Carolina in May

 Carolina in May is perfect.  The magnolia's are blooming, the temperatures are warm and the pool and the beach are available for fun.  I hopped on a plane and went to stay with Libbie and the kids in the middle of Jeff's Thailand school tour.  I was hoping to ease the pain of his absence and help Libbie catch up on some sleep at night by getting up with Xander.  At the very least, I provided a change and a distraction for the kids.  I was able to help at church, help out at night take the kids to the pool and do a little birthday shopping with Liberty.  Her birthday comes up this week.  Happy Birthday, Liberty!

 Xander is on the small side, but oh so cute, alert, and full of smiles a lot of the time.  He can get grumpy if he doesn't get enough sleep.  So we worked hard to keep him fed and let him nap.

 Saturday night, Liberty's friend hosted a birthday party and invited several families.  She had lots of activities for the kids including a jump house, cotton candy, cooking decorating and a dance contest.  While others were dancing, I got to hold and care for Xander.  I enjoyed seeing everyone have so much fun.  It was a nice evening.

 Here's the birthday girl, Jackie, admiring all of Sadie's fancy cookies.  Sadie ate cookies all week. 

 Here's Sadie leading the music for family home evening.  Benson was always in charge of finding and reading the scriptures.

 There was a special night for locals at the Carolina Opry so we left Xander with Libbie's friend and took Sadie and Benson to the performance.  It was 2 1/2 hours of excellent singing and dancing.  Everyone was tired but it was a very fine show.  We liked it a lot!

 Here's a picture of Xander that shows the dimple in his cheek.  His smile is soooo cute.
 The morning I left, Libbie, Xander and I took a short walk on the beach.  It was beautiful and not at all crowded first thing in the morning.  Even on that short walk, Libbie found 5 or 6 shark teeth.  It is amazing how their family members can spot those tiny things in the sand.  I don't have that ability.

 I was sad to leave before Jeff arrived home, but he did make it back the next day. 

The Rest of the Story

 On our way back from our Idaho visit, we had to stop by the weekend place to drop off some more of our stuff.  Thanks to Adam and Hilary for helping us unload AGAIN!  I hope all of this loading and unloading will end soon.  It was very nice though to see several of my kids and grandkids on Mother's Day!  It added to my enjoyment of the day.  That's for sure.

Later that night, we drove out to the airport about 1 a.m. to pick up Taylor.  He had a quick trip to the states for business meetings.  We saw him for a few hours on Monday and were able to grab a bite  of the local Mexican food for dinner and then he was off to the north for the next three days.  He came back on Thursday nite and was able to quickly pack 4 suitcases of food, etc. much of which I had purchased from Jen's shopping list.  Hope all arrived safe and sound.
The next morning we drove to the airport together as he left for China and I left for MB, South Carolina.  It was such a short visit, that I don't even have a picture of him.  He was actually here though.  We really saw him.

Breakfast In Bed...& More

It was delightful to wake up this morning to breakfast in bed courtesy of Aaron, Tanner, Brinley, Jantzen, Anna, Elsie and Quinn.  It was not only delightful but delicious.  Thanks, guys! What a nice beginning to Mother's Day!

Friday we left our condo and headed north fully packed with another load of stuff.  We unloaded, put things away and dropped in bed exhausted.  Saturday we headed north to do some painting repairs on our Idaho house and visit with the M family for Mother's Day!

We arrived too late to purchase the necessary paint so we bought flowers at KMart and went to weed flower beds and plant flowers in the front of our house.  The grass and weeds in the beds were totally out of control.  It was really bad and we were so disappointed to see it like that.  It certainly didn't help the house show well for selling. For about 7 hrs with lots of hard work, and help from Heather and the grandkids, we hauled out buckets and buckets of grass and weeds.  When we finished planting the flowers, there was a significant improvement.  

We also managed to squeeze in an excellent gymnastics' performance by Anna and Elsie.  These photos are poor because the kids were moving and it's hard to focus on the zoom setting.

 We also loaded our fridge and the china cabinet from the storage room up there.  We are very tired of looking like the Beverly Hillbillies with our moving stuff.  We have about one more big load to haul.

 We attended church with their family.  The kids sang in Sacrament Meeting.  I love it when the kids sing, especially when some of them are my grandkids. All of the meetings were very nice.  I thoroughly enjoyed the 80+ year old Relief Society teacher.  She stood in front of the table with no notes and quoted amazing quotes and stories.  What a vessel of wisdom!

 Aaron prepared an superbly delicious roast beef, mashed potatoes and veggie dinner.  Thanks, Aaron.  It was really yummy.  Heather gave me a quick foot zone and we were off with our load to Utah.  Someday we will be finished moving STUFF!

 This is what Elsie ate for dinner.  The family ate an entire watermelon along with everything else.
I loved spending Mother's Day with kids and grandkids.  Thanks to those of you far away for your phone calls and messages. You are all the light of my life!!!

WHEW!

 It feels like we have been moving for months.  Oh, that's right.  We have been.  We started painting the new house right after Thanksgiving and moving some things in gradually up there.  We moved a couple of loads from Idaho when we visited there.  Then we put our house on the market and got serious about moving more things.  When we sold it and passed our inspections, we really stepped up the program--removing pictures, and smaller furniture and of course, food storage.  A couple of weeks ago, after I returned from Pennsylvania and Steve returned from S. Carolina, we really started moving things to our rented condo in the valley. 

 Hilary, Adam and the kids came down for a soccer game and stayed over night to help--especially with the files and the office.  The next week Heather and the kids came to the dentist and they helped move food storage and a lot of the decor.

 Last Friday we scheduled a moving truck and rented some muscles with arms and legs and moved our big furniture items.  We dropped off file cabinets, beds and a couch at the condo and then Steve drove the truck up north to the house.  Adam had a couple of friends help us unload.  The weather was perfect and all went well. 

 We busily spent Saturday putting together shelves for the storage room and earnestly unpacking lots of boxes.  Back at the condo, we put beds together and put things away.  It looked cozy but cute.  Sunday night we spent our first night in the condo. 
Monday morning Steve flew out to Florida for corporate meetings.  I seriously tried to keep clients happy and still move the rest of our stuff to the condo, cancel or transfer services, etc.  Many thanks to Steve Kerr, the master cleaner of the universe, for his help these last two days.  In spite of a nasty cold, he worked tirelessly helping us with the final cleaning. 

This afternoon, we signed the papers to sell our house.  Two hours later, it was recorded into the new buyers' names.  Three hours after that we locked up our beautiful, shiny clean home and drove away for the last time.  Whew!  It's over.  Now we will work on finishing the organizing of our two separate living places.  Hope this works out well!  We are on to our next adventure.