The Move

Ricky and I was just so thrilled, blessed and thankful that Master Grant made his arrival a couple of weeks earlier.  Since he arrived on the 20th, we had few more days of breathing room and time for tons of visitors.  When June 1st arrived the real fun began.  As characteristic of the Marine Corps, they tend to request the presence of their service members at the most inopportune times to go to the most inopportune places.  Fortunately for us, they hooked us up on the duty station by sending us to Virginia allowing me to be close to family and friends while raising this new baby.  The downside is that Ricky was given these orders in April for a July arrival.  This seems reasonable, right?  We thought so too pre-baby, until he arrived and we soon realized that making it to the grocery store and finding everything on our list was a big deal or that a 30 minute doctor appointment for Grant literally was a 4 hour evolution.  I found that taking a shower and brushing my teeth may not happen until 11:00am yet before I knew it it was 11:00pm and those were my only two accomplishments of the day (aside from feeding the little guy 10 times).

Ricky's Mom with Grant, rocking away. 

What did we have to accomplish during the month of June?  We had to prepare to move in just three weeks, ensure the house was ready to rent, complete paperwork for our new rental, complete paperwork for our house and all awhile learning how to be parents to the sweetest little guy on the planet.  We were so fortunate that we found tenants to rent our house in May, who requested to begin their lease on June 22nd.  Since we had to attend my cousin's wedding on the 23rd, the timing of them moving in could not have been better.  Our packers were scheduled to begin on June 14th for a packout date of June 19th.  Additionally, Ricky's parents arrived from Puerto Rico to meet Grant beginning on June 5th and stayed with us until June 18th.  They were a huge help but I couldn't help but feel like I was not on my "A game" for entertaining, especially when we realized that the packers had packed all of the cooking utensils and salt and pepper, making it a bit challenging to make and serve black beans.  They fell in love with the baby and looking back, I really don't think they cared as long as they were in earshot or view of sweet baby Grant.

An empty house.

 We spent every day for those three weeks, painting, installing a circuit breaker and switch for the dehumidifier under the house, replacing items in the house that we should have done 4 years ago-like the vents on the floor, washing the inside and outside of all cabinets, purging and organizing every room, making trips to the dump and Goodwill and ensuring that we had all of our paperwork together like our tenants lease and Grant's enrollment in TriCare health insurance.  We successfully completed the move on June 22nd when Ricky remained behind to oversee the professional painters, carpet cleaners and pack out of the remaining items that the moving companies are unable to take.

Our newly painted family room.

We will miss our house in the Taberna housing development, our wonderful friends who have become our family AND the pond across the street. ;)  We spent 4-1/2 wonderful years in the sweet charming town of New Bern and have so many fond and exciting memories that we will treasure forever.  We are on our way to the "big city" and we have high hopes that our little man is going to give us some even better memories in our new home in Springfield.