Ok *NOW* It Looks Like We're Moving

The packers came this morning and packed everything up and the movers come bright and early tomorrow morning to haul everything out! This is our last night sleeping in this house after ten years and two children... EEK!! 

Long Weekend

This weekend was in a word: busy!! Which may be the understatement of the decade. 

Friday night (after being stuck in work until 6pm) I did laundry and began to halfway organize things to pack. 

Saturday morning Grammy and Grampy came over for one last (extremely helpful) visit before the move. While Mike and his dad put in a new garbage disposal, Grammy kept the kids occupied while I packed up most of the clothes that are coming to Charlotte with us instead of storage, and managed to get a bunch of other things organized as well. 

After his parents left, Mike took his box of magic cards (which yes I almost threw out but that's because they were in a binder and I didn't SEE them) to a hobby & game store and sold them for $575 which was a great start to our yardsale weekend. 

He got home shortly before Dave, Deb, Andrew, Phil & Sue arrived. The cousins babysat Charlie & Amelia while Phil, Sue, Tom, Sharon, Mike & I went to the Midwest Grille for dinner, which is probably still my favorite restaurant in Boston.

We didn't get to bed until just about midnight (after drinking large quantities of sangria) and were up and dressed bright and early this morning getting ready for our yard sale. I had put an ad on craigslist Friday night advertising it from 9am to 2pm, but people started showing up earlier than that, so that Mike and I even had trouble getting everything outside because there were some items of furniture that required 2 people to carry out and there were so many people that I couldn't get away. 

The first 2 hours of the yardsale were extremely busy and then it slowed down. We wound up donating a bunch of stuff to good will and leaving a bunch curbside afterwards, but the trash pickers made short work of that. Between the yardsale, the pre-yard sale (letting my co-workers have first dibs at a bunch of stuff) and a few items we sold on craigslist who's profits did NOT go to the ferret vet bill we made about $560, a great start to a week that will involve gas money, food, tolls, hotel rooms, packing supplies, car maintenance stuff, paying the Comcast balance when we turn in the cable boxes... So really if the money lasts till Thursday I'll be impressed ;-)

After the yard sale Mike went out to donate a bunch of the stuff we didn't sell and to buy packing supplies to pack the TVs because if the packers do it they will charge $150 per tv and we have 3 TVs so that is just crazy.

After he got home we took the kids for dinner and ice cream as a reward for being halfway good during a long day in which they pretty much had to entertain themselves, after they got bored of the yard sale. 

When we got home we took a break for one nano second before we got back to packing and organizing, then put the kids to bed. Mike packed up the computer, video game systems, and un-mounted the tv in our bedroom while I organized all the take-with-us-to-Charlotte stuff into one spot, did a last load of laundry, packed up the ferret play pen and gathered all the kids' electronics to be charged and packed into my backpack for easy access during the car ride. 

Now it is 11pm and Mike & I are both fairly catatonic. Tomorrow the packers will be here at 8, Charlie has to get off to school, Mike has a doctors appointment, car service, and has to drop the modem and cable boxes off at comcast. I have to pick up the kids medical records and grab something at Iparty for Charlie to pass out at school on Tuesday, his last day. And we have to actually get the TVs packed. 

How bad could it be after the last two days, right? 

A Day Of Lasts

Today was a day of lasts -- my last day working at Hancock Park and Mike's last day in the office at the Volpe Center (and last time commuting into Boston). It was  also Amelia's last day at Merry Deb nursery school -- this morning she said to me, "Mom, today is my last day at Merry Deb and then what happens...?" I was like "Umm I'm pretty sure we've gone over this before but let me refresh your memory..." 

It was also Charlie's last day of Taekwon do and last night was his last night of homework for the year because he won a no homework pass at school today which he will use for Monday night's homework. 

Tomorrow's yardsale has been rescheduled to Sunday since it's supposed to rain, so tomorrow we will be packing up what we're taking to Charlotte, instead, and Mike's parents are coming down for one last visit and to help Mike put the new garbage disposal in. 

Tomorrow night we are going out with Phil & Sue and Tom & Sharon, which will somehow manage to be fun and sad at the same time. 

So I guess today was a happy day of lasts and tomorrow will be a sad day of lasts :-(

LegoLand

We spent the evening at LegoLand in Somerville, courtesy of Phil. The company that he works for did some of the electrical work, so Phil was able to get tickets for us all to get in this evening, which was "Contractor Appreciation Night" or something. LegoLand does not actually open to the public until next week, as it was literally just built. 

The kids had a great time -- the theme park is for kids aged 3 to 9 and they both enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Trying to round them up to get from one exhibit to the next was like herding cats --? Is that how the expression goes ? The park features all things Lego including 2 amusement park rides and a 4D movie , which it was very fun to watch Amelia's reaction to -- she kept trying to reach out and grab things off the screen and pretty much shrieked non stop through the whole thing. 

As you can imagine both kids went to bed solidly past their bedtime, but it was well worth it. 

Here are some pictures of the kids:

And of the amazing Lego Boston:

Showing The Bunny Her Bunny

OMG It's Both My Children!

I came across this picture while cleaning out the filing cabinet in the office this morning. I have no idea how old Mike is in this picture -- 7? But the resemblance to both the kids -- particularly Amelia, who I always thought looked like I don't know? Someone else? Is uncanny:

Charlie's 8 Year Check Up

Charlie had his 8 year well visit this morning, scheduled strategically just before we leave for Charlotte. 

At 55 1/2 inches tall and 78 lbs he continues to be off the charts for height, but his pediatrician noted that his weight gain has slowed down. (As in 95th percentile for weight instead of off the charts.) She said this was probably fine -- we have noticed a marked decrease in his appetite over the past 6 months or so, and I mentioned this, but she said as long as he was still eating a healthy variety of foods that she thought it was ok.

My main concerns were his decreased appetite and the fact that he often complains of stomach aches at night; when the doctor asked him to point to where his stomach bothers him he actually pointed very high up, not to his stomach at all but really more like where it would hurt if he had reflux , which would make sense since he says it bothers him specifically when he's lying down. So we're instructed to try Tums and see if that makes a difference. 

Otherwise his check up was uneventfull except for Amelia being her usual pain-in-the-butt self: "Charlie, tell the doctor all you eat is chocolate!" 

I requested all the kids' medical records, vaccination forms and school/camp readiness forms & those will be ready for pick up by the end of the week. Add it to the list of things to do...