House getting packed up...hard to say goodbye to our life in Charlotte
Sorry this is a long post but I'm trying to document this momentous occasion. David got a job offer with Credit Suisse on Jan. 21, and the next day we hopped in our car and drove up to New York to find an apartment. It took us 12 hours to get to David's brother's house in Pound Ridge, New York. We crept into their basement a little past 1am and settled in for the night. The next few days we drove into the city and frantically looked for apartments. We met brokers who would show us the apartments and also attended open houses. For a split second I considered the fifth story brownstone apartment that had no elevator and no washer and dryer in the building. And then I came to my senses and realized I would die carrying a stroller, a baby and making sure Ava made it up the stairs (not to mention I would probably go into labor early if I had to climb those stairs all the time). Brownstones definitely have their charm, but it just wouldn't work for us.
We finally settled on a brand new building in the Upper West Side that we felt pretty good about. I'll blog more about our apartment later. All I will say is that we are still reeling from sticker shock. We headed back to Charlotte a week later. The drive back was pretty scary because we hit the snow storm that started in Raleigh. A little bit of slipping and sliding in our car really freaked us out but we made it home safely.
Once we got home, it was time to get ready to move. We really only had two weeks to get everything together before David had to start his job. During this time, our house went under contract and was scheduled to close on February 24. We are pretty amazed at how the timing worked out. We had our house on the market for 6 months before we even got an offer, and the offer came through right when we needed it. We are so blessed.
We quickly listed most of our furniture on Craig's List because we thought most of our old furniture wouldn't fit in our new apartment. We may have been a little over-zealous with selling stuff, but we pretty much sold everything we wanted to sell. Ava was constantly asking, "Where is our couch? Where is the TV? Where is the bed?"
While we were getting ready to head up to NYC, Ava kept saying, "Let's go to New York City!" We assured her that we were going to get there soon enough...I booked our moving company through ABF Upack. They provide the trailer and drive it up to the destination, but you have to do everything else. Of course we couldn't foresee this, but David hurt his back the night before the trailer was supposed to arrive! His back had been bothering him since we drove up to NYC to look for apartments, and the constant bending over and other activities just kept aggravating his back. The final straw was a 3 pound mail sorter that he bent down to pick up. David pretty much fell to the ground and was stuck there for about 12 hours.
We had some angels come to our rescue and help us pack up and get our trailer loaded. David and I were both pretty useless so without these wonderful friends to help us, we would have been in big trouble! We really didn't have too much stuff since we sold a lot of it, but it still seemed like a lot of work to get everything packed up. The trailer was picked up and we spent our last night in Charlotte with the Saunders since we had nothing left in our house.
The next day we set off for NYC and prayed that David's back wouldn't cause too much of an issue on the road. By the time we reached Baltimore, we had to stop for the night because David's back hurt too much. We had a nice night at the Hyatt and then headed out to NYC the next morning after the continental breakfast (I really love continental breakfasts...or really anything buffet style that won't stop me from eating 5 plates of food). David had to take a drug test by 3pm before he started his new job on February 16. We barely made it to the building on time. We were concerned that the cocktail of drugs he got at the doctor for his back would raise some red flags, but he took the test after he showed them the prescriptions.
David could barely move after the drug test so we hurried to the Hyatt in NYC and settled in for the night. We spent the next two nights back in Pound Ridge with David's brother and moved into our new apartment on Monday. More on that in the next post...
