Back in LA...

Okay, okay.  As Beth has pointed out, it *has* been a ridiculous amount of time since I have posted, and a lot has happened!  Right now Abby is contentedly looking at books, so perhaps I'll have a few minutes without her clamoring to touch the screen and pull off the keys to write a bit.

First of all, we moved away from IL.  Our lease ended July 31st, and although Kevin isn't quite done with his Ph.D. yet, we did NOT want to stick around a whole other year (since it's a college town, you can pretty much only get year leases).  We also didn't want to move our stuff somewhere temporary, only to have to pack up and move again soon, so we opted to do one of those Upack/pod-like things where they deliver a couple of storage cubes to your house and you put all your stuff in.  Normally, they then take the cubes to your new address and drop them off, but since we don't really *have* a new address yet, we are just having them stored in Champaign.  At least we didn't have to unload the stuff into a storage unit, then reload the stuff again when it was time to actually move into a new place.

Kevin was still very busy with work and trying to finish up school and didn't have much time to help with the packing.  And I was busy with taking care of the bambina, who didn't much like letting her mom pack for more than a few minutes at a time.  So, we hired a college student to come watch Abby for a few hours three times a week while I packed up.  She came over for a few weeks--almost a whole month, actually--before we had to move, so I thought I'd have PLENTY of time.  Lots of people offered to help me pack, but I told them I had it all under control.  And I thought I did, right up until the last day when I suddenly still had lots of boxes to pack and no more time left!  (How in the world do we have so much stuff???  We even got rid of a TON of it beforehand, and sold most of our furniture and both of our cars too).  We did opt to pay some cleaning service to clean the house instead of having to worry about that, which was really nice.  Except that we were supposed to be all they way moved out *before* they came to clean (which was early afternoon on the 30th).  It turned out I was NOT done packing and so Kevin and I frantically threw stuff in boxes/bags and ran it down to the basement to be sorted and packed down there later, so that the cleaning ladies could do their jobs.  This meant that all that stuff later had to be brought back *up* the stairs, which ended up being a big pain.  In the end, I ended up staying up until 1am or something packing, only to have to wake up at 4am to catch our flight out.  To make matter worse, Kevin had to stay up *all* night the previous night trying to solve a work emergency at his data center.  So he *started* the day with no sleep.  He helped pack until 8pm or something, at which point he just had to take a rest (of course! I don't blame him).  Then he got back up about midnight and helped move boxes out to the cubes.  he sent me to bed at 1am and finished up while I slept a few hours (so he didn't get any sleep after his little nap.)  THEN, our plane was delayed like three hours or something, and we still had to care for and entertain the little munchkin on the plane and at the airport all that time.  It was rough.  Kevin would hold her for a while and then say "I can't keep my eyes open--you have to take her while I sleep a bit."  And then I would take her for a while, until *I* couldn't keep my eyes open, and we'd switch.  The worst part was when we were "about to take off" right when Abby had a poopy diaper, so they wouldn't let me get up to go to the bathroom to change it.  Only then we didn't actually take off for a long time, and once we did, there was turbulence, so they still wouldn't let me get up.  After about an hour, things were desperate for reasons you can probably imagine, so one kind stewardess let me get and use the closest lavatory, which was actually in first class.  (The other flight attendant was NOT happy I was there, but whatever.)

So, anyways, it was a long day.  Or couple of days, I guess.  But we made it!  We landed in Utah, picked up a rental car, and then picked up my little brother and his girlfriend once they got in, and then drove to my grandma's house in Sandy where we stayed the night.  Then we were on to some family reunions (three in a row, actually!) but I think I'll save that for another post.

You may be wondering where we were moving *to* (aside from the family reunions).  Well, we didn't really know yet!  Our plan was to go stay with my parents in "LA" (Los Alamos) for a month or so, then maybe Kevin's parents for a month or so, while Kevin finished up writing his dissertation and while we decided where we wanted to live the rest of our lives!  Since Kevin does his job from home (and he'll just be working for the same place once he gets his Ph.D., we could live anywhere!  It is awesome and difficult at the same time.  I mean, how do you decide on a place when you have infinite options?  More on that to come...