We are rich!

This morning we had a garage sale- a half hearted attempt to rid the house of the last few things. We put the signs out last night and drove over to the house for 7 am, to discover people had been waiting since 6 !!

They quickly snapped up our 'tat' and the kids were very excited by the whole thing. They labelled all the stuff- one of Emily's plastic robots was on sale for $20, whilst a whole box of wine glasses merited a mere 10c !! We were aiming for enough money for family ice cream (not that we are obsessive about this, but we are making the most of our last few days in the land of frozen dessert!). After a while we realised we would be able to see a movie too, and with the grand total of $130 will get spending money in California thrown in.

Over 50 of the dollars were in $1 bills, so there was a massive pile, and the kids were absolutely delighted to be so rich!!

A welcome sight in the neighbourhood!

Today the truck arrived.

We count our blessings.

1. the truck arrived!

2. we are not removal men!

Just watching these guys move our boxes and furniture was enough to make us melt.

The kids splashed in the pool while the men struggled for 4 hours in the heat.

We kept giving them water, but felt helpless to do more- can't really turn down the sun, can we?

Get me out of here.......

We are really glad we made the decision to leave here in the summer! The heat is really on at the moment- the last week has seen an enormous leap in temperatures, and we are all feeling fairly wiped out by it. I took these photos today as we got into our car! Fortunately, the heat coincides with vacation time (ie. ice cream and pools), but Tara and Emily both came down with a bit of sun-stroke today. We dropped off our golf cart this morning to the new owners, and Tara spectacularly vomited all over their garden!!!

The girls then spent the afternoon lazing under the fan and sipping iced water.......oh for the joy of torrential rain !!!!

All packed up with nowhere to go!

Well, the house contents are all in boxes, and we are living out of suitcases for the next six weeks or so. Could be longer- as the stuff still sits in our house!

They packed us on Thursday and were supposed to load the container on Friday. But, it turns out that shippers are like airlines, and they overbook their containers, hoping that one or two will be cancelled. So, we are waiting for a container to become available, and feeling pretty helpless in the wait.

We have an option to pay more money and do a 'double load'. ie They load it onto a truck and then drive to LA and load it into a container there and then onto the ship. Don't really want to pay any more, but don't want to delay much more either.............urghh!

Fortunately, our innovative friends bought the kids some ice cream gift cards as a leaving present, so we are having great fun spending those, and watching the Disney channel, and splashing in the pool........hey, if our stuff is in suitcases we must be on holiday surely!!

Celebrations!

Nigel graduated from Fuller yesterday with a Masters in Theology, and it was a very special day. Paddy and Mary were able to be with us, and several friends cheering him on -we were all encouraged to make loads of noise, and there was lots of 'whooping and hollering!'
On friday night we had a big party to celebrate, and also to say farewell to friends out here. There was a spectacular turnout (very unusual in this culture!) and it was a fitting end to our time in Phoenix.
And, as if that were not enough, today we celebrated Nigel's birthday! It is not the real date, but we were on a bit of a roll, and decided to make a celebratory weekend. Also our packers arrive this week and our stuff gets shipped on Friday- I decided it was way too complicated to buy presents which have to fit in a suitcase, so he has 3 days to play with his toys and then will not see them for another 6 weeks!!
Paddy and Mary left last night on their journey back to Sheffield, and another chapter of life is rapidly closing for us too. But we still have a little holiday planned in California before we return- which is great to look forward to after the chaos of the move!