The Move

I wanted to start from the beginning of our move to Lexington. Many of you have heard stories about our move from Birmingham to Lexington but maybe haven't seen pictures. I don't think you can really understand what the move was like until you have seen Mom and Chip's sleeping arrangements the first night. Both, I feel, look a lot like a scene from Taken, starring Liam Neeson. I'll let you decide for yourself. But, first, we had to move out of our apartment at 3513 Erica Way, and we had a lot of work to do! And because I have felt the need to paint every rented space I've ever lived in, we had to repaint.

Mom was there to help the whole way! We couldn't have done it without her.

Discussing whether it is better to brush or roll . . . . Everyone knows it's better to roll (Hghm)

We have wonderful friends and family that helped us move. Thanks to our peeps. You know who you are .

We had a really fun experience with the moving truck. That morning Jonathan and I went to pick up the 24' truck that we had reserved through Budget. When we got there, they told us that they didn't have a 24' truck. The one that they had expected to return did not, and they only had a 16' truck. This should not have surprised me, as I work for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. If any of you have seen the Seinfeld episode parodying rental car companies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSZYsyrP3Co), this kind of thing, unfortunately, happens sometimes. I had to ask myself the same thing that Jerry asked--what is the point of the reservation? After reluctantly taking the 16' truck, we went home and continued on with a new mission. We were going to be the first people ever to fit 800 square feet worth of stuff into a 16' truck. As many of you know, Jonathan has a lot of clothes. We were planning on using over half of the space on the 24' truck for Jonathan's clothes, and now our space was nearly cut in half. With no other options and a few of our friends and family there to help, we proceeded to load the 16' truck. You should have seen the skill and precision used to load this truck, knowing that every inch could make a difference. As we got to the end and still hadn't loaded all of Jonathan's clothes, we realized the truck was not going to be big enough. Long story short, we had Josh (our negotiator) call Budget and try to work out some kind of deal for a discount, free rental, basically anything to help with our situation. Budget declined to give us the rental for free, however, they did have a 24' truck return that they said we could have for the price of the 16' truck (big whoop). So, as you can guess, we (and I'm not sure how to do the line through the word thing or else I would do it right here) the guys had to take our already loaded, Tetris-packed 16' truck back to Budget to unload it and reload all of our stuff onto the 24' truck. Needless to say, we have some pretty awesome family and friends who were willing to do this. We owe you big! And thanks to your hard work, Jonathan has been voted best dressed 2L at school :)

Good-bye Grand Highlands! You were a great first home for our first year of marriage.

Skipping forward a day . . . . we made it to Virginia! I know Jonathan and Chip were tired, because we had to unload the truck as soon as we arrived. I think this picture says it all.

Welcome Home!

So, if your job was to paint the ceiling, you got to wear the very cool leopard print wayfarers . . . we all got a turn.

And, of course, we had to have an American flag. What house is complete without one? God bless America!