Tornado

I feel like the past month has been a whirlwind of events thus my title, Tornado. We knew Chez was offered a job in California but we were not sure when exactly he would be able to start work. Since we had our house all through the summer we thought we would plan 2 weeks of vacation. The first trip was the kids and I to Oregon to meet my parents for a Craig family reunion/50th wedding anniversary celebration for my very fun and cute 80 year old uncle. Then it was to Seattle to see the rest of my family and from Seattle to Utah to meet with Chez and then a drive to Idaho to meet with the Jones Family for the 4th of July. The trips were fun but on our trip to Idaho we received a phone call from our landlord that changed our plans drastically. He basically called to tell us we had less than a week to move out. What?! We knew he had the house on the market in a short sale and we knew there had been multiple offers but we had no idea it was actually closing. He had never updated us. We were frantic. Our landlord gave us an extra week but basically told us we absolutely had to be out on the 17th of July. That gave us two weeks to head home, pack up our entire house, find a new place to live, and move on with our lives. However it was much more difficult than that. Moving is already hard enough but these next details I will explain makes this move far harder than any other we have had (and we have moved a lot). Basically we found out Chez needed to start his job in California immediately when we returned from Idaho. So the day we flew home, the second we walked in the door to our house, Chez hopped in the car and drove down to California leaving all the packing to me. Packing is already hard enough but add into that two very young kids and one who broke his foot in Yellowstone a few days prior and it is a lot harder. In between all the packing and cleaning I made sure to play with the kids and get them out of the house for ice cream and donut runs. My birthday was stuck in the middle somewhere in all of the chaos and I never really did get a proper celebration but mom and dad Jones did sing me happy birthday with brownies and a gift in Idaho plus my parents sent me an incredibly gorgeous boquet of flowers so it wasnt a total bust but I was kind of sad. A week after Chez left I drove down to look at houses with him. We found some beautiful houses but they were either too far from work or already taken so it wasn't a very successful trip. With our time in the Vegas house coming to an end quickly I hurried back to Vegas to finish packing and we decided to just get a very temporary apartment while we got to know the area, made sure this was the right job, and found the best neighborhood and school. All the apartments were either long term leases or taken. However, the last apartment on my list was available for a 3 bedroom townhouse with a month to month lease and happened to be 2 minutes from work. Can't beat that. So once the Uhaul was loaded up, I drove down with the kitties and Kenna and signed a lease on the townhouse. A relief right? Kinda. Obviously with how crazy things had already gone with this move it wouldnt get any easier. We had nobody to help us move and Chez couldnt take any days off of work to move us until his days off so we stayed in the resort in a two bedroom condo that Chez's friend/employee was also staying in with his son and nephew. So Chez, the kids and I shared a King sized bed and everyday after work until his days off we played tourists and went to disneyland and the beach. Luckily we did have a nice resort to stay in. This huge shopping plaza with a parking garage gave us permission to park our extra large uhual out front of the garage in a secured area thank heavens! On Chez's day off we found some great movers and moved a small fraction of our furniture into the townhouse since we are only staying here until September while we figure everything out. So we have a storage in Vegas with a ton of furniture in it and a storage in California with more furniture in it. We finally got our cable hooked up today and I unpacked the few boxes we brought in. This townhouse and apartment complex is really nice though so I am happy. I am still stressed though becuase we have to move AGAIN in a month as well as get Kingston registered in Kindergarten somewhere asap. I need a lot of luck! Luckily it is the summer and school hasnt yet started which makes things a lot easier. I hope all of you are having a good summer :). I have an overload of pictures from all our travels and moving adventures