Thursday morning, the packers showed up to start packing up the house. Two ladies showed up and I thought, there is no way these two women are going to pack up everything in here by the end of the day! They were there for about 6 hours on Thursday and 1 hour on Friday morning, and they were done. Could not believe it. The downside is that they don't go through everything, so they ended up packing some stuff we wanted left out. All in all though, so much better than packing ourselves! I had some friends over Thursday night to say good bye, a very surreal experience. I still don't think it's sunk in that we've left Calgary. I'm not sure when it will hit me, when the loneliness will set in. So far it's been far too busy to feel lonely! The truck arrived Friday morning and they loaded everything up and were gone by 2pm. When you leave this stuff to the professionals, the efficiency is astounding! The driver said there was a remote chance we might get our stuff later this week, but most likely it will be mid next week. Too bad, Brian will already have started working, but what can you do! We had dinner at Bobbi and Jer's house and stayed in a hotel Friday night (Brian's parents had a room as well so they could see us off Saturday morning). Saturday we were off! Traveling that day went pretty well, we made quite a few stops (stopped in Sparwood for lunch and got some pics with the world's biggest truck:)). The border crossing was pretty uneventful, just took some time. We got to Spokane just as things were starting to fall apart for the kids - don't think they would have made it much longer! We were able to spend some time in the hotel pool with waterslide the next morning - I was so proud of Lynsey going down that big slide all by herself! Once she did it one time, she realized how fun it was and did it over and over again:).
The drive to Seattle wasn't too long the next day and so we killed some time at a local park by our house and had some supper before the walk through at 7. We've slowly been settling in and getting some things checked off the list. I think if we had realized how much there would be to do, we might have chickened out of this move. I just want to scream at everyone that I talk to that, NO - WE ARE CANADIAN AND DO NOT HAVE A SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER!! I seem to have to say this over and over again to everyone I talk to - they just don't even know what to do with you if you don't have one! Isn't America the land of immigrants?? Surely we aren't the first non-Americans these people have come across? I guess I should have predicted this, but I certainly did not predict that when I went to the DMV today that I would be told I had to take my learners and drivers test again! And I have to have some kind of interview to verify my residency. Ridiculous! My husband is here working for Amazon, I am his wife, therefore, I have residency here as well! Because my visa is a TD and not a TN I have to jump through these hoops. I want to yell at them all to just get over themselves and stop making this so hard, but I have to just move on. We made this choice knowing what the US was like, so I shouldn't be that surprised. Brian took his written and driving tests today and passed, so I'm hoping I can do the same - how incredibly embarrassing to fail!
Our kids are handling things pretty well, have slept fairly well which has been a life saver! Lynsey is a bit bored and a bit disillusioned with the house (the basement smells a bit, it's all just not as nice and new) but I think she is starting to come around. I found a trampoline on Craig's List today so we'll pick that up tomorrow, I think that will help some with the boredom! It looks like the neighbours have a few little girls, although Brian didn't know how old they would be (he just saw them in the backyard through the trees). I wonder if having a trampoline might encourage some of the neighbour kids to come introduce themselves! Adam is doing great, he loves all the dirt and weeds that he can sift through his hands - he is dirty all the time! Nathan doesn't know what's going on and is the same as always. I find it a bit funny how I was so scared to go from my new house to an old one and that I am already finding things I like much more in this house! I love being on the same level as the kitchen and living room, and we don't even have furniture yet! This kitchen is actually quite large with lots of cupboard space and so many drawers! And a lazy susan! Awesome! The counter tops are a terrible dull red colour that are hard to clean, but all in all I am happy with the kitchen:). Definitely having only one bathroom on the main floor will be the hardest thing to adjust to.
One thing we settled this week is that we are going to be renting out our house in Calgary on a one year lease. Our property management company found a family that had been renting with them already for the last year and a half and just needed a house for one more year until his own house was ready (I think he's building or something?). Apparently he's been a great renter so far (single dad with two kids, computer engineer just like Brian) so I feel a lot better going down this path. We will likely put it back up for sale in June while he's still in there and hope it sells quickly. Not as clean cut as a sale, but we just weren't getting offers that were good enough. We invested too much money in that place to give it away to someone who didn't want to pay quite what it was worth! The property management company helps us take care of most of the headache with taxes and all that, so that's good. Hopefully it works out well!
Tomorrow Lynsey's school opens, so I will call and find out about Lynsey entering Grade 1. She is a bit apprehensive of going to school here because she doesn't know anyone. What she doesn't understand is that it won't be any different than going to Grade 1 at her school in Panorama, because they were going to scramble up all the classes anyway. She will only feel this way for the first day and then she will see that all the kids are in the same boat, that she won't be the only one that doesn't know anyone. If there's one thing we know about Lynsey it's that she has the ability to make friends where ever she goes!
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