Last Day in California

It's hard to believe that moving day has finally arrived...it feels literally like we just moved here!  We had a great year and we can't believe that our time out here is already over!  It will be nice to be back in the south, but at the same time, there are definitely going to be things that we miss about living out here!  For instance...the scenery is just fabulous!  We are going to miss the rolling hills, the vineyards, the orchards, and the mountains.  We are also going to miss all the fantastic outdoor activities that are all within a few hours!  You can ski, bike, swim, hike, mountain climb etc all within a few hours of each other!  Of course, what makes all of these fabulous things possible is the great weather...which is another one of the many things that we will miss about the west coast.  The weather is hard to beat...there's really no other place that compares.  We didn't have to use our air conditioner in the summer as there was always a breeze and it never got super hot, and in the winter, it would get cold and rainy, but nothing unbearable.  Plus, if it's cold and rainy in the valley, it means that it's snowing up in the mountains which is good for skiing!

Enough reminiscing about how much we loved it here...let's talk about our moving fun!  As many of you know, Brian was out of the country for about 3 weeks recently which meant that I was stuck here to take care of a lot of the moving details (great timing right?!).  Anyway, it was my responsibility to set up the move...so I went to the Traffic Management Office (or TMO as the Air Force likes to call it) filled out all the necessary paperwork (of course I had to have power of attorney for everything to do this!!) and scheduled our moving date.  Of course, as luck would have it and although everything was filled out correctly, I never received a phone call from the actual moving company as the Air Force said I would.  Unfortunately, getting in touch with Brian was kinda difficult as his internet service was sketchy, and he was unable to check any of his phone messages...which I had a feeling is who the movers called...instead of me.  Finally, about a week later, we get all of this figured out, the movers give me a date...I tuck it away in my mental filing cabinet and move on with my life for the next few weeks until moving week approached.

Now what I learned from our last move was that although a moving company was coming to pack all our stuff, that still means there's plenty of preparation to do.  For instance, all the food needs to be eaten (not a terrible thing right?!), all the liquids need to be disposed of/used up, all the laundry needs to be done, etc etc.  I had this all planned out in my mind...what day I was going to do each chore...until Brian comes home on Tuesday afternoon with some bad news and tells me that the movers called and said they would be here tomorrow morning around 8.  Now this is bad news because we weren't expecting the movers until Thursday...that's a whole precious day's worth of time that we were losing in our moving preparation time!!!  I FREAKED OUT!!!  Needless to say, it was a late night of packing our own bags, packing the car, doing laundry, removing a satellite dish off the side of our house, cleaning, and on top of it all, taking care of a sick dog (Vida was under the weather for a while).  Eight A.M. came early the next morning as the movers came in and got right to it...all of our stuff was packed in 133 boxes within a matter of hours...unfortunately the moving truck wasn't going to be there to pick it all up until Friday which meant we had to sit amongst the boxes for a little while.  All in all, we had over 300 things listed on the inventory and filled up almost half the huge moving truck.  Finally, our house was empty and made that weird echoing sound that empty houses make...we took one last walk down to the pretty mountains and vineyards to say goodbye to the horses.  As our last day in our house in California came to an end, we took our time and drove through the scenic roads by our house in Green Valley and tried to take some mental pictures.  We'll never forget out experiences out here and we are definitely looking forward to going back to visit in the future!!

Kitchen getting all packed up

Moving van 

Brian sad to leave:(

Vineyards on our final walk

Vineyards along our walking path

Tree lined walking path I probably walked/ran on 200 times this past year

Car packed and ready to go...that's right people...there's a box of cheerios in there.  Those of you who know me, this probably doesn't surprise you.

This is the status of the car right when we left.  We'll take one of these when we get to Charleston to see the difference.

On our way out, we drove past this field of beautiful sunflowers right by our house that we always meant to take pictures of...the sunset was pretty too!

They're so tall!

Beautiful sunset on our way out