After what felt like endless discussion back and forth That Husband and I decided to use a company called Compass Van Lines for our move. (Can we take a second and talk about that name? What does it even mean? Maybe they are trying to convey that their vans (trucks) never get lost?)

There are so many options for moving. Throw everything away and pack what you can in suitcases you take on the plane (as TH did when he first moved to Dallas before we were married). Throw most of your stuff away and pack the rest of your belongings in your car (which my friend Janssen just did). We also considered good old U-Haul, and the PODS that all of our friends seem to be using lately. I immediately nixed U-Haul after considering what it would be like to have TH driving the truck while I followed behind with the baby in the backseat all by myself. We almost went with the PODS, but Compass Van Lines ended up costing less and they packed the truck up for us, and will be unloading all of our stuff as well. Win!

The experience in Dallas with the loading was a great one. We had a pile of free stuff in the garage that we let the movers pick through, which made them happy because they walked away with entire garbage bags full of food and clothes, and they were courteous and careful with our stuff. From what TH told me, they took our stuff, drove it to a storage facility, unloaded it, and then left it there until they had enough stuff from other people moving into the area surrounding Chicago (or on the way) to make it worth the drive. Then they load it all up into the same truck and drive up, dropping things off as they go. It’s a great system because we get a full service move for less than other companies quoted us, but it’s probably not the way to go if the thought of being separated from your possessions (and having no idea if all of your possessions will be correctly loaded up again and brought to you) makes you anxious.

They loaded up our stuff on August 26th. Yesterday, September4th, we finally got the call that the truck was almost here. HOORAY!!! (3 exclamation points definitely necessary for such news.)

We’re going to be there at 11 pm to move you in. Okay, well that won’t work since we have to use a freight elevator and loading dock and they won’t let us do it that late at night.

Nevermind, we’re going to stay in _____ tonight, so we won’t be there until tomorrow morning. Expect us at 7 am. We schedule the freight elevator for 7 am.

We wake up on Sunday morning, movers-are-coming-day, and it feels weird to not be getting ready for church. It’s 7 am, now 8, now 9, now 10:30, and finally they call. TH goes downstairs to get them and bring them up so they know the way.

Awesome apartment you have, can we take pictures of the view? Oh yeah, please give us $$$$$. No, we will not give you that money, we already paid it back in Dallas and here is the receipt you gave us that proves this.

Oh, well we don’t have the original receipt with us because we forgot it back in Dallas, and we called our boss and he said that he doesn’t want to go into the office to verify that the receipt is the real deal so we’re going to get a hotel for the night and move you in tomorrow. Well thanks for making us skip church and put away our blow up beds and get all excited about no longer having to eat with our plates in our laps while sitting cross legged on the floor.

This picture, taken on my iPhone, is from our walk home from church last week. I love my boys!

After sitting around with bummed looks on our faces for a few minutes we realized that we still had enough time to get to church, albeit with the singles ward instead of our regular family ward. (LDS wards are divided up into family, single, and sometimes language wards. We heard that there aren’t any Polish wards in Chicago anymore which is sad because I kind of wanted to go!) We walked in right before they started and T1, being only one of two babies in the room, was passed around from pew to pew while all of the students did their best to try to make him laugh and smile.

It’s late Sunday night now, and all we can do is hope that the movers show up as promised to drop our stuff off tomorrow. Though it was fun at first, sleeping on blow up mattresses with T1 in between us on the floor has gotten rather old, and my hips are aching because I spend all of my time at the computer sitting hunched over sitting cross-legged on the floor while I edit photos.

I’ll update this post and let you know how everything turns out. Right now I’m feeling optimistic, hoping that our Labor Day will be spent directing movers, doing a little bit of unpacking, and then hitting up Taste of Polonia 2010 later in the afternoon! TH is salivating over the thought of real Polish sausage, Pierogi, and Polish bread. I am, of course, most excited about all the great photo opps!

Update: It’s 11:00 am and we still don’t have any movers here (actually we haven’t even heard from them yet.) I’m not only bummed because we might not get our stuff today, but because we’re going to have to sit around waiting for them until they call and we might miss Taste of Polonia.

12:21 pm the movers are here! I think things are worked out and we should have everything unpacked in a few hours.

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