Mid June came barreling at us like runaway train.
I'm sure I slept too little and drank too much.
Looking back, I shouldn't have fretted so much(The primary cause for the lack of sleep), the move went very smoothly, but then hindsight is always 20-20. The alcohol consumption I'm going to blame on the US Customs and Border patrol. When we went to Portland at the end of May (The trip was planned before the house sold and we already had commitments) we stopped in at the Border to ask if there was anything special we needed to do or not do during our move. It was basically the same instructions we received when we moved up to Canada: inventory everything, pets must have rabies shots and liquor must be cleared with the state and no open bottles allowed (why? I don't know, I guess they can't verify what's in them?)
Okay, so if you've been to my house, or read this blog, you know we like happy hour(s). So we had plenty of open bottles of liquor. At the end, drinks were getting a bit, shall we say, creative? But we did what the Border dude told us and loaded up the UHaul with our well listed and labeled boxes, vaccinated cat, our letter from Oregon Liquor Control Comission, and no open bottles.
Once we got the crossing, we had about an hour's wait. Not bad, but not stellar when travelling with a three-year-old. So I was feeling a little anxious about crossing and how long we would be there filing papers and whot not. Colin was driving the UHaul in front of us and went through in record time. Then we pull up and had the officer our passport.
Him; "You with the UHaul?"
Me: "Yes, sir."
Him: "Have a nice day."
Uh..... okay. It was a little weird, I don't think he looked at our passports, he certainly didn't look in the back of the UHaul or the truck "Grandpa Bob" was driving. We pull up along side Colin and he asks if the officer asked for our papers or if we need to go into the office because he (the officer) didn't look at his (Colin's) papers or tell him to go into the office. So... what do we do? We had pictures of being swarmed with police cars and detained for not going in so I grabbed all of our passports, inventory, OLCC papers, rabies vaccination certificate and went in.
Me: "Hi, I'm moving back to Oregon and I didn't know if you wanted any of our paperwork."
Him: "Did the guard tell you to come in?"
Me: "No...."
Him: "Are you American?"
Me: "Yes...."
Him: "Well, welcome home. Now please leave, you can't park there."
Huh.
So I hightailed it out of there, rallied the troops and headed off to Oregon. And we only looked back once or twice to make sure there were no lights blinking behind us.
***
My mother, and many, many others, warned me that children often regress when they experience a big change in their life. And let me tell you, Harry's life had just been rocked. No more "green house" (in fact no house at all, at this point we didn't know where we were going to live for the next two weeks!), no more almost-daily visits with grandparents, and no more Daddy all day (since Colin had to start work in the office, no more jammy-time telecommuting). That's some serious stuff for a little kid. And dammit! I'd just got the stupid soother away from him during bedtime. So, feeling a bit guilty fro *traumatizing* my kid, I had a "sucky" in my pocket on the way down. Didn't need it. In fact, I found it in the pocket of my coat about a week ago (it was my rain coat, thank god summer is finally here, but that's another post...) and quietly chucked the nasty thing away. He didn't even miss it!
(And he also told me he was a big boy and big boys don't wear diapers! YaHOOOOOO! And that's all I'm going to say about that.)
***
Ahhhh, finally. The Uhaul is unpacked, the storage unit is packed, we put an offer on a house (which has subsequently been accepted) and we bought a new car. I need a holiday...
Off to the Oregon Coast!
It was so perfect! The tide was out every morning so after a leisurely breakfast, Colin would get us some coffee and we'd head down the beach and Harry would run
throw sand and run
and splash and run!
Sometimes Colin or I would run too. But there were lots of sand castles, kicking over said castles, looking for treasures, and the great and glorious kelp! Harry dragged that nasty stuff all over the beach!
It was a little boy's paradise.
I thought it wasn't too shabby either.
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