From the Atlantic to the Pacific...

After Nick's ceremony, it was GO TIME!! We had to get ready for our movers that were scheduled to come the following Tuesday, Dec. 6th...there was NO way we were going to have everything ready and separated out for them by Tuesday. We called and asked for an extra day to prepare, and thankfully they gave it to us!! So they ended up coming to start packing our stuff on the 7th and were there for 3 days straight getting everything packed up and loaded into the shipping crates. We ended up with 9 crates in all...crazy considering we were taking some big things back to Missouri and getting rid of some big things too. What does that tell me? I didn't get rid of nearly enough when I went through everything when we had our garage sale!
After the movers took all of our stuff we were left with our trailer and the few things we were going to load up to take back to Missouri to store. We still had 5 days after the movers took our stuff to when we were leaving for our long journey to the Pacific. It was a crazy 5 days of getting everything loaded up, cleaned, packed, turned off, cancelled, returned, etc. I felt we didn't have time to breathe!! We got it all done though and headed to Missouri with our loaded trailer on December 14th. We arrived into St. Louis on the 15th and were able to spend the night with my Aunt Dorothy, Uncle Terry, their kids, and Mom-o that night. The craziness didn't stop once we got to MO either!! Our schedule while we were there went a little something like this:
16th-meet Dad and Connie to hook up the trailer to their Avalanche and switch everything else over, and then take the Tahoe to be shipped out, then drive to Moberly with them spend the night there
17th-wake up early to get ready and drive down to Rolla to see my cousin Andy graduate (SOOOOO super proud of him and happy we were able to be there), drive to Jefferson City to spend the night with Mom and Mike
18th-took our time getting around, and drove to St. Joseph to stay with Nick's family, we stopped in Kansas City on our way to see Sara and Mark's new house (it's so cute and is going to look awesome when they are done!)
We actually got to stay in St. Joseph, and sleep in the same bed for more than one night! LOL We stayed there and got to visit with everyone including meeting our niece, Evalynn, for the first time!! We also got to see Nick's Grandma Sass, and were so glad she was able to make it in. It was such a great visit with everyone filled with family, laughter, love, and fun!! We got to see Ali and La'Var's basketball games while we were there too. We got to have Nick's dad, Joe's, french toast...my fave!! We were thankful that we were able to spend time with everyone and see so many different family members and a couple of friends while we were there. We really wish there were more times like those where we could ALL be together. We stayed in St. Joseph until the 23rd.
23rd-drove to Moberly and got to have another Christmas celebration with more family...it was great to see Barb, Ray, Tracy, Debbie, and their kids! (Congratulations to Brittan and Brent on their engagement!)
24th-CHRISTMAS EVE!! The kids were so excited and decorated cookies with Grandma Connie for Santa. We went to church with some very dear family friends, the Finnigan clan! Thanks for saving us a seat :) My Aunt Bev and Uncle Ken (also my Godparents) came out too and we played Strut and had a nice visit with them. Aunt Bev made me a quilt that is gorgeous and I can not wait to receive it here in HI.
25th-We woke up to presents that Santa brought!! The kids were excited they got what they had asked for, but nothing big in size because Santa knew we had to travel with it. ;) We got everything packed up again and headed back to Jefferson City to celebrate again, YAY!! We got to Mom and Mike's and met Mike's parents Janey and Bill, it was very nice to meet them. We ate Mom's yummy lasagna and sat around with Sean, Sara, Mom, and Mike playing Strut and Team Trivia. It was a fun time!!
26th-AAAAHHHH, the day before we were flying out...I was kinda freaking out this day!! We got everything packed up yet again and drove to STL and stopped in to see Mom-o (she slipped and fell so she wasn't able to make it to Christmas at Mom's :( ), and Aunt Dorothy, Uncle Terry, and their kids one last time before we left. Then we went to stay with Sean and Sara at Sara's dad's house. We had a lot of fun just hanging out playing pool and dancing around....this helped me relax and enjoy the little time we had left in the CONUS.
27th-THIS WAS THE DAY...got up super early got loaded up and headed to the airport! My Mom, Dad, Sean, and Sara were all able to be there with us and help us get our 13 bags checked in...yes we had 13 bags!! haha Well 11 actually and 2 car seats. I was so thankful that they were all able to be there to see us off, it was a very emotional day for me and still gets me teary eyed thinking about all of the family and friends we have that we love and miss so much!! :'( Forgot to mention we drove to the airport in snow...so we drove in snow to get to the airport to fly to the beautiful beaches of Hawaii. Our plane actually got into Honolulu an hour early, so that was good. I think our travel time from when we got onto the plane in STL until we landed in Honolulu was around 12 or 13 hours!

We were exhausted, but WE MADE IT from the Atlantic to the Pacific!!