"Life Moves Pretty Fast. If you don't stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it.": May 2012 Moving Back

After returning from vacation, we had just 2 weeks until we would be moving back to the US, so our lives became a whirlwind of coordinating packing the house, organizing for movers, dinners with friends from school, from work and from the neighborhood. I've said it so many times already and it still rings true that this was a very sad time for us as we knew we were leaving in a few days and we were starting to say our goodbyes until we were able to visit Vancouver again in the future....

Here are the kids with one of their favorite babysitters Lauren. We were fortunate to find several great babysitters in the area, which is a requirement for Allison and I so we can make time and get away and make time for us.

I walked around on packing day and took a few pictures of the rooms full of boxes... The family room...

Office...

Guest Bedroom....

And the big day... after packing for 2 days straight, it took less than a day to load up the truck....

Allison's car was put in last behind all the boxes. Owen thought this was so cool how they loaded it on the trailer.

The truck driver was really kind and let Owen pull the levers to re-position the rollback platform.

An empty house is so strange to walk around in, remembering the laughter and good times we had....

And one last picture of the property on the last day. Of course it was raining.. :) But we were thankful we got the trailer loaded while it was dry.

The kids loaded up in the rental on the way to the airport... we were headed to Grandma and Grandpa's for a few days until we closed on our new house...

We traveled back on May 5th... my birthday was May 6th... I quit my job at Bosch on the 7th, and we purchased the house on the 8th. Yeah for life changing events multiple days in a row! Our new house we were glad to find near Lancaster... on a house hunting trip in March, we looked at 5-6 properties and made an offer on this one mostly because of the neighborhood and the size of the yard. The houses are not right on top of each other and there was room for the kids to play. It's on a loop separate from the main road, so there is no thru traffic either.

Back of the house...

Yard in back....

The truck arrived the weekend after we closed, giving us time to install appliances and really deep clean carpeting... Soon it was full of boxes and we started the long task of unpacking!

The following week I had to buy a car, and had located a VW CC that I liked at the local dealer. I picked it up the week after we moved. Posting now almost a year later, it's been a great car!

First small project in the house was to add some storage and working space in the laundry room. This was the before picture with just wire racks....

I installed cabinets above the washer dryer area and also on the opposite corner of the room over the utility sink. A few weeks later I also installed a counter top over the washer dryer for additional working space. The room worked out great and I only have to finish the molding above the cabinets...

Memorial Day brought the annual family gathering at Allison's Aunt and Uncle's home in Maytown. They hold a parade here each year that we love to watch... the weather was in our favor and we had a great day! Here's the kids with their cousin Madison waiting for the parade to start.