The Ninja and Na-nook from the North

I love once upon a time stories. They have such a once-upon-a-time-y feel.

Ahem. Once upon a time, there was Na-nook from the North. She wore a gray and yellow hat, drank cinnamon-bun lattes, and did not study for her math final on Friday night (true stuff, people). All of a sudden, out of the blue, shazzzammmm! There was a shadow behind her.

The shadow was a ninja! Complete with black gloves, scary expressions, and ten-year-old teeth, of course.

The ninja did not speak, but merely stared at the screen. Na-nook, understandably, screamed. Who wouldn't?

The ninja continued to stare, boggle-eyed at the screen while Na-nook's mouth dropped open.

The ninja said, "Nice hat." And Na-nook said, "Nice whatever-that-is-over-your-head."

Hm. Seems like the ninja is not the hugging type. No problem for Na-nook! So, they ended up getting along okay.

In fact, now they run a business called Gray Hats and Head Thingies For The Crazy People of the World.

It is incredibly famous.

You haven't heard of it?

No? Really? Areyoureallyreallysure????

Well....

Okay, maybe it doesn't even exist yet.

But it has a cool name already.

And the moral of the story is: Never leave an open box of winter clothes alone with a boy who likes to dress up and a girl who will do anything to get out of studying.

::the end::

we interrupt this moving series to announce

It is raining!!!

and it might rain all day!!

so exciting!!!

Our Move, part 2

Hey, it's Twinkle.

Well, whaddya know! Another post in the same season! Will the wonders never cease???

Anyway...we had lots of help this summer in prepping our house and this past August/September in packing our house.

Here are some shots of the crew...

{not pictured but thank you: Mrs. Anderson (for breakfast and boxing up the Christmas stuff with the Mom and for your incredible energy and love), Michelle Scanlon (for taking down every single curtain and curtain rod and for offering general support and advice, having just moved herself), and the Warings (for letting us use the pickup truck and for the seafood night).}

So. First, the prep work...

And Grandpa came to see us :) Thanks, Grandpa for driving sososososososo far to see us. :) We L.O.V.E you!!!!!

Go Nate and Chip!

OK... we really did work--a;ot... but when the family room is empty and the music is a playin'... well... we just couldn't help ourselves! (It was either the Electric Slide or Cotton-Eyed Joe. Can't seem to remember it right now...)

Bestest Buds.

Wrapping the TV.

Bryan, Chip, and the Dad.

Then, Moving Day arrived! Craziiiiiiness! A gigantic "thank you" to everyone who helped! :) To be honest, it felt like too much fun to be work...then again, it can't get much better than friends, football, memories, laughs, and slurpees :)

The Truck That Took Our Stuff. (thats what I call it)

Oh, these were the "professional" movers. Eh, I guess they were pretty good.

Nat & Liv: the not-so-professional movers.

The assembly line :)

I think that box was the Mom's wedding dress...the Mom: Eeek! Be careful, guys!

All ready for more stuff...

...and, somehow Natalie got mistaken for a box and was sent down the assembly line.

Looks like we got a little excited and had a slight (*ahem*) mix-up :)

Obviously, she didn't mind too much. :)

And then these local-yokels showed up for comedic relief in the midst of the craziness. Hahaha!

Now, everyone, to the storage unit!

Natalie, paying very close attention

Racing down the truck ramp

Deliciousness defined.

Hey, pretty girl. Love you!

Aunt Susan armed with the cart :)

So, after loading everthing out of the house and into the truck, grabbing slurpees on the way, carefully storing all our precious junk, throwing the football, and generally exhausting ourselves. :)

Good work, everyone!!

You guys are amazing. we couldn't have done it without you!


And we love you all.....

Our Move

This past summer we prepped our Maryland house to go on the market. We spent a good bit of our summer vacation there doing just that.

Imagine our delight when we had a contract a week after returning to Phx... never having to list it... AND to make it just too perfect--we were able to sell our house to friends!! We have tried for years to get these friends to move into our neighborhood...and now they were going to buy a house in the neighborhood--ours! Who would have guessed a quick visit to say hi would turn into a sweet deal for everyone! How kind of the Lord to orchestrate it that way!

So with contract in hand we knew we'd need to return to actually pack up the house.

After hours and hours and hours of research and dialogue and thinking and more research, we decided to store our stuff there and only ship out books, Christmas stuff and a few other special items we could no longer live without:) (legos, anyone?)


I thought about the move, packing and the administration of it all for weeks. I'd go to bed thinking about how i was going to pack everything, which room to start with , how to organize the kids' help, etc etc etc. I'd find myself walking thru stores thinking,"if I had that item, I'd probably give it away.." or "that item could be stored upside down to make the most room in our storage facility"...etc etc...

It was an all-consuming task.

Thank goodness it was summer time.


The dad and Twinkle weren't going to come until the weekend (Twinkle not until the last weekend) which meant I'd have 10 days and 3 kids to help to get it all packed up and ready for the truck to arrive.

I was so excited when the day to fly to Md arrived... to finally finally!! be doing something rather than thinking about it. Action was such a stress reliever.

SO.

Packing began.

In earnest.

In the basement/school room.

Uugh. The hardest room first.

It took me 2 hours to go through a filing cabinet.

Honest.

I was a little worried. I had only budgeted 1 hour for this task. (yes, i had a time table for each day... it was ambitious... but possibly do-able...maybe..with lots of help.)

Do-able. With help.

Lots of help.

Can i type that one more time....ambitious, yet doable with help.

And boy did i get help.

More help than i could have ever hoped for... More laughter, box building, paper rolling fun than I could have ever imagined.

Thank you dear friends for making moving possible and even enjoyable. You know I couldn't have done it without you. Or if I tried, I would have slept little, cried alot and barely laughed. Friends stopped their life for 10 days to help accomplish the task... putting their lives on hold to come participate fully in mine. Thank you.


Here are some pictures of our pack n move.



The prep area:





This was box number 9... I figured on about 60 boxes....we capped out over 90!
The younger neighborhood boys helped get boxes from the basement to the garage...we filled over 30 'banana boxes' with books to give away (what can i say--i am a homeschooler who loves book...there are many of us:)). But when they weren't answering cries for "More banana boxes" or "more to go upstairs", they provided us with lots of comedic relief....

See what i mean?
But after a day or two this is what my basement hallway looked like:


We hired professional movers to move and store Mimi's piano. Minnie played it one last time before we ALL--and i mean all 15 of us--watched the movers wrap and move the piano.



All giveaway and other larger items went into the garage..... it was amazing how much stuff we had we didnt' need....bags and bags and bags of clothes!!! boxes and boxes of books that Mickey is too old to read anymore .... extra kitchen stuff and decorator items i didn't want to have to store. Even looking at this picture now makes me so glad we got rid of all of it. I feel lighter already!!




boxes:

Boxes.....


and more boxes....

So that all that was left was furniture...whew!

And we were all set and ready for moving day..... at least our stuff was...

Don't turn off your computer...

or stare slack jawed at the screen.


What you are seeing is not your imagination.


What you see is real--a blog post... written by the mom no less!

shock and awe.

I know.


We've considered giving the blog a final resting place... facebook and other such sites seem to be the mode of current communication. But i decided that i'd give the blog one last try because, quite frankly, i like having a record of my family's life... I like the pictures and the stories they write.... i find it interesting.... even if most of our readers are us:)


Anyway, for the two or three that still check around our blog just wanted to say HI! and we are back.

We've had quite the summer and fall and i can't wait to post all the pictures from our adventure.

Look out.

Many posts coming your/our way!

happy day to you all
The mom

Birthday girl

Twinkle celebrated her 16th recently..

The Business at Hand

Sale!

Sale!!

Sale!!!

that's right.. we are selling a bunch of our stuff....de cluttering and simplifying (to quote a good friend).

SO.

I expect to have a bunch of school related things--books and manipulatives(good stuff esp for 3rd grade and under), book cases-- some furniture and kitchen stuff ready to sell/give away by August 29th.

Let me know if you are interested!

~The Mom

*Tap tap*

*Tap tap*

Is this on?

Whew, it's been too long since we've posted. Mostly because we've been (drum roll) in MARYLAND!!!

Yes, two weeks and two days in Maryland to clean out the house, eat crabs, run to Ritas, play games and games and games of 4-Square, hang with friends, eat more crabs, go to the pool, gett good tans/burns,race in the pool, carry furniture all around the house, stay up late, wake up early, and, oh, eat a few more crabs. :)

It was a great trip.

These are only a few pictures from the BILLIONS taken during the trip.

After a HUUGE Korean feast, we stopped by the Korean bakery. Delicious cakes and an ice cream/bean paste/fruit concoction called bing soo.

Breakfast with Mrs. A, the maker of the famous bread.



And a trip to Maryland could not have been complete without a run to Ritas. Or a few runs.

Alicia, Twinkle, and Hannah

And yet another trip to Ritas.

Lunch with the J's at the Nib.

After getting their ears pierced, Minnie and Rachel were all smiles!

At a friend's 40th birthday party.

All the guys.

Too funny. Too fun. :)