Moving - Stage 5

This stage of our moving process involved 1) driving to Schenectady, 2) then getting all of our stuff from our Iowa moving truck moved in and unpacked, and 3) recover from jet-lag. 

1) Our drive to Schenectady went pretty well. Turns out there isn't too much traffic at 5 am on Jan 2 :). With our early departure from NYC, we arrived in Schenectady pretty early (8:30 am) even though we took time at a oasis for a leisurely breakfast. We picked up our new minivan which had been sitting at one of Andy's coworkers house for the last two months, and then went to see our new home. We were a little nervous about the house because we had never seen it (this makes the 2nd time we've moved internationally without seeing our housing and the 1st time wasn't too great). The house itself had just been remodeled (new kitchen, updated baths, and entirely new and lovely paint scheme), so it was lovely and it has quite a bit of charm. The neighborhood seems pretty good, and our neighbors are very nice - we actually met one set of our next door neighbors within about 30 seconds of arriving and they even brought over cinnamon rolls as a welcome gift :). Having friendly neighbors was something that I found lacking in Switzerland, and I've been very happy to be back in America where friendly and nice neighbors tend to be much more common. After seeing the house, we got our stored items that we had left in October in Andy's lab (air mattress, paper plates, cleaning supplies, etc.) and made our 'home' livable for the couple of days where we wouldn't have anything in it except what we brought and had stockpiled before our arrival. Here's a few photos of our new house:

New kitchen!

New living room!

2) Andy's parents arrived in the afternoon on the 2nd and they brought the only furniture we'd have for two days: two recliners :). We felt so fortunate that they took the time to drive out to be with us for our first week in Schenectady, and they were such a HUGE help in getting the house set up as well as caring for Carsten. Thanks Mom and Dad!!! Our moving truck arrived on Jan 3, and then we had movers unpack it for us on Jan 4 in the morning. Which meant that the next 4-5 days were spent unpacking box after box after box. My sister, Ashley, was able to come up for the first two weekends (yay for being close!) to help us unpack and help with Carsten as well (thanks Sis!). Ashley, Tom, and Bonnie were all SO helpful with unpacking, caring for Carsten, and setting up the house. I would probably still be unpacking boxes if they hadn't helped us with settling in (Andy started teaching Jan 7). It was fun to see all of our 'old' stuff again and since we packed all these boxes 2+ years ago, it was kind of fun to see what was in the boxes because we really had no memory of what was in each box. I should also mention that my family had packed up our moving truck from Iowa where we had stored our stuff for two years in my parents' basement, and the movers thought that it was a professional packing job. Thanks family for packing up our truck! From my perspective, Andy and I are so very lucky to have such amazing families who really go above and beyond to help us out even with unpleasant things such as moving. I am so grateful that we had so much help. I always compare it to our move to Switzerland which was awful because we didn't know anyone, we had no help beyond the first morning we were there, we had to buy a whole household of furniture at IKEA the 2nd day we were there, we had an infant, and we didn't speak a lick of German (makes navigating even the simple task of getting groceries difficult). This move went SO much better even though there were so many details to coordinate. Here's a few photos of a lot of boxes:

Carsten enjoyed unpacking boxes - he liked finding toys we had squirreled away - like this scooter from my Grandma and Grandpa Hoogeveen from last Christmas.

We ate lunch on chairs. It was SO exciting :).

Our living room. Thanks Mom and Dad for the recliners!

So many boxes!!

Carsten's bedroom.

Our bedroom.

Carsten enjoyed being creative - he made his scooter into a 'digger' using cardboard. In fact, he still plays with it that way and it's been almost a month :).

Mom reading Carsten a digger book :).

Dad reading Carsten a digger book. Please note the digger, digger pjs, and digger shirt (Carsten picked his own outfit!).

Aunt Ashley reading to Carsten :).

Carsten has been a great helper throughout the process! He especially loves to help Daddy build things.

Our new couch! It's the first one we've ever purchased :).

3) In amongst all of this, Andy, Carsten, and I had to recover from jet-lag which wasn't easy. Carsten hadn't been sleeping well through most of December because he liked to bounce in his travel crib (it has bouncy sides) at all hours of the night. We had arranged to have a crib delivered Jan 3 which we would then assemble. Much to our dismay, the crib arrived damaged and we had to send it back. We then went to Babies 'R Us, bought a crib that they stocked in the store (there are very few of these), and then hurriedly assembled it at 7 pm at night (Carsten's bedtime). The crib helped Carsten's sleeping a lot, but since it had a spring underneath the mattress, he could (and still does) bounce very loudly. It took about 2 weeks for Carsten to get back on a normal schedule, and I'm hoping that he will recover some lost sleep even though that's not typical for him. Needless to say the road to recovering sleep has been a long one, and we're still not really there because most nights we still go to bed around 9:30 pm because we're exhausted and we all still wake up to Carsten's bouncing several times a night (we've even added plywood underneath his mattress to reduce the bounciness!). He's always been a noisy and fairly restless sleeper, and we've been waiting for him to outgrow this phase for a long time. We're looking forward to his European kinderbed arriving in a couple of weeks because that bed has wooden slats which are NOT conducive to his bouncing habits.

We've been fortunate to have so much help with moving and although we're still gradually settling in (we need pictures on the walls, a bit of organization in the closets, and there's still a few rogue boxes to unpack), our first month here has been so amazing because the house has been pretty well set up for most of our time here. Once we get some pictures on the walls I'll post photos of the rooms that are done (we don't have our shipment from Switzerland yet!).