1100 miles travelled...

(warning, lengthy post ahead...) Alright, alright, I'm updating! Well, after the goodbyes and many kind words, we got on our way Thursday morning and headed out of Orlando by about 11am. We made our way up the turnpike and I-75 and got to Atlanta by about 6:30 in the evening. When we got there, we went to my brother's house and spent some time with he and his wife Kari, and our cute niece Nora (see pics below). We had a great time with them, eating dinner, reading books to Nora, and just hanging out. That night we headed just north of Atlanta and stayed at a semi-sketchy La Quinta, where I'm pretty sure I heard "you have the right to remain silent" not too far away from our room... but somehow, neither Renee or her parents seemed to hear it, so whatever... makes for a good story anyway.

The next day we headed up through Chattanooga and made it to Nashville by late morning and walked around the Opry Mills Mall for a few hours and ate some lunch. Did I mention that I'd been driving the 16' Budget Truck so far... it wasn't too bad... the mirrors rattled and sounded like they were gonna fall off when you hit about 72mph, but other than that it was a pretty good vehicle. After lunch, Renee's dad took over the truck driving and took the truck up to Tell City. The rest of us (Renee, me and Renee's mom Lucy) shopped a bit longer and then headed up to Kentucky Lake to spend the weekend with Lucy's side of the family in a couple of cabins. It was a nice relaxing weekend with not much activity, but plenty of food! Sunday morning we packed up our clothes and food and headed for Tell City. We got back in the afternoon and went over to the St. Paul's Church picnic and auction. After some more good food, and bidding on a few items, we headed back to the house and with the help of Renee's parents and a couple of uncles, the truck was finally unloaded! All the boxes and furniture fit pretty well in the basement, phew! After all of that, we ate again!, and then headed home exhausted...

Then this morning we got up at 5am! UGH! We had to take the last few boxes over to a FedEx dropoff where my brother-in-law's father works and got us a great discount on some of our bigger boxes. Oh, and on the way we nearly took out two dogs, one that was on a country road just over a hill, filling up on road kill... it was a near miss, but we (and he) survived! After dropping the boxes off, we drove to Owensboro, Kentucky, and picked up Renee's parents van from the airport, and dropped off the truck! No more boxes and no more truck!

We got back and helped Byron and Lucy begin to clean out their garage... quite the task but I'd say we made some definite progress! Then, we ate some lunch and took a nap amidst the construction noise of a wood floor being installed in the new kitchen and dining room at the Alvey house! Now we're refreshed and just relaxing for the next couple of days! Until next time... enjoy the pics below!

Story time with Uncle Drew and Aunt Renee; story time with Uncle Drew (Poky Little Puppy...classic!) and Nora showing us "butterfly" pose that she learned at yoga camp