The Last Official Weekend

There's only a week left until we begin the moving process. The movers won't be here until the first week of September but the kids and Jeremy and I will be camping out in the new place once school starts. We'll have 3 days hanging out with his parents and 2 days of sleeping on the floor until the furniture actually arrives. School and piano lessons start next week and so, really, this past weekend was our last little bit of free time before we head to Roanoke.

Jeremy was off for 4 days to get things done around the house but I didn't want to spend the weekend only working. And so on Friday we had the neighbors over for cards and drinks and chips and salsa and laughter. It was great, I won the poker game and the kids stayed up way to late :)

Saturday was all work and no play and so I was determined that Sunday would be different. I convinced Jeremy to go hiking with the kids and I early in the afternoon. It's no secret that I love heading up to Skyline Drive and there's a trail that I've been wanting to check out for months. It was an easy 2 mile trek to see some old Episcopal Mission ruins and the weather was perfect - 70 degrees up on the mountain.

The bugs were terrible because we were at a lower elevation than normal but the endless butterflies were beautiful. We found the ruins along the overgrown trail and passed an Appalachian Trail cabin (J and I keep talking about completing the 2000 mile trail once the kids move out...). There's not much left of the old mission. A few stone walls, some steps, and some random rusty metal...things. But it was fun and the kids had a great time climbing rocks and looking at the flowers that were insanely tall. I'm anxious to find new places to hike on the Blue Ridgeway Parkway (which will be less than 5 minutes from our new home) but I'm going to miss the spontaneous trips up on the Drive.

The weekend ended on a perfect note when our friends Dave (Uncle Dave!!) and Pat ("What? How does he rate Uncle status?") came over for dinner. I haven't laughed so hard about nothing for a long time and it was a great evening. I'm getting nervous about the move and knowing that I have visits like that to look forward to seems to make it all ok.

The next few weeks should start getting complicated so we'll keep you posted and let you all know the new address and phone number once we take over the lease for the apartment...Stay tuned.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

The past week has been filled with nothing but decision-making and paperwork. My brain and my pen is exhausted. We've signed our lease and checked out the local neighborhood (I can't believe it'll only take me 5 minutes to go shopping and 2 minutes to get to the school!). We've registered for school and bought all the school supplies and new clothes and shoes. We've signed up for gymnastics and piano lessons and taekwondo. We've scheduled a time for the movers to come and take all of our junk to the new house. We've met with Realtors and talked about the depressing housing market and made a plan. We've picked out siding and shingle and shutter colors. We've picked out paint chips for the living room (in case I can convince Jeremy to paint some more!). We've bought new carpet and thoroughly cleaned the house from top to basement. The backyard is almost done and I've written the new address so many times lately that I've almost forgotten the old. We're starting the move in 17 days and things are still going well. I'm tired and sure I'm forgetting to do something but we're getting there.