The Young and the Restless

Loose ends

I'm sitting here in a nice air conditioned hotel room.  We had a long full night's sleep for the first time in weeks.  I don't have to lift a finger to clean or pack, and I'm watching the kids jump back and forth between beds without a care in the world.  I can honestly say that I am so glad to have these past few months behind us.  We had a few sprinklings of happy moments, but I am so ready to finally be a mom again and to start this new adventure already. This moving stuff is for the birds. So here are those few sprinkles of happy I was talking about...Aunt Jessica was so nice to fly out for the weekend to see us.  The kids stayed up with her until the wee hours of morning playing Super Mario, "would you rather" and apparently there was lots of farting (not on Jessica's part :). She was so nice to help out and watch the kids while we took loads to the storage unit, and even though we weren't the best hosts but we did have a fun movie night with the projector out on the lawn.  She was our first official goodbye, and it was sad.  Hoping she is able to make it out for a visit!

Even with all the craziness, we still managed to meet the allotted one crap project a day quota.  Even if it was just drawing swords on empty paper towel rolls.  This was today's crap project and thankfully it kept him entertained for quite awhile.  Until I decided he would have much more fun sliding from the top of the staircase.  I lined the wall with packages of diapers and he had his helmet on so I thought we had all the safety bases covered, until the edge caught the bottom of the stairs, he flew out and the one spot on his head not covered by helmet hit the one spot on the wall not covered by diapers. He had a nice goose egg and the wall had a nice dent and he kept going on about why I was such a mean mom to make him do something so dangerous.

Homemade roller coaster rides also provided entertainment.  No injuries to report this time.

I loved looking at my calendar and seeing it pretty much blank after the 19th. 

The good byes were sad, but kind of fun too.  We got to see friends we don't see often and spend extra time with those that we do.

Melissa was a life saver, as always, and took my kids for two days straight while we finished up odds and ends.  One of the days I joined her and a few other friends at her pool for some much needed chill time.  Not to mention the gourmet lunch, which was the first meal we've eaten all week that didn't consist of cold cereal or fast food.  I loved just hanging out as if it was just any other day, not the last day we would hang out for an entire year.  It makes me want to cry just thinking about it.  Glad I have this last memory with them.  Tyson and Dawn were so nice to invite us over for a bbq right before we left (not to mention all the help Tyson was with the moving), and once again I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture!  It was fun being by family for all of two weeks, sad to be leaving right when they get here!

We just so happened to be celebrating our 14 year anniversary on the day that we left.  The only quality time we spent together was eating ice cream with plastic forks and styrofoam bowls on the bare kitchen floor.  Our romantic anniversary dinner consisted of me eating Little Caesar's pizza with the kids in the Kmart food court while Jason was busy running around doing last minute errands.  It may not have been the most  romantic anniversary, but it is definately the most memorable.  Not many people can say their husbands took them on a two year vacation to New Zealand for their anniversary.  Yeah, he's pretty much a keeper.

We don't do sleepovers, but we let the kids each have one with their friends before we left.  Kylie went with Mia and Marlee and Jayden went with Jonas.  It made me laugh that he came home in his pj's, he didn't bother getting dressed the entire time.  It was so sad seeing them in tears as they had to say goodbye to such great friends.  I felt guilty for tearing them away from them and uprooting them from their comfort zone, but I know they'll make wonderful new friends and when we come back they'll pick up right where they left off.  Here's the mini Shawn and Jay:

and here's the life sized Shawn and Jay:  Jason is going to have some serious separation anxiety.  This bromance has been going on for around 22 years and they have loved finally living close again for the past two years.

Here we are 9:30 at night, hot sweaty, dirty from head to toe, but smiling from ear to ear because we are DONE!! Ready to close this chapter and open a new one as we lock up our doors for the last time and drive off into the moonlight to say goodbye to family in Vegas and Utah before flying out into the unknown adventures that await us.  Every ending is a new beginning.

I think the weight of the past few months was lifted as soon as we hit the road, and was manifested in the McDonald's parking lot dance party.  This just went to the top of my list of favorite memories.  As we drove through a quiet desert on a warm summer night listening to the kids sleep while we whispered about life, I saw a shooting star.  I didn't even bother making a wish.  All of mine had already come true.