Kevin and Soula are moved into their new house…well, sort of. I arrived in Seattle late Friday night and, after waiting for Kevin to arrive at the airport on a return flight from Austin, we headed for the rental house in Kirkland. Visited for a bit and finally got to bed at 2 am.

On Saturday morning I did a bit of packing (of which they had done very little) and then we headed off to the new house for a day of painting and assembling furniture. I was able to finish up all the master bedroom walls and removed the edge tape from one of the bathrooms and started in on finishing the touch ups in there. Headed back to Kirkland late that night.

Sunday morning I started in on packing. Got all the dishes, pots & pans and utensils packed from the kitchen as well as a lot of odds and ends from the office, books, and various other miscellaneous stuff. I stayed in Kirkland packing all day while the rest of the crew loaded furniture into the rental truck and spent the day hauling furniture to the new house, unloading, and returning for another load. I finally joined them at the new house when the last load was taken over there around midnight.

We all got up fairly early on Monday (even though we were totally exhausted) and Kevin and Ray headed off to pick up the two remaining bookcases as well as all the furniture Ray has had in storage for the past year. I hung out at the new house while Soula went to work, dealing with the DirectTV installer and the delivery of a new fridge and freezer from Sears. After the rental truck was unloaded at the new house, Kevin and I drove back to the Kirkland area to return the rental truck, loaded up a bunch more stuff into his Jeep and headed back to Renton. Spent the rest of Monday picking up miscellaneous odds and ends at Home Depot, going out to dinner and finishing up with the painting and furniture assembling.

And then it was time for bed and leaving the next day on a flight back to LA. Not the most relaxing trip I’ve ever experienced, but I was glad to be able to help out. They still have tons of stuff at the rental house to be packed and then they have to clean there before vacating the premises at the end of the month so they are certainly not done with the moving part yet. Wish I could have stayed to help out more, but couldn’t take off any more time from work right now. They will be able to get it done, but it’s probably going to involve non-stop packing and cleaning for the next two weeks with little time to get much done at the new house other than unpacking. But they are lots younger than I am, so they can handle it.

I’m happy to be back home…well, sort of. Moving into a new place is very exciting and I’m sorry to be missing a lot of that. But it’s good to be in my own bed and back to a normal routine. And I’ve got lots of stuff to do around here that’s been let go in order to make 2 trips to Seattle over the past few weeks.

The weather is supposed to be cooler beginning tomorrow, so I’m going to try to get some yard work done on Saturday. And then whatever I feel like doing inside. Still have a small bit of trim to be painted in my bedroom, so would really like to see that finished within the next week or so. But need to take the opportunity to get the yard work done while the weather is cool.

Finally, good luck to Kevin and Soula with the hope they will enjoy many years of happiness in their new home.