In Duluth

I have a couple of posts I want to write that I have not gotten to because the last week has been so crazy. I do intend to post about our dog, River, that we left in Columbus. I would also like to make a "farewell Columbus" post. Hopefully I will get to both of these in the next week as things settle down, but I thought it was important to first tell you all in the blogopshere that we made it safe and sound to Duluth.

Sunday - We went to my Grandma's house in Mt Vernon, where we met up with my brother, older sister, and BIL. Benji got to meet his Great Grandma and one of his Great Uncles, as well as the two uncles and aunt.

Monday through Wednesday - We spent these three days packing, cleaning, repairing. My BIL brought his truck and a 28 foot car trailer for us to pack into. He also has mad skills when it comes to anything carpentry related, so he set to work fixing the various things pets have eaten or broken. We never would have made it out of that house without all of their help. I was tied down by baby and physical limitations, so my sister did the majority of the actual packing into boxes while the boys did all sorts of cleaning and moving furniture and packing into the trailer. It was an insane three days!! Wednesday night the house was entirely empty and we stayed in a hotel nearby.

Thursday - After an hour at the house for final walk through and to pick up the pets, we were on the road!! But then we hit traffic leaving Cbus, and then we stopped because the guys decided we needed a heavier duty trailer hitch, and then our Buick had a nearly flat tire... but we did get moving eventually and amazing enough Benjamin was not the cause of any of the delays. He was a champ, mostly just slept while I was incredibly productive with the pump for breast milk. I averaged 2.5-3 oz per pumping, and this was off of one side each time! I was not expecting to do that well. We drove all the way up to Manistique MI that night, where my sister with her vet connections had arranged for us to be able to leave the pets overnight in a vet clinic. The night itself was rough. The baby had slept so much during the day he did not want to sleep much overnight and he wanted to be held all night. I took the brunt of the lack of sleep on so that DH would be alert to drive... not fun.

Friday - After Breakfast with my sister's vet friend, we made the last 6 hrs of the drive to Duluth. It went relatively smoothly though we  hit some bad weather in Wisconsin that slowed us down, but we made it eventually. When we got to my parents house the sun came out like some cheesy made for TV movie. I again was tied down by the baby while everyone else helped move us in. We are staying in two bedrooms in my parents house - one has the bed and one dresser, the other has a couple more dressers, our desktop computer, our rocker, and all the baby stuff. It was a challenge to figure out what needed to come off the trailer and what could stay on there "in storage" - quite stressful actually and there are still some "necessary" items that has not been found, but all the help was amazing.

And that is the story of our move! DH starts his new job tomorrow  (Monday). I need to get us unpacked, get our address switched over with everyone, start applying for jobs, and start looking for housing. What an adventure! We really took the plunge and are In Duluth!