Almost there!!

We are almost ready to leave Arkansas! Im sorry for not posting more, but we've been so weighed down with projects that needed to be finished before we could leave. We finally decided to rent the house instead of selling it. Its the market. Unfortunately we would not have been able to get anything from the house had we sold it. But that's ok. We found a nice family to rent it from us.

I have to admit, if you had told me 10 years ago that I would be doing the things I am, I would never have believed you. Here's a general recap of the last ten years of my life: 1999 I graduated high school, 2000 I had a job and got my own apartment, 2001 I got together with my hubby, 2002 I married him and had a baby, 2003 we moved to Arkansas from California, 2006 still in Arkansas and having baby #2, 2007 baby #3 and bought a house .. in Arkansas, and now 2009 moving back to California and renting out the house in Arkansas. That makes me officially a landlord. Who'd a thunk?

I cant say so much for some of the people we knew in high school. I've heard of a lot of them having troubles in life. Some are in jail, some are back with their parents, some are still with their parents, some have kids and are barely making it. But then there's some that are doing well for themselves. Those typically are the ones that you never hear from until something catastrophic happens. We've been lucky to have done so well. We arent necessarily at the top of the rungs but by and large we are doing well.

So back to our regularly scheduled program ... well, not yet. We have about a week until we are in California. Then we need to get settled in. So it might be a little while before you hear from me again. Hopefully the next time you hear from me, I will be settled in with my new home. I might drop in to let you know that I've made it there ok.

See you soon!!

Packing for the Move

We are pretty close to being done packing all our things! Thus the reason I havent posted in a while. We only have a few weeks left and its getting a little exciting! Packing is such a big task!

Preparing the Little Ones for our BIG Move

Moving is a really BIG deal for small children. They dont truly understand the whole thing while its happening. It may take some quite a while to truly understand that you arent in the same place and wont be seeing the same people once you are settled into your new place.


My oldest has had a few questions for us that have been a little difficult to answer. Difficult in the aspect of it being hard on him to understand the answer. Things like, will we be able to go to a certain friends house, or will we still be going to the same church, or will so-and-so be there too? The answer is always no.


So what have we been doing to prepare him (and the other two) is to talk about all the people he knows where we are going. All our family is in the area that we are moving to. We had the wonderful opportunity to have his cousin with us for a day the last time we visited. It was the county fair and they absolutely had a blast! (I did too!) He remembers her, his grandparents, and his aunts and uncles. The middle boy remembers a few of them as well. Sadly the little one doesnt remember any of them, but he will have a great opportunity to get to know them.


We've been talking about some of the things that they will get to do there in the town we will be in, like going to parks, the lake, tractor shows (yes, we really like tractors we even have a few of them, but thats a story for another day), the fair, fishing, all the fun stuff that we like to do as a family but dont do much of here because of the distance to everything.


One good thing that works to our benefit is the fact that the boys have already taken a trip there by car so they know that its going to take a while. Hopefully there will be a lot of stops for them to get out and stretch!

What ways do you prepare your little ones for a BIG move?

Its Official!

We have finally decided on an actual move date! It has been decided that we will be moving the first week in May. YAY! Now I can truly get serious about packing things up!

Children and Long Trips

As we get closer to moving, I have to start focusing on how we are going to get there. As you should know by now (if you've been following along for any length of time), we have three little boys. They are six years, three years, and almost two (at the end of April). This makes for some interesting dynamics for traveling across the country. Lucky for me they all love traveling. We did a trip to California last August and they all did beautifully the entire way. Thank you Dodge for having a built in TV in my van!

We will be taking longer to travel this time however, making a couple of stops along the way instead of trying to just shoot through in the shortest time possible. This means that we have to find ways to entertain the boys other than movies. So I wanted to go over some things we will be doing to occupy them and ourselves for the trip.

Backpacks! I have backpacks for each of the boys that I will be filling with toys and stuffed animals so they don’t have any way to complain that they are bored or don’t have anything to do. This is especially handy when you are in a hotel and all they want to do is play but you just want to sleep!

Toys: Most kids have at least one toy or type of toy that they really like to play with. For us that is cars. Thankfully we have plenty of them around that even if we left one at a hotel, it would never be missed! Another thing that works wonders for us is the dollar toys that don’t mean much. You can find the generic brand of magnadoodles at Wal-Mart and the kids absolutely love them. They are good for hours and hours of fun.

Movies: I mentioned the fact that we have a built in TV in the van. Wonderful invention I think. This makes for much easier driving. Before we had one I thought that it would be distracting to the driver, but really its not. It’s just distracting to the driver behind you! Seriously though, its not that bad. It breaks up the monotony of having to either find a radio station or putting in a music CD, and it keeps the kids occupied for a couple of hours at a time.

Comfort Items: Pillows and blankets are great things to have on a road trip, but I didn’t have to tell you that! :) My guys also like to have a stuffed animal to hang on to. They like the soft fuzzy feeling of their little friend.

Food: Coolers are wonderful things, but there's only so much you can put in them. I try to have a dry cooler and a cold cooler. The dry cooler is for things like snacks, bread, fruit, condiments that don’t need to be cooled, and drinks that don’t need to be cooled. The cold cooler is for things like sandwich meat, cheese, and cooling off sodas. I like to bring along things like string cheese, grapes, apples, oranges, granola, jerky, chex snacks, peanut butter, jelly, bread, and deli meats.

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Drinks: I separated this because it is a subject in itself. Having the proper hydration is a good thing on a long trip. Sodas are great for a pick me up but it shouldn’t be your only fluids for a trip. Keeping a couple of water bottles in the vehicle is a good thing. You don’t have to have a huge box of them, but having at least enough for the trip. Or better yet you can fill a large jug of water and get refillable bottles. For the kids I like to get Capri Sun for their flavored drink. It has less sugar than the other types and its real juice instead of fake flavoring. They need water too, don’t forget. You might want to get them a sports bottle to make it easier for them in the vehicle.


Take a break! It’s a long way from Arkansas to California. A loaded down truck and trailer plus a handful of kids dictates that there will be plenty of opportunities to stop along the way. Bathroom breaks are a great time to check the trailer for any issues, but its also a great time to check out the town you stop in. Find a park and let the kids run around a bit and stretch your own legs.

Act like a tourist! Since we will be taking our time on this move, we can actually stop and see some of the sights. I like being a tourist. I've driven past the Grand Canyon three times now and have not yet stopped to see the sights. I intend to do so this time.

This is the first in a series on moving long distance. Look for future installments on the subject of packing and preparing little ones for the big move.

Rubbermaid Tubs Work for Me!

When we moved from California we had limited space to bring things with us. We had our Jeep Cherokee and a small trailer. So we had to find the best way to bring things with us without leaving the important things behind. Lucky for me, Hubs is very good at packing things so that you can fit the most in a small space. In order to maximize our space usage we bought a bunch of 18gal Rubbermaid tubs (they sit together much better than some of the other brands) to put our things in. We were able to stack about 20 tubs on our small trailer. What didn't fit in the tubs was put in the Jeep. We had another car at the time as well so we could fit everything that was necessary in the Jeep without worrying about sitting room. The best thing is that the tubs were waterproof. It came in handy since we hit really bad rain in Texas! You can bet that when we are headed back to California we will be using the same method. We have a few more things to drag with us this time but we also have a lot more room to put things. So that's what Works for Me!

What's been going on

The house is getting cleaner and more clutter free. Bonus for me, I can finally see the floor in my room! I swear that we have WAY too many clothes!! I think that I'm going to start getting rid of the things that either don't fit or we don't use anymore. Its no use having them around if we don't use them right? I'm slowly getting rid of things around here. It's so freeing not having so many items around the house. I want to keep up with that. I think I will have a strict policy of not bringing in too many things when we don't really need them. There's a few things that I really want to have for the boys and for the Hubs and I but aside from those things there's no reason to go overboard.

I'm not sure what's going on as far as the move is concerned. We are in a holding pattern right now. Waiting for the job to show its face. To be completely honest with you, I really want to get this move over with. It seems like the longer we wait, the harder its going to be. Its already going to be really hard as it is. We've made a lot of friends here. Every time I see a friend, I hear the comment that they wish that we didn't have to go, or "That's so sad!" with a big frown added for emphasis. I think that part is the worst in this whole thing. As if I need another thing to bring me down on this whole issue. *sigh*

I have some pictures of the truck and trailer for you. I'm a little excited about them because I think that we did really good in getting them. What a great deal don't you think? And we've sold enough stuff to pay for three quarters of the price of the trailer! God is great! Now we have that money to put into the truck to make it better than it was before.

The Bull!

The tag along!

So there you have it folks! Proof that we are actually going to do this. I'm still anxious but I know that my God has me covered. I just pray that he gives me a spirit of thankfulness and obedience. Ive gotten so comfortable here that I don't really want to leave. However, I know that he has something special planned for me and my family so I wont complain. It'll be nice to have family and friends surrounding us and maybe even helping us out.