Moving Day

Whew! That was WORK!!!!

We arrived in Kerrville at 11 p.m. It's now almost 1 a.m. and I'm too keyed up to sleep, so I thought I'd write a blog post. 

Even though it was a lot of work, we also had a lot of fun while we were doing it, and our prayers were answered for the safety of everyone involved. We started at 6 a.m. and finally drove out of the driveway at 6 p.m. During those 12 hours I was too busy to take many photos, but I have a few for you.

Here's how I started my day: 

Too bad my Fitbit isn't the model that records flights of steps...I might have set a record today!

Our friend Carlos arrived at 10 a.m. with his helper Donald, after driving 5 hours from Kerrville. Later 2 more helpers came from Corpus Christi to pitch in. At least this time gravity was working in their favor. It's a lot easier taking things down all those stairs than it was when they brought it all in last year!!

 Careful with that Clavinova!!!

I thought I worked hard! These guys REALLY labored! Fortunately it wasn't too hot (low 80's) but the humidity was near 100%. We were all drenched all day!!

Here's the metamorphosis of our guest room/art studio/ music room over the past year:

When we rented the place it looked like this:

After we moved in and set up, it changed to this:

Just this morning it looked like this:

And tonight it looks like this:

Tomorrow it'll be completely different, because our new friends Ernie and Dixie will be moving in. Hope they enjoy the place as much as we did! I can't wait to return to Rockport and stop by to see how the house looks with all their things in it!

The worst part of the move is over, but there's still plenty to do. We haven't unloaded the moving van yet! Carlos has things to do tomorrow (I guess it's really today, since it's after 1 a.m.!), so we have to wait till Sunday to unload and move everything into the house. Actually, that's just fine with us. That'll give us a lighter day between the two hard-working ones. We can just unload my car and Curt's truck tomorrow, and then rest a bit, since Sunday won't be much of a day of rest this week. There's always next week for that!

Ok, I think I'm sleepy enough now. Goodnight from Kerrville.

Saying Good-Bye

IWe've been doing the bittersweet ritual of "last time" events before the move. Last Wednesday I went to my last choir rehearsal. It was a great time, because we also celebrated the 90th birthday of Myrtle, one of our choir members.

Here's Ouida Richardson, our terrific choir leader. I've enjoyed her leadership and instruction so much over the past year and a half!

And Linda Hamilton, our fabulous accompanist, who has also recently joined my group of Stampin'Up demonstrators:

And, of course, my fellow choir members, working hard on a song for Sunday's service:

That's Myrtle, on the far right in the front row. You'd never guess she's 90!!

After packing all day Thursday, our dear friends John and Ginger Gay took us out to enjoy some delicious Texas barbecue and Bluebell ice cream. What a treat!

After more packing and loading the car on Friday, we were invited to a festive shrimp boil farewell party, hosted by more dear friends, Rob and Jeannie Coe. What a delightful--and delicious--evening!

Check out all those veggies boiled up with the shrimp....and then even more shrimp!

But it was no problem for this crowd to devour! It's all poured out on long tables covered with a double layer of butcher paper. And then everyone just dives in. No utensils or plates needed for this meal...it's a fingers-only proposition!

Everybody looks pretty intent, don't they?

The aftermath...and Jeannie doing K.P.

Saturday and Sunday we spent in Kerrville, which I've already written about. 

Sunday when we returned home from Kerrville, our dear friend Cindy Grieves, who is the Property Manager at Key Allegro Real Estate, took us to a wonderful, luxurious dinner at the Key Allegro Club. It was so nice to have an unhurried evening with Cindy, and really get to know her better. Most of the time when we talk to her, conversation centers around the house or the business. Cindy has been wonderful, as have all they employees at Key Allegro Realty. I can't recommend them highly enough if you're looking for a house to rent!

Yesterday and today, Monday and Tuesday, were pretty much non-stop packing days, with a couple of quick breaks. I went over to the church today to donate a carload of cardmaking and crafting supplies for the crafting group. Here's Stephany, who heads up that group, as well as Family ministries at church:

And I turned in my keys to Susan, our business manager. Caught her hard at work:

Tonight Curt and I took a break to go to the Rockport Theatre and see Jungle Book. Great movie! It's tough leaving Tuesday night movie-night here. What's so special about Tuesdays at the little Rockport Cinema? This is:

And they really mean it! You can bring as big a bowl as you want, and they'll refill it as many times as you want...even once again before you leave! Needless to say, attendance at the movies is pretty high on Tuesday nights around here. Small towns sure are nice!

I had another totally unexpected surprise today. For weeks I've somehow been under the impression that April 29, our moving day, is a Thursday. I've been so busy preparing for the move that I didn't really look at a calendar. This afternoon I discovered that the 29th is Friday. That just added one whole day to my life...and when do you need an extra day more than when you're packing for a move? I feel like I've been given a huge gift! Two more days to finish up instead of one! Ahhhhh, the pressure is off!

And now I'm off to bed to see what dreams I get from watching all the action in Jungle Book while eating 2 large bowls of popcorn. Should be a colorful night!!!

On the Loose Again!

(The view from our balcony on Key Allegro Island)

Well, our bucket list item was to spend a season living on the coast. We never actually defined what a "season" was. If you're looking at calendar seasons, we actually spent 6...a year and a half. We really enjoyed our time in Rockport, but as we started looking for a home to buy, it became quite apparent that the housing market was beyond our means. So we thought we'd do what we started doing back in 2009: live in the Hill Country and take frequent vacations to Rockport. It'll be even better now than it was then, because we have many good friends whom we can look forward to seeing when we visit the coast. It's a lovely 3 1/2 to 4 hour drive...just long enough to let you know you're really on vacation, but short enough to leave after breakfast and arrive in time for lunch! 

(Sunrise over Aransas Bay. See that tiny speck on the far right? That's the Rainbow, a Rockport-based shrimp boat, and as I took this photo, Curt was on it, shrimping with his good friend and boat captain, Hoang.)

We'll probably spend extended time in Rockport during "cedar season" in the Hill Country...I'm highly allergic to the cedar pollen that makes so many people miserable and sick in December, January, and February. But what better time to hit the south Texas coast?? And with Lucy, our trusty travel trailer, we can set up in one of the many RV parks in Rockport. Now we feel like we'll have the best of both worlds!

Right now we're between those worlds...driving back to Rockport after our last preliminary trip to the "new" house in Kerrville, staging for the big move. Our faithful friends from Riverhill Movers in Kerrville, Carlos, Beto, and Richard, will be at our Rockport house bright and early Thursday morning (eeeeek! That's only 4 days away!) to load everything into their moving truck, our pick-up, trailer, and minivan, and haul it all back to Kerrville. Just a year ago they hauled it all in the other direction!

We've packed up a lot of our belongings, but there's plenty left to keep us more than busy for the next few days. And as everyone who has ever moved knows, it's all the little stuff left over at the very end that's the deadliest! You think you have room for everything, and then you notice how many little piles of miscellany you haven't packed yet. It's amazing how much room that stuff takes!

We've carefully planned this move, taking a month to do the switch in stages. Curt still needs to be careful about the weight he lifts after his major surgery less than 3 months ago, so we've been moving some of the lighter, bulkier items by ourselves over the past few weeks. That'll leave more room in the moving van for the heavy items for our young, strong friends to muscle around. We've spent enough time in the new house now that we have a pretty good idea of where to place all our furniture. And we've been able to have some work done on the house by our new friend Mauricio, while the house is relatively empty. He's done some painting, some tile work, and has fixed up lots of little things around the house that needed attention.

So we have a little over 2 weeks to get settled before we have to head back to Rockport for Curt's follow-up abdominal surgery on May 18. We want to travel back to have the same wonderful surgeon, who we hope will remember where he left all the disconnected parts inside Curt and will be able to find them and reconnect them all. Curt will be in the hospital 5-6 days again, and afterward we'll stay in Rockport another week or two at the guesthouse of our dear friends John and Ginger Gay, while Curt starts his recuperation and gets clearance from his surgeon to travel back to Kerrville.By the time we get back to our new house, all the hard work of moving will be behind us, and we can just enjoy our new home and neighborhood. That's the plan, anyway, and so far it has worked out very well!

Here's our new home in Kerrville. We'll show you lots more pictures of the inside and outside as we get settled: