The Great Loprinzi MS move part 1

Greetings from the south.

The deep south.

Where junk food trucks roam subdivisions, distributing ice cream, nachos, pickles, and snow cones just to name a few things (and subsequently diabetes and heart disease as well).  Nevertheless, after Paul sprinted down the subdivision to wave down the junkfoodtruck, the Loprinzi kiddos enjoyed picking out an ice cream cone (vanilla for the boys because they have wild, adventuresome tastebuds; strawberry for Jovie because well it is pink and girly).  I enjoyed a lemon lime snow cone, the first thing to curb the nagging desire for a slushy of some sort (of which are NOT sold here, anywhere).

Now that we are settling in.  Settling meaning that there is a few box-free areas in our house now, and that we finally have internet, an update.

We said goodbye to our first house, the "yellow house in the country" on 8/21/2014.  Thankfully the movers were lacking in the awesomeness department, so I didn't have time to get overly emotional about it as we were way too busy doing, moving, thinking, packing, hurrying, parenting that there wasn't any time left to process what in the world we pulled off in 2 months time.

We loaded up a weeks worth of clothes for each family member, a bit more than that for H because she is messy, and headed out on the Great Loprinzi Mississippi adventure.

First stop closing for our yellow house in the country.  The kids were stellar, I was grumpy, we left with a check to use as a downpayment on our new house, and that was that.  Paul and I bickered about what we were going to do the next 5 days while we waited for our new house to close.

A few hotels, three different states, lots of rides on the elevator (also known as alligator, because Jovie kept getting the words confused), bellhop rides,

and way way way too many milkshakes and frenchfries later we somehow mustered our way through the blur of those few days.

Some gems taken away from the unstructured days of hotel life -

• plan a vacation if you are going to move your family and have 5 - 7 days to blow while in between houses.  Hotel life isn't so grand when you aren't on vacation, it gets old.  Fast.  I mean, there are only so many exciting elevator rides to go on.  And if you are going to hotel hop with 4 kids, by golly, make sure there is a pool.  

• Not only make sure there is a pool, but make sure that pool is not infested with legionella bacteria.  Lessons learned with a few curse words and bickering among Paul and I.  

• In Paul's clutch like manners, he saved the day, canceling our hotel reservation at Hotel de legionella, and got us sweet digs at The Inn at Ole Miss, which felt much too fancy for our frugal family.  

• To keep kids entertained on a budget - apparently throwing ice, from the hotel ice machines, into a variety of places is free and fun.  Don't believe me, just ask my kids (and husband).  Things filled with ice by the Loprinzi crew - sinks, hotel fountain, and toilets.

• Find hotels with continental breakfast, and only stay at them.  Eating out, especially with 4 kids gets tiresome.  And get some groceries for the fridge.

• Lugging 100 oz of frozen breastmilk through this journey was an adventure in itself.  I was quick to realized that using just ice was not going to keep the breastmilk frozen, and once frozen breast milk thaws, it must be used in 24hours.  In an effort to keep it from spoiling, I was on the hunt for dry ice, which was really a hunt along our travels across 3 states.  Totally should have left it all in KY with a neighbor and had them over night it on dry ice to me once we were settled with our own freezer.  Live and learn.

So maybe great wasn't the best word to describe the "fun" that is driving with 4 kids, 7 hours, into a new state and a house that isn't ready yet to move into.  But we attempted to make it great, despite the great deal of stress.

Stress like:

1. Driving down the interstate with a bumper falling off.  Apparently the heat and humidity of the south didn't fare well on the plastic underneath the front of the van.  We made a quick stop into some 24 hour repair shop, where the kids used their "disgusting bathroom" which Ryker kept complaining about and they did absolutely nothing to fix the problem.  We decided to get back on the interested where the underpart of the bumper kept making obnoxious noise on the pink tinged interstate pavement, and I just hoped that we could make it to our destination without leaving part of the van in between TN and MS.  My Mr. made a quick trip to Lowes, and quoted me $200.44 lot have the problem resolved.  $0.44 for the screws and nuts to fix the job, $200 for the labor Paul put into crawling under the van in 110 degree heat index to fix the problem.  You can guess he did not get the $200.
2. Mortgage drama, causing a delay in the closing of our house for a day.  If ever in the market to purchase a home in MS, do.not.ever.use GUM TREE MORTGAGE.  Then seller drama - where the sellers of the house didn't fix our requested things they stated they would, and then they pushed back closing for 2 more days because of elective Lasik eye surgery.  Just slightly a frustrating ordeal.  Then the moving company kept calling, complaining about timing being longer than they expected, and they needed a place to dump our stuff…and.  Sigh.

But obviously we have a house.  Our stuff was delivered.  And we are here.

More updates later, I promise.

But first - my upcoming board certifying nurse practitioner exam to prepare for.  Just the hugest exam I'll ever take.  The one that ties in everything I learned in school the past 2 years.  The one sort of like the NCLEX exam to become a nurse, only WAY harder.  Yeah, that one.  So if you think about it, I'd appreciate your prayers/well wishes/ thoughts of encouragement for a PASSING score.  Wednesday at 8am is this expensive, challenging, nerve wracking test, that I hope to pass.  So.very.nervous!