Chasin' Raisins: Perhaps this too is for the best...

That's a quote from a rabbi in one of my favorite books to read aloud to the boys "Solomon and the Ant: A book of Jewish Fables". The rabbi says this every time something goes seemingly wrong and drives his companion nuts on their short journey till they discovers the rabbi was right.

I found myself saying this a lot the past week as we journeyed and transitioned to our new home in North Carolina.

We started packing up the 26' Foot Penske Truck on Tuesday night with the help of the Parays to entertain the kids, Miss Natalie to deliver the food and our awesome packing team: Hanif, Kassie and Kyle. By the end of the night the majority of the house was loaded in the truck.

Kyle came back to help Wednesday night. So I decided to reward him by introducing him to Thai Food :-). Parays came to play again and help with Little Miss. Grandpa Harv came with desert and took a turn at entertaining Little Miss as well (trust us she needs many keepers). That got everything from the garage loaded up and it didn't seem like we'd have much left in the morning.

Thursday morning the Parays came by before school for one last playdate. :-( Kevin came by to help Chris get the mattresses in and Christina came to help with the rest. So glad she came because for some reason the "little" we had left took a long time to get loaded and filled the truck, that seemed plenty big Tuesday night, to the brim Thursday morning.

During all this I was still conversing with the Lender and we remained on the edge of our seat as to whether we would close or not. Then by noon Thursday we looked clear to close Friday and we started the first half of our drive around 1:30pm. That's when our trip with the rabbi began.

Overturned semi on 1-4 stops traffic completely on I-4 30 minutes into our trip and delays our forward progress over an hour.

This was "for the best" because the lender called and told me I could not use a personal check at close for the down payment. Since the car wasn't moving I was able to call my bank to find out what needed to be done to send a wire.

It turns out I needed to fax the information in and I didn't have a fax in the car.

However, the stopped traffic was for the best again because we were only in Sanford and hadn't passed my parents house where Chris' dad was dog sitting. So Chris calls Harv to prepare for our arrival and we take a detour to send the fax. Of course the fax didn't work and we had to take pics and get a secured email, blah, blah, blah. But at 4:01 the email was sent and we loaded up to start our journey again.

All this too was for the best because I had been worried about hitting rush hour in Jacksonville but that was no longer a problem.

We arrived at the hotel in Savannah at 9pm. What should have been a 4 hour trip turned into 7.5 hours (we had a poop incident along the way too that lengthened our trip). However, all that said the kids never complained once and neither did the dog. They were really troopers. I swear as I was starting to really worry about my night vision it suddenly and miraculously improved as I was driving as we were making our way to Savannah (I have avoided driving at night for years).

Next morning we head off without incident, only issue is the Penske truck is really, really, slow. We cannot even stop for lunch if we are going to make our 1:30pm close. When I asked the lender if there would be space to park the truck. Ken quickly changed the location to someplace where there was room and Sarge would be allowed inside. He had jumped through some serious hoops to get us closed in ten days and this was just one more and we are very appreciative.

We got within 500 yds at 1:30pm when Siri miss directs us into a neighborhood across the 8 lane road from building we need to be in but that too was for the best. As I pull over to the side and turn on my flashers. People from the neighborhood just wait patiently behind me, no one honks. When I wave them around, a lady actually stops beside me rolls down her window and asks if she can do anything to help. I'm sorry to say that's not how things would have gone down in Orlando, it gave a me good feeling about our new home.

Our realtor had called me on our way and knowing we were running late (b/c of the slow truck) offered to pick-up Panera. Dawn has met and anticipated our needs about our home over the past few weeks and this was just one more thing. Having food to eat somewhat entertained the kids at close. All the kids but Amber that is who kept escaping and running down the hallway to sit in this one office (Oyeevey!). Luckily no one in the office seemed to mind, I'm sorry to say Sarge was better behaved than Amber LOL.

We arrived at our new home for the first time a 3pm. Dawn, gave us our first tour of our new home. Everyone had told us the property was beautiful and they were right. It was a much denser forest than we anticipated. It was the sanctuary we have talked about having for years. Inside the home was more spacious than I anticipated as well. But more on the house in another post where I'll explain how we've been excercising the saying of the rabbi a bit more. Here's some compare and contrast photos.