one box and found it to be really easy. By grabbing the box behind their back they were able to support their back, not use their stomach muscles as much and navigate the stairs easier. It is supprisingly easy to do. Just reach one arm to the very back of the box and the other hand grabs the bottom corner right by your hip. You should try it if you don't believe me. The main mover was from the East coast and he said that's how most of the movers do it back there because of all the stairs to navigate. In the West, many movers use dolly's...which is what we've always used. I didn't see a dolly until the very end of the day. Anyway...all in all it was a great move and definitely a way I would LOVE to move in the future. Oh, and we use Atlas Van Lines for those interested in the company.

Phil will be receiving the shipment tomorrow morning in CO! Yippee! The timing worked out perfectly as tomorrow is the day he needs to leave the hotel.

I'm enjoying my spring break and was able to go to the pool today to get a good start on my summer tan while reading a book and swimming a few laps. Boy did it feel good!!!

Packing Day

Well, it's finally arrived. The day the movers come to pack up all our belongings. I was up until 1:00 AM trying to finish cleaning the fridge and making sure I have everything I need for the next two weeks. I am pretty tired this morning but woke up with no alarm...probably because my body is anticipating what this day holds. The movers should be here pretty soon and before they come I need to drop some thihgs off at my friends' house where I'll be staying. What an adventure!

A Time of Lasts

So, as Phil and I head to Colorado, we are experiencing (and have experienced) many lasts in our time in California. Before Phil left, we went to Mammoth Mountain for one last time. It was a long drive and we were a bit tired from all of the move prep but we had a wonderful weekend together. As many of you know, when we traveled to June Mtn. or Mammoth, we usually slept in our car to save money. Since we'll be living so extremely close to mountains in CO we will probably not have much need for sleeping in our car anymore. So, this may have been our last time sleeping in our car for a snowboard trip. Many of you who are not as strong in heart, might wonder how one sleeps in a car in sub-freezing weather. I will show you in the following pictures. :) Don't worry, we stay quite warm (as long as the sleeping bag stays zipped up). It was really windy this night as a storm was coming in and it felt like the SUV was going to blow over. The wind was crazy that night!

That storm that came in during the night made our last Mammoth trip one of our hardest. Phil has a BRIGHT orange jacket and the visibility was so low that a few times at the top of the mountain, Phil was only 10-15 feet away from me and I couldn't see him at all. It was scary at times. Most of the mountain ended up being closed due to high winds and low visibility. We only managed to do about 10 runs or so before we had to head off the mountain. We took the shuttle back to our car (thankfully we had chosen not to drive to the lodge). The traffic in town was CRAZY because no one could see to drive and the cops were guiding people onto the freeway about 45 cars at a time. See pics of us sitting in traffic. It took about 1-1 1/2 hours to go about 2 miles out of town. Just sitting in traffic, sometimes the winds would blow up the snow so we couldn't see the car in front of us. Once we finally got to the freeway that happened one time and it was quite scary because we were moving. However, within about 2 mins of getting on the freeway, the sky cleared up and we had blue skies overhead. It was really weird. One minute we were in a storm and the next we were under blue skies. There wasn't much of a transition. I hope you enjoy the pictures of our LAST trip to Mammoth...at least for awhile.














Packed and ready to go.





















Phil just finished waxing my board. Looks beautiful huh? He does a great job!
















THIS is what we look like when we sleep in the car. Baklava's keep us warm (as well as a zero degree sleeping bag!)















Phil looking through the "luggage" in the front seat. Everything goes in the front when we go in the back.
















Looking out our window after we wake up. Here's our storm!

















This is what it looked like as we headed out of Mammoth. This is the car in front of us during a "good visibility" moment.















"Poor visibility" on the road. This is why it took over 1 hour to go such a short distance.
















Moving out of the storm. Blue sky ahead. Crazy huh?















Some of the interesting clouds we saw on the 395.















A pic of the mountain with the storm and the blue sky valley.

Now, if you want to sleep in your car, you'll know exactly what to do!

New Apartment Pictures

I have to thank my sweet husband Phil for being willing to take pictures of our new apartment and for emailing them to me. He sent me 31 pics of our place. :) So, thanks to him, I can now share some pics of the new place with my blog friends. Can I just say that I LOVE the loft and the HUGE storage area we have! I hope you enjoy the pics as much as I did. We only walked through the place for about 10 minutes and I forgot how some of the condo looked.














Stairs leading up to the loft















Loft storage...did I mention I love this area!














Loft (notice the 2 closets in addition to the storage area!)















Other view of the loft















Living Room















Our beautiful laundry room!















One side of kitchen















Other side of kitchen















Down the middle of kitchen...area for kitchen table by the window.
















Guest bedroom. That closet has another half...it goes across the whole wall.

















Dining area and front door (it's on the right side)

Pretty sweet place huh? I'm excited about moving there. Right now I'm envisioning all of my stuff in the apartment. It'll be an adventure!

We Got the Apartment!!!

I flew out to CO last weekend to help Phil look for a place to live. We unfortunately weren't able to find very much. We were only able to look at two places one which we ruled out on the four mile dirt road out to see it. The other place we loved but we knew someone else had already applied for it. We didn't know if we'd get it or not. We've been praying that we would get it as we found that the market is very tight in CO where we're moving to. We got the call today that we got the condo!!! Yipee!!! We now have a place to live. I'll make sure to post pics in a few weeks.

Profile Pic

I decided to change my profile pic as I was looking through some old pictures from my childhood.
This photo was taken at the Philadelphia Zoo circa 1986 or so. I don't know why I was making that face but I've always loved this picture.

Survived the week

Well, I survived the craziness of this week and thought I'd let you all know. I am currently working on report cards which take quite awhile. I only have 18 days left of school and six of those are minimum days and three are full days where I will be transitioning to the new teacher, Anna Roney. Oh, and one of those days I will probably in Colorado looking at places to live. That leaves me with only 8 "regular" days of teaching left! Wow! I'm going to be in CO in no time. It's amazing to think about the things that still have to be done. My goal is to have all of the students' effort grades and L.A. grades done before Monday. I already have 9 comments done and those take forever!

Phil called me last night when he reached the hotel he'll be staying at. He arrived about 6:30 and sounded like he was doing good. He starts his new job on Monday so please keep him in your prayers.

***I still want to post about our trip to Mammoth. I will try to do so later this weekend. I've included another picture from our trip. The sun was just setting behind the mountains.