The Big Move

I'm not sure where to begin, because these past few days have been pretty crazy.
On Wednesday night, while were were on our dinner date, Renelle and I discussed the possibility of her coming with me for the move. My best buddy Robert had already committed to driving a rental car behind me, so I figured the extra set of hands and the company would be nice. In retrospect, it was definitely a great opportunity for her to see my new place and be part of the Michelle Relocation Experience. We pondered the different ways to go about this; Renelle's mother (remember, Renelle is my half sister) has been making a habit of leaving Renelle home alone for days at a time to visit some farm in Pennsylvania that's she's wasted invested her money on. These little trips have been more frequent ever since she's started sleeping with the younger, single dad down the street. She's on one of those rendezvous until the 17th of this month. Renelle wanted to just up and leave and not tell her, and we joked about how her mother would find out, file a missing person's report, only to have the cops ask her, "When did you last see your daughter?" and for her to reply, "Well... days ago when I left her alone to travel across the country." Ha.
Later that evening, I called her darling mother and told her asked her if Renelle could come. The answer was yes even before I called her... I just had to get it out of her. You know these types of people.
We didn't get out of the house on Thursday until about 4pm. The last minute packing turned into a huge event, and loading the last bit of the truck was surprisingly time consuming. Finally, we loaded up all the animals and headed out. Find Diego in each picture... haha.




Renelle was good company for the first 7 hours of the trip, then she fell asleep. One memorable conversation:

Renelle: Ughggghhhh!
Michelle: What's wrong?
Renelle: It burns!!
Michelle: what does??
Renelle: Liiiife!
Michelle: Uh... what? You're so weird.

I'm glad that we left so late. We didn't hit any traffic and we took our time with the idea that we'd stop somewhere and finish driving on Friday. However, Robert is just as stubborn as I am, so we drove the entire way that night. We made it to Davis on Monsters and coffee by about 2 am. We crashed at a Motel 6 and didn't wake up until 11:30am the next morning.



After cleaning up as best we could in the 30 minutes we had before checkout, we headed into Davis to pick up my keys. Of course, the office was closed for another hour for lunch. So we proceeded to the house just to get the moving truck parked in the driveway and take a little break. The back gate was open and the sliding door to the office was wide open. Hmmm... interesting. We opened the garage and started unloading. I went and got my keys and things were going as planned, until I realized that there was no washer or dryer. When we did the walk-through back in July, we were told the washer and dryer would stay. I purposely left mine at my house because of this. Mark called the management company about this as soon as I told him and their response was, "Well, in the ad, it doesn't mention a washer and dryer." Ugh. Robert said he'll bring them up with anything else that I may have forgetten once he saves up some money for another trip.
We managed to get the entire truck unloaded and ordered pizza for dinner. By 7pm we were tired, stinky but satisfied, and in need of a shower. Umm... there's no hot water. All the utilities are supposed to be on, and I'm sure they are.. I just think there's a problem with the hot water heater. My lovely and friendly neighbor offered to let us use her shower, but Renelle, the teenager, would rather brace the cold than go into someone else's house and shower. That lasted all of two minutes -- she emerged, half wet, with a "there's no way" look on her face. So we both headed next door, and I chatted with my neighbor while she showered.
Robert just elected the cold shower since he's bald and could get in and out in under 2 minutes.

Saturday: We turned in the moving truck in the morning. I turns out, I was 3 miles under the allowed mileage. Phew. We headed over to the Davis Farmer's Market and indulged in free samples of fruit and yummies for breakfast. Renelle bought a hot chocolate (made with Ghirardelli!) that she deemed the Best Hot Chocolate of her life. I bought the most amazing tortillas, then we ate some tamales, then I bought Renelle a Thai Iced Tea POPSICLE! Amazingness.
After another rest at home, we headed west to Vacaville in search of a WinCo foods. We stopped at a Jelly Belly store,

and this really neat, giant sized chess set.


Eventually we found the WinCo and I stocked up on the weird things that I like to eat, like FLAX SEEDS in BULK!!omgomgomg
After a quick dinner, Renelle and I went to the first UC Davis home football game. Robert stayed home with the dogs and rested. I bought Renelle a $5 Aggie Fanatic t-shirt and we both watched the game from the student section, which was incredibly loud and crazy and FUN!

She was a little apprehensive and self conscious at first, but by the second half she was yelling and cheering and having a good time. "Next time," she said, "we're painting our faces!" Once in a while, one of her friends would call her cell and she'd answer "I'M AT A FOOTBALL GAME AT UC DAVIS!" and you could tell she was really happy and proud to be there. It was cute.



She also kept saying, "I have to go to this school!" which was like music to my ears. This child needs to get out of the desert after high school.


We had some Ben and Jerry's after the game, and made our way home, exhausted.

Robert and Renelle left a few hours ago. I'm still really exhausted but I'm excited to start unpacking and decorating the house. My bike is getting tuned-up so I don't have any transportation until tomorrow, which forces me to stay home and get some work done. It's 80 degrees here, the doors and windows are all open, and my feet are cold.

I love it here already.