The ball is rolling

This past week was a rush of the beginnings of what could be called packing, quick-as-possible bathroom remodeling, and whirlwind trip to Maryland.  I am a little zone-blazed this morning after the 13 hour car ride yesterday and my beloved Tinkerbell waking me up at 4am (30 minutes early!) with an upset doggie stomach.  However I think I can attempt to sum up the week. 
It's sinking in that we are actually moving.  We began the fun task of sorting things to sell and things to pack to keep.  My wonderful friend Jen Davidson let me bring over a bunch of toys to sell in her garage sale over the weekend even though I wasn't here to help with it.  Jason tore up the master bath in our room.  This does add to the sense of chaos in the house for a bit, but we and the real estate agent feel like it will increase the chances that our house will sell if we just go ahead and re-do it.  So in addition to the trying-to-get-started-packing-up-things state of the house, there is the out of commission bathroom and the displacement of everything that usually goes in there.  Boy!  If we couldn't see the light at the end of that tunnel I would be freaking out.  Much like I was freaking out at sporadic times last week. 
Friday we all took off into the great unknown and drove to Maryland.  Again I have a wonderful friend, Roxanne, who helped us find a very nice hotel for a decent price when I couldn't find one where I wanted for a decent price on my own.  We also have some wonderful friends, Will and Robin, who took care of our pets at the last minute when previous plans fell though.  It's so much better knowing that your animals are being taken care of by such sweet people!  That taken care of, we were off and we all saw Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland for the 1st time.  We broke some of the car-tiredness by getting some geocaches in new states.  I think Gwyn is enjoying trying to get a "sticker" for each state.  And we aren't doing so bad.  We have 9 so far and we just started in July.  Anyway, once we got to the east side of Ohio the drive was very nice.  There are things to look at and the topography gets interesting.
 Apparently in Maryland you should watch out for deer and bears.  We did see deer, but no bears this time.

We also drove through "dangerous mountains."  I am glad I did not have to drive a big truck or trailer through these. 


Anyway, we did find an apartment to rent.  It is bigger than we thought we would get, but the same price as the small ones.  It's in a nice neighborhood too.  I am exited about it!  I think it's going to be a big change, but it will be good.  Maryland and southern Penn. look like there will be a lot of cool things to do and see.  We got to drive around a few little towns in southern Penn. looking at rental houses.  I do have to say that one of the houses we saw at first glance had "character."  This is usually a positive for me, but after seeing the creepy unfinished dark basement and even creepier attic above the bedroom I was done.  Jason and I both just kept having flashbacks of horror movies where there are teeth-eating monsters in the basement or ghost children sitting in creaky rocking chairs in the attic.  And we'd be moving in right before Halloween!  No thank you!  The house is really cool considering it's 200 years old and in nice little town, but horror movies ruined that one for me.  So we didn't like the houses for rent, but the towns and countryside were awesome!  It's definately somewhere I can imagine the Montgomery Hobby Farm someday.

We drove down into Baltimore on Sunday.  We found some very interesting neighborhoods in our search for waterside seafood.  We did learn that Baltimore (actually we were in Essex) has rabid Ravens fans.  I guess we will have to break down and buy some purple and root for a hometeam to fit in.  :)     Finally we drove into Baltimore proper and found a pretty neat seafood restaurant on the bay.  We ate our crab and it was good and the Ravens fans in this particular establishment were excited but not too crazy to feel comfortable bringing kids in. 

On the way out of Baltimore we even found a geocache and got acquainted with Baltimore's non-official mascot, Natty Boh.  His face sits on top of the old National Brewery building and we got to see that as well in our traveling. 






All in all it was a little like a mini-vacation, albeit a tiring one.  The girls got to swim at the hotel.  We got to eat out.  We got to see new places and things.  I got to sleep late one morning.  We even went to a neat church on Sunday.  It was a good trip.  I feel a lot better having a mental picture of where we're going too.  I hope this helps the girls in the next month as well as they will know where Jason is and where we will be living. 


So now it's down to the work of moving.  We have a garage sale planned for the upcoming weekend where I hope to get rid of a good bit of furniture, toys and other stuff.  We have to box up just about everything except necessities to "stage" the house.  We also want to just soak up Champaign for the next 5 weeks - all that the Midwest has to offer in the Fall.  I have always said Fall is the best time to be here.  I plan on enjoying it and all our wonderful friends here as much as possible in the time that we have left.