Packed Up

Things have been very busy the past three weeks with packing, moving and arriving in China.  We made it here and are doing well.  I started this post in the US but did not finish it.  I will post updates to get us caught up to present time.  Hopefully we'll be caught up by the end of the weekend.  We will also post pictures as well.

Well, everything is packed up and in one of three places; one of 24 suitcases, eight backpacks, our air shipment, or long term storage.  I would say 90-95% of our belongings are heading to the long term storage.  It was quite the exercise to sort through what was going and what was staying.  As we have discussed this journey we have always said that we didn't want to recreate America in China, but that we wanted to experience China.  That is easier said than done.  So we tried to take things that we needed, but not a lot of what we wanted.

The two weeks of moving were two of the most exhausting weeks we have experienced in a long time.  We were so grateful to have movers there to help us pack and load everything.  They did a great job.  We had to have everything packed in our suitcases the first day the movers came so they could pack everything else.  We had a couple of times where we had something packed and we had to dig through boxes to find it.  Most days we had Trevon and Declan go to neighbors in the morning while the movers were there.  That helped a ton so that they were out of the way of the movers and weren't getting in the way.  Thanks Misty and Jill.

We spent the last couple of nights at the Hampton Inn in Lehi since our house was packed up.  The kids had a lot of fun there.  They loved the swimming pool and the breakfast.  It was nice to have the hotel and get a good night sleep.  It was also great to see friends and family one last time.  We had a neighboorhood party and we were able to see a lot of our neighbors.  It was a lot of fun.  Thanks Alision for organizing.  We know it was a lot of work.

We loaded all our suitcases up at the Hampton Inn in my dad's pickup and the back of our suburban.  It was quite the load.  Then my dad and Brian drove the luggage to the airport and we followed in the suburban.  We made it to the airport on time and without incidents.  Once we arrived we had quite the assembly line to get the suitcases from the curb to inside the terminal.  Brian, my dad and I were unloading all the suitcases and the kids started taking them into the terminal.  Mikayla stayed in the terminal with the suitcases while the other kids made multiple trips from the curb back to the terminal.  Delta was great about getting us all checked in.  We worked really had to balance all the suitcases and every suitcase came in very close to 50 lbs.  That was a huge relief that we didn't have to sort luggage weights out at the airport.  With six kids we knew we would be an attraction in China.  We quickly realized that we were an attraction in the US with travelling with six kids.   Everyone was very helpful and kind to us as we travelled.

Boyd