The Goodrums

So when our movers dropped our stuff off, they told us that since this was a corporate move we would have a debris haul away. We should just collapse the boxes, stick them in our garage and call them when we were ready to have them do the pick up. We followed our nice little instructions and accumulated quite the box mound in the garage as we unpacked.

Last week, I called our moving coordinator and asked her how much notice we needed to give since we were almost ready for our debris pick up. Well, she backtracked and said we that a debris pick up wasn't part of our contract. Honestly, it was no big deal - because we have dumpsters all over our neighborhood - but, at the same time, we didn't really want to just trash perfectly good boxes (when they do the debris pick up they supposedly recycle them). Still, we were definitely ready to get the boxes out of the garage.

So Denver has this cool service (not just Denver - lots of places) called Craigslist, where you can buy, sell and barter all kinds of stuff. On Tuesday night, we decided to post our boxes under the "Free Stuff" section on Craigslist to see if we could get rid of them. Oh my gosh, it was a feeding frenzy! We got our first response within 2 minutes and got five responses within the first hour. The people showed up to pick up the boxes in under an hour. We got a huge kick out of it - and we were glad to be able to bless some other people with our unwanted boxes (plus, our garage has much more space now).

We just hope the response is that good when we post our "spare" range for sale (unfortunately on the quick turnover count, it won't be free).

Unfortunately, we didn't take many pictures on our journey out to Colorado. Well, to begin, our car was literally packed to the ceiling (the pictures below don't quite do it justice) and the camera was not super accessible. Once we got all the stuff in there, we tried not to touch anything until we got to Colorado. We were also trying to haul about 1,000 miles each day - so "stopping to smell the roses"... which included taking pictures if it couldn't be accomplished while driving... was not our #1 priority. Then, have you ever driven through Iowa and Nebraska? Not a heck of a lot worth taking pictures of. Lots of fields, grain silos, etc. "Have we actually gone anywhere in the last 6 hours? I could swear I just saw that I've been here before." Hmmmm... Nevertheless, we did take a few pictures.



















A moment of happiness somewhere in Iowa















Ridiculous amounts of stuff
...oh yeah, I guess I'm in the picture too :)



















Driving Man
Thank goodness he's good at driving in ice and snow!















Another shot of the packed-to-the-ceiling car
The pictures really don't do it justice. If the car wasn't covered in snow below you could see everything crammed against the windows. We had zero visibility out of any of the rear (side or back) windows.















A cold Stewie car in the snow in Des Moines, Iowa
Quizno's sure was a good lunch!

So given the current weather situation that is affecting the entire central U.S., we totally ditched our original travel plans and headed north. Quite counterintuitive for this time of year! You wouldn't think that going north would ease the weather problems.

Thursday night we packed the car - literally to the ceiling. We really didn't think we were going to fit it all and did have to leave a few inconsequential things. We packed every inch of the small little Saturn. The only room left when we finished packing were our laps and under the drivers legs! :)

We left Boston on Friday morning - bright and early. We traveled I-90 out of Boston and through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. We stopped the first night outside of Chicago (after an "oops" detour through downtown Chicago) in Peru, Illinois. How fun is that! Poor Kelly - I woke her up early on Saturday morning, excited to tell her that we had stayed in Peru.

On Saturday, we followed I-80 through Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and then took I-76 south into Denver. We arrived in Denver about 10pm mountain time.

They were long days of travel - but overall we can't complain. Given the travel conditions this weekend, we really didn't fare too badly. On Friday, we drove through sporadic rain for most of the day. We stopped just short of the ice line in Illinois. Saturday the driving conditions were much more interesting you could say. Leaving Peru - between Peru and Moline, IL - we probably saw a dozen cars that had slid off the road the previous night due to icy conditions. We stopped at just the right place. In Iowa, we encountered one section of a few miles where the roads were really icy. Within 100 yards there were 3 major wrecks. Otherwise, we mainly encountered just snow - and lots of it. Right outside of North Platte, Nebraska - right after nightfall - the weather cleared and we had a beautiful, star filled drive the remainder of the way to Denver. Right after we checked into the hotel and unloaded the car, it started snowing in Denver. It was -3 degrees in Denver when we arrived. Today the high, it is 8 degrees with a feels like temperature of -2 (at noon).

Other highlights from the trip include:

• I have never before experienced running your heater in the car full blast continuously and still being cold.
• Ice on the inside of the car windows (and yes, this was with the heater running). I tried using the ice scraper on the inside of the car windows. Unfortunately that doesn't work so well due to the concave curve of the window.
• The gas tank door on the Saturn is a spring loaded door that releases from inside the car. The latch froze shut. This was going to be a major problem - as gas is kind of crucial for driving. When we first tried to fill up we still had about half a tank. We stopped again on dead empty in Omaha, NE. The temperatures were easily below zero - so cold. But thankfully the door decided to have mercy on us and Michael was able to pry it open.
• We also tried to check the oil when we stopped in Omaha. The latch for the hood was frozen shut.
• I got smacked in the face in Michael's excitement over a green chile cheeseburger at Sonic in North Platte, NE. Thankfully, I don't think there will be any lasting damage. :)
• We picked up the book Wicked (the story of Oz from the Wicked Witch of the West's point of view) on CD to listen to on our trip. It's 18 hours on CD. Books really help to pass the time - especially during the tedious drive through Iowa and Nebraska. We were at the part where Elfaba is talking to the cow and the cow says, "Before the end of the year, I promise you'll see my rump on your dinner table. I hope you choke." We were in northern Colorado on 76, driving through the middle of nowhere. There were no lights, no civilization, nothing. We looked up to see a huge sign in the middle of a field that said, "EAT BEEF." Oh, the irony! We laughed so hard. What are the chances?!

We'll post a few pictures soon (we don't have many - but we'll post what we have). For now, we're going to try to rescue our third car from the snow mounds at the Denver airport.

After saying goodbyes to neighbors, friends and family this weekend, we were all set to close on our house at 10am this morning - BUT... then we hit some bumps. Something happened where a fund transfer hasn't cleared for the buyers. So we are sitting here waiting. Hopefully it will come together this afternoon and we can close.

Plan A is already shot. Hopefully Plan B will work - which will be to close this evening and then leave in the morning and drive to Indianapolis to visit my grandmother (Dad's mom). We visited my Mom's mom in Lafayette, Louisiana this weekend.

I am planning to spend Thursday with my grandmother in Indiana and then drive on to Boston on Friday. Of course, that is all subject to change...

On Thursday, the movers came and packed up the house. All of our stuff will be transported to Denver and stored there until we get there. It's definitely strange to live in an empty house. Thankfully my mom came and helped pass the time. I had so much fun having her here.















Moving Day
Funny enough... I don't think our stuff even filled to the front section of doors on the truck (look right past the words "Armstrong Relocation"). You think you have a lot of stuff until...















Adios stuff!

Michael made it safely to Boston last night - after a crazy adventure in the Oklahoma City airport (a security breach where they had to evacuate the whole terminal) and minus one suitcase that showed up this morning. He is settling in to the little hotel room we will live in for the next few months.

I am still in Jackson, working on packing up the things we will need for the next 3 months. The movers will come in and pack up everything else on Thursday. I can't believe how quickly things are moving. Although the goodbyes are hard, I'm starting to get excited about the move.

Last weekend was so much fun. We have been blessed with great friends here in Mississippi. We are really going to miss them.

On Friday night, our original small group got together to say farewell to both us and another couple, Kim and Fleet (they get to spend a year in New Zealand - how fun!). We hadn’t seen several of the families in a while. It was amazing how much the kiddos had grown.

Here are a couple pictures - borrowed from Mary Katherine's blog since I forgot my camera. Oops!
















The Gals
From Left: Catherine, me, Christy, Mary Katherine, Sha, Kim















The Kiddos (a sampling)
Garrett (belongs to Sha & Jeremy) & Campbell (belongs to Mary Katherine & Chad)

We accepted an offer on our house today. It was on the market less than 10 days. We are planning to close on October 31st. This is a huge blessing! The timing is near to perfect. The offer was great too. Please continue to pray for everything to go smoothly and fall into place through closing.

Wanted: Fun, new owners to love and take care of me. I am a 9 month old, cute brick one story on a quiet cul-de-sac. I love people and am great to have around. I love meeting new people and will get along great with your friends.















On Saturday, we put our house on the market. We're praying for good buyers, a good sale price and great timing on the sale/move. It's hard to believe that we've been here less than a year and we're already selling our house. I'm going to miss this little house. It's been good to us in the short time we've lived here. I hope it gets good new owners.

Tuesday was the first showing. Quite bittersweet...

I have a good friend that is wise and is cool and with whom I shared a subtle epiphany about life that summarizes things pretty well. He is a photographer. One day while cruising to Lowe's to pick up some pegboard for the garage, we were talking about his recent decision to leave his current job and pursue the dream of starting his own business. For quite some time (read "a few months") it had been an abstract idea or lofty dream that they were tossing around with nothing particularly concrete about it (other than they were considering it). Then one day it was real and happening, way to fast for that matter. It was at this point that we found ourselves traveling to Lowe's. I too was considering a move of my own, both in career and location, and it was also going somewhere (albeit, not quite so fast in retrospect). We were talking about the excitement of seeing your dreams fulfilled and the adventure it would be. We also talked about all those things that came along with it that were not part of your dream. Then he said, "Yeah, you're all excited and then it's like, 'Oh, this is real life.'" I read in the New York Times that this is the reason Americans don't take vacation anymore. They spend all this time and thought planning and anticipating the perfect vacation, and then when they get to Cabo San Lucas, it rains. So now we find ourselves witnessing the fulfillment of a dream in real life and it's exciting but not all easy; there is much to be done and not that much time. Eric's quote makes me think of something Jesus said. He told the disciples that they were going to have to deal with real life, but he followed that up by telling them that he had already won that battle. Good news for us, that's for sure.
Okay, now what you were waiting for. For those who did not pick up on Jen's little game, we are preparing to move. We are headed to Denver, CO, with a short stint in Boston, MA first, with an energy service company called NORESCO. I will be working in energy efficiency, which is a change from nuclear power, but something I want to do. From my understanding of the position, it will most involve the mechanical engineering discipline which is good because it is similar to nuclear and I will have an okay background. My interest in energy efficiency can be traced back to the topic of sustainable design that I encountered in Architecture 310 at Texas A&M University. I would be lying though if I did not say that I was also trying to find a job in Denver. I could go through the list of reasons that we are excited about this move, but suffice it to say that God has given us an opportunity that is better than we would have expected. Change can be tough, and there is some sadness over leaving friends, but change is also a source of new growth and that is exciting. I am already trying to figure out how we can hit the Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Rhode Island highpoints on the way to Boston. Then, if we can manage Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and even Kansas (for good measure) on the way out to Denver then we'd be doing pretty good. Somewhere in there I think we're supposed to move some stuff, see some family, and work or something. So we have a lot ahead of us, but are looking forward to what is in store and where we will be taken. We'll (Jennifer) do our best to chronicle our adventures for you to read about, and for those friends and family interested in visiting, we welcome the company and would love to have you; just remember that rent in Denver will be $25.00 per night* to help pay for the house.


In honor of our friends Henry and Michelle's newsletters:

Jennifer - "I've never seen a Mexican restaurant that didn't serve margaritas."
Michael (Goodie) - "I have. Taco Bell."


*Bed not included

On the lighter side of things, we have a little game for you to play.

There's something new on the blog. Can you find it??

Hint: It's not a post - or a link... Not even the new-ish profile picture - but that's getting warmer.

More details to come soon!

Here are a few pictures from our move...




















Michael chillin' with the office furniture















Wipe out! Eric takes a break...















Kevin & Michael study the dryer wiring
(and soon rewire it...)

So the big day - MOVING day - has come and gone! We have such great friends. I really can't tell you how great our friends are. Let's celebrate our friends! Whoop!! We couldn't have done this move without them.

Our friends Kevin and Allison Hoober really blessed us in a huge way (and more than once)! They called us on Friday the 20th and offered to bring us dinner and help us pack. Kevin is known around here as McHoober (see also MacGyver) 'cause he is probably the handiest person we know. He was so incredibly helpful as we took apart all of our furniture in preparation for the move on Saturday. A project that would have taken us probably 10 hours - took only about 3 with Kevin's help. We even got to go to bed by 10:00!

Saturday the 21st was the big moving day. Kevin & Allison came back to help (as if they hadn't already done enough). Our friends Eric & Amanda volunteered their trailer - which was essential. Our other friend Kevin (as in the Kevin & Christy variety) and Jeremy Jackson also came to help. We couldn't have done it without them! They saved my back and my sanity. :)

With all the vehicles and all the muscle, we managed to move all of our furniture and all of the boxes of stuff by mid-afternoon. I had hoped just to get the furniture moved. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that we would get EVERYTHING moved! What a huge blessing! The guys even put together the furniture again in the new house. We got to sleep in our beds on Saturday night.

After our initial move to Jackson, I had told Michael over and over that I would never move again without hiring movers. But with friends like this... who can argue!

Thanks to all who helped us in the move! You guys are great!!