We've Arrived!!!

If anything can go wrong it will. I don't really think that statement can ever be completely true, but as I look back on our move to London, I see a lot of major bumps in the road. As I sit in my new living room with the morning sun streaming in upon me, I'll list some of the obstacles we faced on our way to our new home.

1. The day before the movers arrived to pack up all our belongings, I was making lunch while waiting for Community Living to arrive and haul away two chair and a love seat that were not worth dragging across the country. I opened the cupboard above my stove and a cover to one of my Pyrex casserole dishes fell out on my glass stove top. CRASH!!! SMASH!!! Heartbreak!!! A starburst of cracks suddenly appeared emanating from one undeniable hole in the middle. The stove had been sold with the house, of course. This sent us right back into negotiations with our buyer. Not easy negotiations. MUCH more stress added to moving week. Just exactly what we needed. Oh, and by the way, when Community Living arrived, they refused to take the love seat! Oh, well, the youth group got a nice new love seat with a board sticking out the back...
2. The night before the truck was set to be loaded we settled in at Chris's Dad's house which would be our home for the next 10 days. We tucked the kids into bed and switched the tv on to the Weather Network. The forecast was horrifying: 35-45 cm of snow, plus freezing rain. School would most certainly be cancelled (it was). I would have to find last minute babysitters for my kids (I did). The movers would slip and fall on our notoriously slippery steps, break our furniture and their limbs, and inevitably sue us (thankfully they did not). Chris and I both spent a restless night looking forward to a very difficult moving day. By the way, this was the ONLY day school was cancelled for weather in Fredericton this year. What are the chances??? Thankfully, we didn't get the snow amounts that had been forecast, but it certainly was the stormiest day of the year.
3. Sunday morning, our second last Sunday at our beloved church, I took the kids up to the Children's Church room, and Janelle didn't want to stay. This is completely out of character for Janelle. She LOVES Children's Church. She ADORES her Children's Church director. She CHERISHES the time she spends there with her friends, singing, making crafts, playing games and learning about Jesus. But this day, of course, she didn't want to stay. She wanted to come down and sit in the service with Mom and Dad. I asked if she was feeling okay. She said yes. I assumed she was just tired from being up late at our "going away" party the night before. So I brought her into the sanctuary with me. She almost immediately fell asleep on her dad's lap. Great, I thought. She'll have a nice nap, and then she'll go upstairs during the sermon. NOPE. Just as the pastor began to pray, Janelle opened her eyes. Wide. Then she covered her mouth. Then Chris and I covered her mouth. I don't know why we covered her mouth. We knew what was coming. Yep. She threw up all over herself and all over me. And all over the upholstered pew. Chris was out of there too fast to be covered. And it wasn't just once. It was over and over again. If we had tried to leave we would have left a trail behind us, so I decided to just wait until it was over. People behind and beside and in front of us and across the aisle started handed me kleenex. I appreciated the help, but kleenex was not going to touch this mess. Chris brought back a handful of paper towels, and we finally got ourselves to a point where we could make our escape. Thankfully, Pastor Karl had lots to pray about that day. We didn't disrupt the entire service anyway. Two other moms sitting nearby (thank the Lord for moms!) came out to the washroom with me and helped me find clothing and blankets to bring Janelle home in. We collected Connor from Children's Church and made our swift exit. So much for visiting with friends that day. Janelle went right to bed at Grampie's house, slept all afternoon, and woke up fine. Thankfully no one caught it from her. Yet.
4. The kids and I had planned to go to Rothesay that day to spend some time with the Constantine side of the family, before coming back Wednesday and spending the rest of the week doing fun outings with friends in Freddy. Needless to say, we didn't head out on Sunday. We decided to go on Monday instead. Everyone woke up feeling fine, and I started getting the car loaded. Just as I was taking the last loads out to the van the phone rang. Chris answered and handed me the phone when I came inside. It was my Dad. Aunt Sadie, Nurnie's mom and my last remaining grandparent figure, had passed away in the night. She was 93 and not well, so I was not sad for her. She had not had any quality of life in a long time. She was clearly ready to go. Forgive me for saying this in light of the circumstances, but it did put a snag in my week. I would still go to Saint John, but I knew my parents would want to be in Moncton with Nurnie, and my sister's family was headed to New Hampshire, so there was no point in staying more than a night. We came back on Tuesday morning, with plans to meet everyone at the funeral in Moncton on Friday and spend that night in Rothesay/Quispamsis. I was thankful for Aunt Sadie's timing, in that if it had been the week before or the week after, I don't think I could have made it to the funeral.
5. We had a fun week despite the change in plans, and we spent some quality time with cousins and grandparents on the weekend. When we got back to Fredericton on Saturday, we went to Nana's for supper and a last visit with her before the move. Before we left, Connor said he had a headache and wasn't feeling well. Good parents would have taken him home and put him right to bed (especially after what we had experienced the week before). But we had made plans to visit our dear friends, the Clarks, that evening. In the van, Connor said he wasn't feeling too bad, and that he would still like to go to the Clarks'. We were swayed because we knew this was our last chance. So we went. And he was fine for a while. But we left in a hurry several hours later, with Connor not quite making it to the van before he vomited in the driveway (thank goodness!). He was fine after that (hallelujah!).
6. Thankfully, our bad luck did not travel with us. We had an uneventful trip to London, including stops in Montreal with Aunt Kate and Uncle Pierre, and in Burlington with Aunt Lori and Uncle Ben. We arrived in London on Wednesday and checked into a hotel with an "awesome" pool and water slide, and planned to stay there one night before our things would arrive and we'd move into our house. Chris called the movers that day and left a message that we wouldn't get the keys to the house until later Thursday afternoon. We didn't hear back until Thursday morning. The truck woud not be arriving until Saturday morning. That meant two extra nights in a hotel. Luckily, the kids LOVED the hotel, and the movers would pay for the extra nights, so this was not a tragedy.
7. Saturday morning arrived and it was FREEZING! We'd had beautiful weather for the whole trip, but on the day the truck finally arrived, there were record winds, rain, and cold temperatures. This was the perfect bookend to our trip to London: load in miserable weather, unload in miserable weather.

Since then, the weather has been practically summer-like. The kids have been able to play outside and make friends. It has been a great week, with no further incidents of Murphy's Law. Of course, I know that so much more could have gone wrong in this move. Serious illness, traffic accidents, financial issues -- we avoided all major pitfalls. God cared for us in many wonderful ways during this transition. I can actually look back on it all and laugh now that we are (slowly but surely) settling in. I just wanted to write it all down to preserve the memory of our bumpy, but memorable, road to London.