MIA (moving in action)

Sorry, I haven't posted anything in a while.  It has been pretty busy here in NANA's land.  I will write several blogs so you aren't bored to death with one LONG post.

We packed up most of our things we had at Bestefar's house and prepared for our move into our new home.  We had a final tour of the house and hoped our container would arrive as scheduled.  It did sort of.  We had to be at the new house by 8:30a, to meet the driver with our container.  Normally it wouldn't be a big deal but its dark until about 9ish in the morning and the kids were sleeping later than they ever had in the USA.  I had everything packed in the car ready to leave…the kids were up earlier than normal, I was dressed and trying to get the kids out of their PJs and into their clothes and I hear a truck outside.   I thought to myself…hmmm today isn't trash day and Bestefar's house is at the end of a road so no big truck traffic typically.  I walked outside and IT's OUR CONTAINER on a big truck.  They had the wrong address, YIKES.  Somewhere there was some miscommunication, they had delivered our air freight container to Bestefar's house so I guess they assumed we would need the ocean container delivered to the same place.  The driver, I never got his name, was super nice and said no problem, I can take it to the new address.  But he would have to drive the truck in reverse all the way back down and it would take some time.  The road is narrow with cars parked on the sides of the road and its dark and its probably about 1/2 mile…big kudos to the driver.  So I called Jan explained to him what had happened, he said throw the kids in the car in their PJs and get to the new house.

The three of us get into the car, kids in their PJs and drive to the new house.  I passed the truck with the container parked at the neighborhood bus stop so I knew I would be there when he made it to the new house.  UGHH…talk about a stressed morning, but I was calm and knew everything would be ok.  I can only imagine what Jan was thinking was going on, he was getting bits and pieces and couldn't leave work.  I told him I had everything under control, or so I thought.  Our new street had a sharp left turn just before our house.  I had mentioned it to the truck driver and he said Ok, we will see when I get there.  Well guess what…No, he couldn't make the turn and even if he could he wouldn't be able to drop the container at the house.  Well CRAP!!!.  So he calls his people and they said they would have to take the container back to a warehouse and offload our possessions onto a truck and then bring it to us.  So, what does that mean, a couple more days, a few hours… only a couple hours.  The poor driver had to back down a long street again, but he was smiling and cheerful.  I'm glad he wasn't a grumpy person, I probably would have been.  Sorry no pics of the chaos.

Both Bestemor & Bestefar, came to help us with the move along with keeping the kids out of the way.  Luckily, we had some things to do, Bestefar was chief IKEA furniture assembler

 and I unpacked our clothes and washed our kitchen items I had purchased at IKEA.  Yes, I have been to IKEA about 8x in less than 2 weeks, its a great store.  Maybe I should have visited ours in Houston more ;-) as it is more budget friendly.

One of the many shopping trips to get stuff we needed to move in.  Thanks Grete for being my co-shopper/translator

The guys call and said they were on their way to our house.  But they had to pack everything into two trucks.  They couldn't fit everything into one box truck.

When they arrived it was felt like Grand Central Station… One more hiccup, to add to the morning chaos, the packing list the Norway team had wasn't correct.  They gave me a list and said oh this is number 6, I looked at him and said no this isn't correct.  He said yes it is… I said no this list is the items that went to storage.  He looked puzzled, I asked him to wait a moment.  I had put all my important papers into one folder which I kept with me just in case and I thankfully had remembered to bring it this morning.  I had the only copy of what items were suppose to be in the ocean container.  The men were everywhere asking where each of the 170+ boxes/packages should be placed.  Thanks to Bestemor for taking photos…while I played air traffic controller

checking my list and seeing what made it and what didn't

The kids luckily had their iPads to keep them busy.

Such sweet siblings, sharing the iPad

I guess this house wasn't made to take in an American sized sofa.  They tried getting it through the door from the mud room but it wouldn't make it.

I got out my handy mini-tape measure and it wouldn't fit through the main guest door, the poor guys had to carry it around the house to get to the sliding glass door.  But I guess they do this all the time.

While I was freezing my fingers off, the kids heard some of their toys start to make noise.  Bestemor & Bestefar said they couldn't get to the toys fast enough.  Their eyes were lighting up with such happiness.

Stacks and stacks of boxes.  What was in each box was anyones guess.  

Just a few of the MANY boxes…

Let the unwrapping begin, it was like Christmas in our house for a few days.  

Yes, this is a different outfit, same day ;-)

We have made several more trips to IKEA and other stores trying to get settled.  Then it was time to put the house settling in on hold and do some Christmas shopping and celebrating with the family.  We did get our Christmas tree decorated and some other holiday decorations put up around the house.

I was able to buy some traditional Norwegian Christmas decorations as well.  Sorry no photos taken of those, hopefully next year we can have a better mix of the American and Norwegian decorations.  Along with some new stockings, I think the old ones ended up in the storage in Houston and not in Norway.  If that's the only thing that was mis-placed I will be very lucky.  Currently, we are searching for a pair of Jan's mountain bike shoes, hopefully they will turn up somewhere.

We are steadily unpacking boxes and putting things away.  I'm hoping to have everything sorted by New Years so we can get the year off to a great start.

I have a few more posts coming so be on the look out, I know I slipped a little behind.