fortunately, unfortunately.....

 So, our move yesterday did not quite go quite as planned.... We thought we would be in Nashville on Tuesday by dinner time, but there were a lot of glitches that stretched us all to practice patience and lean on grace big time... 

Here's a little photo journal below of our moving saga.  (I don't expect anyone to read all of this as it is long, but if you are bored with nothing to do, have at it.) 

Fortunately in the morning, the kids were so creative and played with masking tape and paper from the recycle bin.  

Fortunately, the movers arrived around mid-morning...

Unfortunately, they showed up with a small truck that already had two loads on it...

Unfortunately, the estimate given to me over the phone was much less than what they quoted me when they got there. 

Fortunately, I was able to talk to several people on the phone who helped give us a few discounts to bring the price down. 

Unfortunately, it was still way over what we had budgeted and had expected to pay for our move and I have been on the phone trying to negotiate and use every skill I can muster up in conflict resolution. 

Fortunately, they were able to call to get another truck to come. 

Unfortunately, the other truck did not arrive until 5:30 p.m. 

Fortunately, Kim brought us hot sourdough whole wheat bread around lunch time. 

Unfortunately, we don't have any left because it was so good and we shared some with our movers to help keep them going yesterday... 

Fortunately, it was not 110 degrees yesterday. 

Unfortunately, it was still a hot summer Knoxville day, and our power went out at 3 p.m. because the power company took the utilities out of our name for our last day. Even though our landlords had called to have it put in their name for the same day, there was a glitch in the system of switching it over so we were without power from 3 p.m. until 8:30 a.m. the next morning. 

No A.C. and no lighting = a challenging way to get the stuff in the trucks when the sun went down. 

Fortunately, I had packed a headlamp. 

Unfortunately, I could not find mine quickly in the car. 

Fortunately, I found Taylor's Lego headlamp easily in his backpack and was a cleaning machine sweeping floors in the dark with the trusty Lego man on my head. 

Fortunately, I was able to totally laugh at myself at this point and at the absurdity of our day and our situation. 

Fortunately, our friend Anderson had a pool party for his birthday from 4-8 that afternoon. 

Unfortunately, when they came home from the party, we still were not finished with the move. 

Fortunately, our wonderful neighbors offered to let the kids watch the Olympics. 

Unfortunately, around 9:30, I realized that we still had a long way to go. 

Fortunately, our neighbors offered the best southern hospitality and invited us to spent the night at their house. I put the kids to bed there and went back to our house to work. 

Unfortunately, Jason and I did not arrive until around after midnight to their house. 

Unfortunately, they loaded the truck and still had a few items that they did not fit on the truck so Jason had to wait on them to bring ANOTHER truck today to pick up the items. 

Fortunately, God has blessed us with these two amazing gifts and this puts it all in perspective.