Getting closer!

The time for our departure is careening towards us! We were planning on leaving Friday, but the Jeep was one of a few vehicles that the shipping company over scheduled. We'll ship it Friday and leave Saturday. Our container was supposed to be picked up today, but another scheduling snafu has pushed it to tomorrow. We are about a day behind all around! We still have plenty of time to do the drive.

I have no pictures to post since we packed up the desktop, sorry folks. A rundown of our week should suffice!

• Found a screw in the tire, took to friend's shop to have it fixed. He said, "Um, that would have been bad." Who knows how long we be-bopped around with that thing hitching a ride, but it went all the way through.
• We picked up medical records and our truckload of prescriptions that should keep us medicated until we find the appropriate compounding and home health pharmacies.
• We've been in touch with a case manager in Springs, who has another interim CM for us to contact once we "belong" to Ft. Carson (we belong to Elmendorf's hospital and use their nurses lines until we report)
• We had our last play date with Mia's little friend Lily at the zoo today. I wasn't even able to take one picture before I got the dead battery sign, so my friend will be sending me the pictures that she took. They had a blast, the height of the visit being the polar bears. Mia was going to see herself a polar bear and didn't let anyone forget it! Mia mostly wanted to pick up the rocks. She's fascinated with them; we have a budding geologist! She was very impressed with riding
• Mia tried apple for the first time and stalked me for the rest of the day, asking for more. We only do about a table spoon per day. I tried to give her applesauce and she wasn't having it, only wanted a crunch apple. That is actually good, I was afraid she'd reject the texture but she seems to crave it. Day two has shown very little change other than MAJOR gas that woke her up several times during the night. On one hand it's a red flag but not enough of one to pull it. It's also expected, I mean, you eat apples to get things moving, you know? Not that she needs help in that department!
• We turned in our last little stash of library books and said goodbye to our library friends. That was sad, we really enjoy the Eagle River Library. I hope the next one is just as friendly and has a little hidey hole for her to sit in. She had a routine that involved helping put books into return bins, running back to the children's section and camping out in the hidey hole until we went to check our books out. Then she would stack and unstack the baskets by the counter until we were ready to go. She even began to recognize the landmarks on the way. Even if it was a trip to the grocery store she'd see the turn and ask if we were going to the library!
• We had to say goodbye to her GI and her Dietitian. We didn't get a good adios in with Dr. Pratt but we saw Julianne when we were at the infusion center on Friday. I wish we could take her with us!
• We also said goodbye to her nurse at the base hospital. Erica has gone beyond for Mia on countless occasions, she is the epitome of everything a good nurse should be. We would really like to take her with us as well, but she's going to Japan which is pretty cool so I suppose we should allow her that opportunity!

Now we are trying to get the house cleaned up. We will get the ball rolling on the rental front tomorrow, now that things are not looking badly kept! Our handyman came and worked on the deck today. I think Mia really wants a paint sprayer now. I scrubbed the cabinets and the kitchen walls, not that you can tell. Those cabinets are very old and they certainly look their age. We'll also have the walls and trim painted so we have to start taping everything off tonight. I have a copy of Patsy's final cleaning checklist that the base housing office gave them to help keep me on track. Those guys get pretty detailed and I hear that they are brutal when it comes to the inspection. I'm glad we don't have to go through it, but I'd still like for it to be clean for the renters.

We freecycled like crazy today. Gary was in the toss-n-go mode yesterday, ready to chunk out a big garage size toolbox and several other items that I managed to have picked up all in one day. A couple of the guys were so funny. We had a pile of things that either had to find a new home or they would end up at the dump (very much not my preference) before we left. They had a use for almost everything and if they didn't, they knew someone who did! They certainly had the true spirit of Freecycle, and I'm glad because I wasn't happy about taking all of that stuff to the dump. Not that Gary was gung ho about it, he hates to throw anything out if it is still held together with chewing gum, but you get frantic when moving day is so close!

Okay, enough about our junk. I'm off to tape up some windows!