Our life is on the way!

Yesterday was "Loading Day", and it was quite something!  I think I am safe to say that neither Roy nor I wish to EVER do that again!  First, the container was due @ 9 am, but the driver was running a little late ... fine, we could use that extra time.  Crew began to arrive prior to the container ... I will be thanking them all by name later in this post.  Around 9:30, the truck approaches our driveway and the driver wanted to pull in to the driveway across the street so that he could back in ... Good Idea!  So, all of our crew ran across the street to move their cars so that he would have the space ... Good Idea!  Driver then gets stuck ... maybe not such a Good Idea!  After 1.5 hours of "the guys" trying pretty much everything to get the truck UN-stuck, Roy finally went & fired up "Old Blue" (1988 F-150 that is, sadly, staying behind) for one last "pull out".  It worked!  Then it took our driver another 1/2 hour to actually back the truck up and get it in place.  Hummm ... 2 hours to park a truck!  Doors to the container open up at 11:30 am and close at around 4:30 ... only an hour over our allotted hours.  Not so bad, considering.  We had 216 "things" listed on our manifest and we got 212 of them in the container. Two old dressers and two cheapo bookcases are going to live in Oregon.

You can't see all the neat & tidy boxes that were loaded first.  This is just the stuff that didn't FIT in boxes!

Now, for the kudos:

• My darling husband, Roy, who is simply THE BEST!
• My baby brother, Jeff, who spent the day in the container with Roy and impressed us all!  Those two were amazing!  Today is Jeff's birthday ... happy birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuu!
• My sister-in-law, Betsy, who (along with Jeff) got up at "0-dark-30" to come to the beach and nearly froze.
• Pierre & Claudia ... Claudia finished up the kitchen, while Pierre lifted heavy boxes.
• Walter & Jennifer ... Jennifer spent a great deal of time in the container with Jeff & Roy, "pretending to be a heavy box"!
• Peggy, who diligently marked off numbers as "stuff" went into the container (Betsy took this task over after Peg had to leave)
• Steve, our buddy who USED to live in Costa Rica ... but when he learned we were moving there, he moved back to Seattle!  His lovely esposa, Leda, helped a lot with packing this past week, but was feeling way under the weather and couldn't help load.  Leda became an abuela (grandma) today!  Congrats to Leda!
• John Boskovich, our old friend who rented a car and came from Portland to help
• Sean Fleming, another old friend who left his partner, dog & cat to come help.
• Sue Olson, who packed a LOT of boxes and probably would have preferred to be playing golf with that low handicap of hers.

Then, there were those who TRIED to help, but really couldn't stick around till the bloody truck was parked:

• Roni Rose
• Cathy VanWinkle

There were others who came by to offer moral support, like Sue Lorain, Joan Carter, Barb Washer, our new neighbor Hunt, our neighbor & landlord, Bob ... who kindly brought over planks to use as a ramp and also the rambunctious chocolate lab, Tigger.  

Well, exhausted, but now have to go get human to go back to Gearhart for our "farewell dinner" at John & Rita's!  

Pura Vida,  

Kathleen