Reviewing our move: Packing

Hubby and I finished unpacking the majority of boxes this morning.  Hooray!  Right now we're acclimating to East Coast living by eating delicious ethnic food and learning how to drive more aggressively.  We're also reflecting on our moving experience, so I figured it would be nice to write a couple of posts about that. 


We packed for days and days.  Although we donated and sold a lot of items, we still had a ton of items to pack.  I packed most of the rectangular items and left hubby with the easy task of packing oddly shaped and fragile things.  (Hee hee, I'm such a good wife like that.)     
 

A couple of boxes here and there slowly grew into tall unstable towers.  Soon we were surrounded by our very own city of stuff.

While we packed, life still went on.

And wouldn't you know it?  In the midst of everything, Baby Chuck began crawling forward for the first time.

Whoa.  Not so fast, spider monkey.

Goodbye Charlie

Hi everyone, it's been awhile since my last post. Our family experienced a lot of changes these past weeks.  We left Michigan, drove across country, and moved into a new place in New Jersey. But the biggest change in our life has nothing to do with our move, it has to do with Charlie.

As many of you know, Charlie has been part of our family for six years.  We adopted him from an organization in the East Village that rescues dogs on death row.  Although we were hesitant to adopt an older dog (he was eight years old), we fell in love with his sweet and spunky nature.

Last week, hubby and I made the hard decision to put Charlie down.  It broke our hearts to do so.  He was sick before we left Michigan and his health got worse after our move.


Charlie was a wonderful dog and a wonderful friend.  He loved to nap, eat cheese, and lick people's toes.  He also loved to sleep with his head on my stomach and bark at ghosts.  We were so lucky that he chose us to be his family.   

Charlie- We miss you so much.  You've left a dog shaped hole in our hearts. 

Bucket list- Grand Rapids Public Museum

Here's our last bucket list item.

Hubby's birthday

We celebrated hubby's birthday last week.  Baby Chuck and I woke up early to head out to the store and prepare for his birthday, but we ran into a little bit of trouble along the way. 

(1)  It was very windy that day and I had several Marilyn Monroe-esque moments.  I think I flashed everyone in the parking lot.  Luckily, it was pretty empty and I was wearing a slip.

I ended up using two grocery bags to hold my dress down.

(2) Baby Chuck really wanted to get hubby a birthday balloon.  After deliberating for what seemed like hours and hours, we finally settled on a cute airplane shaped balloon.  I gave Baby Chuck the responsibility of bringing the balloon to the car.  As we left the store, a strong gust of wind blew and our airplane took flight.

It's probably somewhere over Lake Michigan by now, wishing birds and sea creatures a happy birthday.

(3) I like to pretend like I know what I'm doing in the kitchen. But, Ina Garten, I am not.  I tried following an online recipe for a gluten free chocolate cake.   The man in the video assured me that it would be simple, foolproof, and delicious.  I don't know what he was talking about.  Here's how my poor cake turned out.

It ended up being pretty tasty... and at least it didn't blow away!