The Move ~ Indiana To Georgia

Moving from Indiana to Georgia was the most difficult move we have made yet. Not only was it the farthest move we have made, but we also have two little kids (and all the junk that comes with them), we had to be out of our house a month before we closed on our new house and I am pregnant to boot.

Thankfully we sold our house very quickly, then made one quick trip to Georgia (literally drove all night, looked at 18 houses that day then drove back the next day) and found and bought a house there.  Then a month later we packed up our house in Indiana, put 1/2 of our stuff in PODS (they quoted me that our whole house should fit in two PODS, it didn't even come CLOSE), rented a storage unit and moved the rest of our stuff in there for a month.  This threw a major glitch in our moving plan because we now had to figure out how to get all the stuff from the storage unit to Georgia.

 We closed on the Indy house and Phil left and moved to Georgia to start work. The girls and I moved in with my in-laws for three weeks until it was closer to time to move into our house in Georgia.  At the end of February Phil flew back to Indiana, rented the biggest U-Haul possible and packed up the whole storage unit in our truck and got ready to make the trek south.  Unfortunately, not even moving day went perfectly because the movers that I had hired didn't show up and when I called them they had no idea what I was talking about.  Thankfully Phil and his dad were able to do most of the work with a little help from me, and we got it all done in a few hours.  Of course it was literally 10 degrees the day we were moving and our faces, hands and feet were so numb.  I was very grateful to go on a coffee run and warm up!

That afternoon, I packed the girls into my car (with two new DVD's and several new iPad apps) and followed Phil in the U-Haul for the 8 hour drive south.  The girls were awesome little troopers and we pulled into our extended stay hotel parking lot at around 10:00 pm and running on fumes.  We then stayed in the tiny, hotel room for the next 5 rainy days but we did get to try all kinds of fun new restaurants and get the lay of the land a bit.

Our next big hiccup came when it was time to move in.  We closed on the house on a Monday morning and it's Georgia custom to give the homeowners a couple of days after closing before you take possession.  In hind sight, I would never ever agree to this custom again.  We did a 'final walk-through' but because they hadn't moved out yet, it was impossible to tell if everything from the contract had been completed, not to mention when they finally did move out, a few things were damaged that we didn't see in the walk-through.  Additionally, we were supposed to take possession Wednesday night but they weren't fully moved out until 1:00 pm Thursday afternoon, which left me with two very tired kids, no where to go and two PODS being delivered around their piles of garbage and other things in the driveway.  Not to mention, the night before Phil had asked that we at least be able to unload our U-Haul into the garage since we needed to have that returned by Thursday morning as well.  So Phil and I spent two hours Wednesday night unloading a U-Haul by ourselves as their movers were loading their truck.  It was a mess.

Long story short, it was not the smoothest of transitions, but we made it work and I learned several things in the process, mostly that movers are worth their weight in gold and I will not be moving again for a LONG time (but I've said that before)!