Moving to the Ohio

After we returned from our quick trip to Ohio, we got down t the business of getting ready to move. I worked on trying to find someone to rent our place, continued to work the transition of the business to Ryan's parents, and thought about how I needed to get packed. There was so much to do in such a short time! And it was so quickly that we had to say good-bye to all of our friends. We kind of dropped two bombs at the same time. "I'm pregnant, and we are also moving." It was a shocker.

I had some great help from my in-laws and also from my friend Rachel with packing. They came the Saturday before we moved and helped us pack a lot of our stuff. I could hardly believe how many boxes we continued to fill, and there was still more stuff! I had no idea how much stuff we had and it was kind of mind-blowing.Where did it all come from?! I guess when you have everything delivered, piece by piece, it all really adds up. All of our furniture we bought and had delivered to our place, and most of our kitchen stuff was wedding gifts, many of which came via mail.

Wednesday was a beautiful sunny day in Virginia, and we were ready to pack the truck the next day. Our plan was to take the day to pack it, stay the night at Ryan's parents' house, and then leave Friday morning for the drive. Our plans changed very quickly when we woke up to this!

Over 14 inches of light powdery snow had fallen in a single night! We were completely snowed in. Our friends, the Dows braved the roads in their Four Runner to get some groceries and were great to bring us some milk and snacks. We had packed almost everything at this point and had no food really accessible to eat in the house, and most of the perishables had been thrown out. Most of the morning we just continued to get ready to leave, although it was pretty obvious we'd not be packing the truck that day.

There was a beastly amount of snow to remove. Thank goodness we found a shovel in our closet that the owners left!

Ryan went out in the afternoon and spent about 4 hours digging out our cars, as well as a few of the elderly neighbors. I helped for a little bit, but just by brushing the snow off the tops of the cars, creating more for him to shovel. :) Thankfully the Dows saved us again that evening by having us over for dinner. We are really going to miss them when we move.

We delayed packing the truck until Friday morning, but it took us much longer than we expected to get it all done. Dan and Ryan's family came to help us and they did an amazing job to get everything to fit. There were very few things that we had to leave behind at Ryan's parents. I attribute part of that to Dan's puzzle skills, and part to Ryan's brute strength.

We didn't get away until almost 5. It seemed almost ridiculous to leave at 5 pm to move to another state, but we were watching storms closely, and it was going to snow all day in the mountains the next day, so we needed to get through the mountains if at all possible--it was supposed to be clear until 9 pm or so. So we hit the road. Ryan ended up with the bad end of the deal though. The cab of the van smelled bad, like it was something coming in through the heater. So he bundled up and rolled down the windows and froze all evening as he drove. By the time we stopped, he had a pounding headache from the smell, and well as freezing cold hands. We stayed the night in Morgantown, West Virginia. I guess you could say we went on a romantic getaway to a hotel in the middle of the mountains for Valentine's day. That sounds a whole lot more charming than other ways the day could be described.

The next morning, it had snowed a few more inches and the snow was still falling. We hadn't made it all the way out of the mountains yet. We waited a little bit, until we felt like the roads had probably had enough time to be cleared. As we got going, I got ahead of Ryan and he ended up getting squeezed into the wrong lane and turned south when the road split. It was difficult to navigate the traffic with snow and such a large vehicle. To make matters worse, the windshield wiper then flew off the car! I had to turn around and meet Ryan and we got the wiper fixed at an auto shop that just happened to be right off the nearest exit.

The rest of the drive went smoothly and we arrived in Columbus 15 minutes before the apartment complex office closed for the day. I had just enough time to sign the lease and pick up some keys, and they locked the door behind me on my way out. Phew! We had a few people from our new ward come and help us get moved in, which was absolutely a blessing to us. The missionaries from our ward came and I think we have the strongest missionary in the Columbus mission. Or at least, we have one of the Tongans of the Columbus mission.

They were having a difficult time getting the smaller section of our sectional up the stairs because there's a turn at the top of the stairs. They said there was no way they'd get the second section up that, so the solution was to open the balcony door off the kitchen on the second floor, hoist the couch up from the truck, and take it in through the balcony. Well, three guys pushed up from below, and our missionary wrestled that couch up almost completely by himself, swung it the right direction and with a little guidance, got it through our door.  It was astounding. A few weeks of unpacking and decorating have ensued. If I get to it, there will be pictures of our new place sometime!