No more house, no more washing machine...

Yesterday was our last day with the house. We did our final walk through just after noon, handed over our keys and are officially done with it. Being done with the house has been a long time coming so I really am not sad to not have to go back there. I did get a little sentimental when I looked into the back yard though. I loved having a deck and we had a lot of fun playing with the dogs in the yard, shooting cans with the BB gun when Mom, Lissy, Kelli and Kenna came to visit, etc. Now we are on to new and exciting adventures and it is pretty cool having a campground as a yard.

After the walk through, Meric and I went out to lunch. We went to Red Robin, one of our favorite places, and cashed in on Meric's birthday burger. Then we came home and took the dogs to the dog park and t walk along the trail here at the campground. There are several small ponds along the trail and it was a pretty hot day so we let the dogs play in the water. We went a little way off the trail, took off their leashes and let them go crazy. Emmy, my little water dog, was the first to go all in and start swimming around. Jasper didn't go in as deep but he did find a nice spot to lay down in the water. Lucy loved bouncing around and splashing while chasing after Emmy. Meric had seen Emmy and Jasper swim before, but not Lucy so we weren't sure if she could. Watching her play it seemed like she wasn't so sure herself. At one point I threw a pinecone in the pond so that Emmy could chase it. They all went in after it and the water was a little bit deeper than what Lucy though it would be. She bounded in and went completely under. After a few second she popped back up with the funniest look on her face and swam back to us. I really wish I had my video camera at that moment. It was a great day and it was nice to just let the dogs play.

No more house though means that I had to get rid of my washer and dryer. Our friend, Tremayne, had said that he wanted them long ago, but he was letting me keep them so that I could use them for as long as we wanted them. Meric and I bought a washer/dryer for the trailer but we hadn't had time yet to hook it up. I got it on sale for a great deal, but I got the kind that needs to have the dryer vented. That meant that we needed to drill a hole in the wall of the trailer and put in the vent. Yep that is right, a hole in the wall of our brand new trailer.

Meric started by drilling a small hole through the trailer wall. It served as the center point for the bigger hole he needed to drill. Then he drilled through the inside and then through the outside. The holes lined up and we were left with one big hole.


 

Lucy peeking through the hole



Meric holding the drilled out hole

 



Finished

Then he put on the vent cover, hooked up the hoses and now I have a washer dryer again. I have to do smaller loads of laundry but so far it is working good and it is nice to have a washer/dryer at home again.







Beach Day!

Amist all the craziness of moving into the trailer and getting the house ready for final inspection, we took a bit of a vacation. Our friends Ashely and Josh planned their wedding on a Thursday on the beach. That is a 5 hour drive on a weekday. A few months ago I was super excited to go to their wedding and the beach, but as the time got closer I started to stress. Usually when Meric and I go out of town, we just leave the dogs at home and have somebody come by the house a couple of times a day to let them in or out. However, in the trailer they can't just be let out. They need to be put on leashes and walked to the dog park 2-3 times a day. With my big and energetic beasties that is no easy task. We still have the house, but I didn't really want to leave the dogs there. Since we moved into the trailer the dogs only went to back to the house once. It is just easier to clean up the dog hair if more isn't being left and also I wanted the yard to get the chance to recover from having the dogs there for 2 years. So the only other option was to take them with us. Not a big deal except that a lot of hotels have pet restrictions. There aren't too many places that let you have 3 dogs over 50 lbs and then let you leave them alone in the room. With everything going on with the move it wasn't until the Saturday before the wedding that I started looking around for a room. I called a couple of places, got their voice mail, and left messages. On Monday one place called back. The owner sounded really nice and told me it was only a $15 fee when I told him we had 3 dogs. I cringed a little when he asked what kind they were and I told him they were all over 50 lbs. His reply of "oh thats no problem" was music to my ears. He told me they weren't a fancy place, just a ma and pop type motel.



My lesson in why not to grab a retractable leash



When Meric called Wednesday to let me know he was coming home from work I took the dogs out for one last walk and then "planned" to pack the car for the trip. I say "planned" because when I took the dogs out (all on retractable leashes) at one point a little dog came running toward us and Lucy took off to greet the dog. Holding 3 leashes I instinctively reach out and grabbed the leash instead of pushing the button on the leash to stop her. After getting the dogs under control I realized that my hand hurt. Meric came home to no dinner ready, no car packed and my hand in cold water. Meric did a little bit of wound care and we ate dinner, packed the car and hit the road.

Me and the dogs in the ocean

We made good time and arrived at our motel around 10:30 pm. The room itself was pretty small but I loved it because every room had a screened in porch. It was nice to be able to sit outside and not worry about the dogs being on leashes. First thing Thursday morning we headed to the beach. With it being before 11 am and in the "off season" the beach was pretty much deserted. We walked the dogs a little way and then let them off their leashes. They loved the beach! Lucy and Jasper would head toward the water but then run when the waves came in. Emmy on the other hand let those waves hit her and was completely soaked in no time. Lucy and Jasper only got wet when they followed me into the water. At one point, chasing a seagull, Emmy went into the ocean kind of far and had to swim back a little. Meric and I would run up and down the beach letting the dogs chase us back and forth, they loved it! I think Emmy and I agree that we could just live on the ocean forever. Another beautiful thing about the screened in porch was that we didn't have to worry about wet dogs in the room. After the beach we explored town a little. We got fudge at a candy shop (I got Heavenly Goo. Chocolate, peanut butter and carmel. YUM!) and calzones for lunch. We took them back to our room and sat on the porch, eating lunch and enjoying the ocean air.  We then got ready and went to the wedding. It took place on the beach on the site of an old light house. The wedding was nice and I was glad we went because not too many people were there. A lot of people that had said they were coming cancelled at the last minute and I was glad we could be there to support Ashely and Josh. One thing I had worried about with leaving the dogs in the room alone was that they would bark a lot and disturb the other guests. When we got back from the wedding we took the dogs out to go pee. While we were outside, a group of people including the owner came out of one of the rooms and the dogs started barking. We were hushing the dogs when the owner said "oh let them bark". He then asked if we took them to the wedding with us because they didn't make a sound the entire time we were gone. That made me so happy to hear. The rooms weren't super fancy but if we are ever to go back to the Cape Hatteras area, I will definitely stay there again. The porches made it nice to dry off and enjoy the outside with the dogs and the owner's laid back attitude was perfect for a nice vacation. The next morning we hit the beach one more time before eating lunch and heading out.



Earthen fort on Roanoke Island

  

Stage for the play "Lost Colony"


 

One of the bridges on the drive home



On the way home we stopped by Roanoke Island and visitied the Lost Colony. The drive back was beautiful. On the way there it had been mostly dark, so it was nice to see the scenary on the way back. Originally we had planned to drive out Thursday morning and come back Saturday, but then we changed it to Wednesday night to Friday. I am so glad we did for 2 reasons: 1. We were able to meet up with a guy who bought our bedroom set Friday night. The bedroom set was a big item we still needed to sell and he actually paid what we asked for it. 2. On Saturday, the day we originally were going to drive home, tornados tore through the area. The storm's path was pretty much the way we would have been driving home. At the house and trailer we only got a little rain and some strong winds, but not too far from the house was some major damage. Some houses were destroyed and tons of trees knocked down all over the place. (Tiffany would say it was a weird time for people to be cutting down trees!)



Over all it was a great vacation and I was able to relax. There has been so much to do I haven't been able to relax for about 2 months. I wasn't looking forward to having to take time off, but I am so glad we did. I wasn't sure about taking the dogs, but they loved the beach and I enjoyed it more because they were there. We also learned a few things. On the drive down we saw a couple of interesting signs. You know the deer crossing signs? Well they have red wolves crossing and watch out for bears signs. When I think of the beach I don't think of bears and wolves, but apparently they have a lot of them. The other thing we learned was that we don't actually know where the lost colony of Roanoke was before they got lost. We know it was the end of Roanoke Island, but not the exact location. When we went to visit the sight, it was the general area. For some reason I was expecting to see actual ruins or "on this sight this happened" type stuff, but it was more of a "in this area somewhere" and a stage for the play "Lost Colony" that they put on there. They have been putting on the play for decades and it is actually where Andy Griffith got his start. The things you learn.

Yard Sale Day

Since we decided to move into the trailer, I have been slowly filling one of our rooms with things we didn't need/want. I figured that before we moved we would have a couple of yard sales to help get rid of the stuff. After collecting all the stuff and looking at our timeline to be out of the house, I decided to only do one yard sale and then just give away whatever didn't sell.

On Thursday we had some of Meric's coworkers come by for a pre yardsale. They found a few items they wanted and I still had a ton of stuff for the yardsale. On Friday I struggled to get things ready for the sale the next day. I went to the house early and spent all morning moving items from the room to the garage and pricing them. I didn't even get half way through when I had to run an errand for work. After that I had to head back to the trailer and let the dogs out. Then it was back to the house for more moving and pricing. When Meric got off work we planned to haul our cargo trailer from the house and put it in storage at the campground (We have a cargo trailer and are using it as a mobile storage unit). I had a bit of a worry moment when I went to the KOA office and told them we planned to bring the trailer in for storage that evening. The guy in the office said they didn't have any room and then had to help another customer. I sat there trying to figure out what we would do with it once we could no longer store it at the house. Turns out (as usual) I was worried about nothing. When the guy got done helping the other customer he told me we could just park it in some parking spaces that are really close to our trailer. It actually works better this way because our trailer is closer, we can get to it anytime, and we don't have to pay extra to store it. Anway, when we hitched up the trailer to haul it to the campground the brakes weren't working right. We worked on that a little until we had to go meet Meric's coworkers for a "going away" dinner for a couple people at the clinic. By the time we were done with dinner Meric and I were really tired and had to get home to let the dogs out again.

Saturday moring we got up bright and early to be at the house by 6 am.  We moved the trailer out of the driveway and then rushed to try and get everything set up for the yard sale which started at 7 am. Friday was a beautiful 80 degree day, but a storm moved in over night and it was quite chilly by the morning. With it being so cold and overcast I wasn't sure we would get a good turn out. Cars started pulling up at 7 and we still didn't have everything out of the house. It was like a swarm came in and started devouring our items. I gave up trying to arrange/price what was in the garage and just started bringing everything out of the house. A few people started piles and within the first couple of hours more than half of our things were gone. It was insane and we could barely keep up. By 1 pm we ended the sale and only had a few items left. Around that time Tremayne Thurman, Meric's old coworker and my boss, called and wanted to stop by and look at what we still had. He took a few items and then called this lady he knows who takes donations for charity. She came by and took that rest. I couldn't believe all of our yard sale stuff was gone. Things couldn't have worked out better.

We still have a few big items like our TV, couches, and bedroom set that we need to sell. It is amazing that even with all the yard sale stuff gone there is still so much stuff in the house. Now I really need to focus on cleaning and organizing. I can't wait until we are totally done with the house and can just enjoy trailering.

That is of course until our next move.

Moving Day!

The day before we were to move was a little crazy. I had taken most of the week off to pack and get ready for the move, but still had tons to do by Thursday night. Of course we had to go out to dinner Thursday night (a colonel had come to town and wanted to go out with everyone so...) and so everything wasn't done yet. What really slowed me down was me. Thursday morning I started freaking out a bit. Not about living in a trailer but hitching the trailer to Meric's truck and towing it. Our 5th wheel is big and neither of us had ever done it before so I was getting really nervous.

The morning came, we loaded up my truck with stuff and headed out to the campground. When we got there the spot we were supposed to move onto had over-nighters camping on it and so we had to wait a little while for them to leave. The campground is really busy and a lot of its spots are taken by full-timers and so they have been expanding and creating new spots. We had picked out one of the new spots to live on, but due to water issues the new spots aren't ready yet.

Since we have had the trailer stored out there, we have gone to the campground a few times and have gotten to know some of the people who work there. When we pulled up one of the guys was out there and asked how I was feeling about the move. I told him I was nervous about hitching up and hauling. He told me it was really easy and then he and one of the other workers helped us the whole time. They looked at the hitch Meric got and said it was the best one on the market. They actually both had the same type. As Meric was hitching up, one of the guys was giving me tips on what to do when I am the only one helping. Meric backed up right into the hitch and it locked in like it was nothing. Super easy and nothing to worry about. Then Meric pulled it out and once our spot opened up the guys lead Meric right into place without any issues. (As soon as my kitchen isn't such a mess they will get some cookies!)

Meric hooking up the water and electricity

 We leveled it and hooked everything up. Then came the hard part, actually moving our things. Right now everything is so cluttered and I am figuring out where I want to put things.

 It seems like every time we go from the house to the trailer we unload tons of boxes and then remember even more stuff we have forgotten at the house. We are both so excited for the time when we are done with moving stuff and done with the house completely. T minus 25 days...