The Easter Rush
Easter for any pastor is crazy. But this year for our family, was even CRAZIER. Our church has four services before noon. Jon had to be there for all of them. Evan, Haven, and I joined him for the last one. We were going to go home after that, but since it was already 1:30 and we were starving, we went out to Steak and Shake for lunch. Fun, huh?...We didn't even get home until close to 3. Then down for some quick naps for ALL of us and off to Aunt Margaret's house by 5. This was the first year that Evan could even hunt for eggs or appreciate the gifts in his Easter basket and he had to wait until after supper for all of it. (I'm ashamed to say that I didn't even put their baskets together until after we got home from church...) Poor kid. I'm hoping he's too young to understand the difference. I suppose life as a pastor's family will never really be the same when it comes to holidays...But I digress. He still had some fun. He enjoyed hunting for the eggs...for about the first 8-10. Then his attention was lost. But he did get to collect them in his super E bag that I whipped up for him the night before Easter, thanks to Jamie for the wonderful instructions and idea!! :) He thought it was pretty cool that there was candy in those eggs too...but was sorely disappointed that mommy took them away to ration the treats...
Monday was our day of rest...kind of. Jon didn't have to go into work, but we had to work hard to get ready for our last trip up to Minnesota for the move. At this point, we still hadn't heard anything on the appraisal of our house, but our realtor assured us that moving out of there was the right thing to do. After praying about it, we decided that it was the right thing to do. If we could pull out this month, we wouldn't have to pay our mortgage for the next month, which meant we could start saving for a down payment for another house. So in faith, we left Tuesday late morning to make the long trip to MN. We made it to our house around 11:30 that night. I'm still not sure how this happened, but we made the entire trip without ONE movie. Wow! We were exhausted, but grateful for a familiar bed that greeted us upon our arrival. :)
Wednesday morning 2 people came to pack up our house. Let me say that I was more than a little skeptical that 2 people could get the job done. But they did! They arrived at 9 and were finished around 6:30. It was 3 1/2 hours longer than they thought it would be, but I was just still impressed that they got it done at all. :) And we pretty much just watched, grabbed out things we needed to take with us, and took down all the curtains and anything on the walls. Tom and Connie arrived around 4 that afternoon. It was nice to have them around to help with the kids. Evan got a Buzz LIghtyear kite from them for Easter, so while the packers finished up, we walked over to the ball fields about a block from our house and watched Tom and Evan get the kite up in the air. We were pleasantly surprised that it was in the 70s in April in MN. Last year this was about the time we remember the November snows finally melting. God really gave us a great weekend to move! Evan quickly got bored with the kite and decided to run the bases. He doesn't quite understand the ORDER he's supposed to run them yet, but I suppose that will come in time. It was just really nice to be able to see him so happy outside again! :) The packers were done by 6, and we were off for some dinner and some fun at the hotel.
That night we got to go swimming (Haven too--she's quite the water baby!) and just chill out. It felt good to be able to relax a little bit! Evan (finally) had fun in the pool again. That trial run with Lily a few months ago really helped out! :) And out of the whole experience, he even started speaking in bigger sentences: "I jumped in the water!" (That really surprised us all and made us quite happy!)
The next morning, Jon and Tom went over to the house at 8, and Connie and I followed with the kids a little later. By the time we got to the house between 9:30 and 10, the entire basement was packed up already. Three guys were carrying the boxes to the truck and one other guy was helping the driver load it up. Sam was the driver, and he was super nice! His truck had the biggest cab we've ever seen, and he even let us go inside for a tour! We were amazed! Inside his cab he had a stove, sink, bathroom/shower, washer/dryer, bed, fridge, and just about everything else you'd find in a nice camper. It was one sweet ride! :) We pretty much just watched in awe at how quickly everything was done. And after moving ourselves at least 6 times in the last three years, it was really nice to NOT be doing all that work...especially with two little ones! They were finished by one o'clock. After they were done we grabbed some lunch at subway (where Evan fell asleep in his chair because he was so tired...poor guy!) and went back to the house to pack up our stuff the truck couldn't take (like aerosol cans and paint, etc.) and clean up a bit and say goodbye to our wonderful neighbors. On our way out of town we stopped to say goodbye to Gail (our neighbor) who was at work. We sure are going to miss them! We pray that their new neighbors are as good to them as they were to us...and we also pray that God will bless us with some more great neighbors when we finally move into another house!
The next morning we were on the road before 10. Before leaving MN, we absolutely had to stop for one last visit to Great Harvest Bread Co and Caribou Coffee in Burnsville (where we first lived when we took the call up there). Yum! We decided to cut our trip in half by stopping in Racine on the way home. It made the total driving a little longer, but we were able to be on the road less each day, we were able to stop by and visit with Grandma Wales, and spend some more time with Jon's parents.
As if our Easter-moving-week wasn't busy enough, the second we got back to my parents' house we dropped the kids off, changed clothes, and Jon and I headed back to Saint Louis to be there for the Hangar's first real concert featuring the band Rough Draft from CO. It was a crazy night, but we managed to enjoy ourselves a bit. Thankfully Sunday morning we were at church in Columbia, which means we got to sleep in a little bit and get home earlier. Which was a good thing because that afternoon we all headed back up to church to see our friend, Kristin, from MN, and her school perform a drama for our youth while they were down here on a mission trip. Evan ended up getting sick, so we had to leave early without getting to visit much, but I can hardly blame him for being stretched a little thin after the long week of traveling...
And I only wish I could say that we rested on Monday...
Here are a few pics from the week. The rest can be seen on the albums here and here.
