Sunday, December 23, 2018

Moving to Florida!

Finally it was time to boogie. We got a horrid appraisal so our original deal fell through. Our gorgeous townhouse was on the market far longer than we anticipated and we ended up selling to our realtor privately for his son to move in. Yep. He bought his kid our home.

Jackson says the money spends the same way. I was a little annoyed by it. :) Just being honest.

Anyway, Jackson had to be out of town so I closed on Wednesday morning. We'd packed up the whole house the evening before with some assistance on the big items from one of my favorite men on the planet: Matthew Bates. 
Bates helping with the TV that weight 1M pounds

"That's what friends are for..."

MacK saying goodbye! 
Jackson got back in town on Wednesday evening so we grabbed some dinner and started our journey south. I thought it was a good idea to get some miles under our belt so we got to just outside of Nashville that evening with Jackson driving the moving van and me in the Mercedes with MacKenzie. We left Jackson's SUV behind for Guy to sell for us as we only need one car in Florida. 

It turned out to be an awesome idea to leave that evening as we had no traffic issues and were able to drive through Atlanta at non-rush hour on Thursday. It still took TWO painful hours to get through Atlanta. We stopped for the evening in Gainsville, FL because we could not move into the storage unit until the following morning and we needed a hotel that accepted dogs. It is exceptionally difficult to find places that accept pets without exorbitant fees.

Perfect passenger 

"Let's roll!"

We made it to Florida! 

Keeping watch
We were so fortunate to have no issues during our drive. Friday morning we got the truck unloaded with ease into our storage unit, returned the moving truck to a local Home Depot and headed south about 3 hours (with traffic) to Naples! 
SO HAPPY TO BE OUT OF THE CAR
The only thing that kept me going through the drive was knowing that we'd have Christmas dinner at Bice in Naples. It is my favorite restaurant in the States right now.
A salad worth driving 7,945 hours for

THE BEST PASTA.

You didn't think I'd skip dessert after all that, right?!

Susie even got to see her man Santa!

My kind of Christmas tree!
MacK loves to help!

Wondering if a she is getting a treat soon

World's funniest beach towel


Supervising. 

She smelled her own gifts!

New toys!

Hopefully the only gator she sees in FL!

Jackson was SO excited for his new coffeemaker! 

Grammy got a new beach chair! 

Christmas is not complete without
breakfast dish!

Modeling her new toys!
We had Christmas on Saturday morning, the 22nd, before getting back in the car (groan) to head for Tampa to catch our flight to Amsterdam where we'd be spending the holidays! We had to rent a car to get from Naples to Tampa because we were flying back into Fort Lauderdale and needed our car for another few days while we stayed with Susie until our apartment was ready. It was honestly comical at this point how many things we had going on. 

I stopped in at my office before leaving town (and only a few days post-facial) and people said I looked young and carefree. Looks are deceiving. This was such a stressful time with so many moving parts, but we got through it by just chanting that you "eat an elephant one bite at a time." We tackled each problem as it presented itself and everything worked out without a hitch. I'm still SO glad that part is over! 

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