What a weekend!

My mother is now a New Ulm Minnesota Resident. We headed to South Dakota on Friday to pack her up, load the truck on Saturday and move her yesterday. It is still a bit unbelievable that she moved, although the exhaustion and Eric's leg bruises are proof. She will be living amongst boxes for many months, but at least we got her life's collection into her small apartment with a small path for walking remaining. As we were sorting through things in her storage unit on Saturday I realized what a difficult chore it would be to have to sort through everything that you owned and inherited from two families. Hopefully I don't have to do it for myself for a long, long, long time.
There were some really interesting things that happened along the way. On Saturday, after the men had started loading the truck it was decided that there was no way everything was going to fit. Boxes had already begun to be put in the above cab shelf and furniture was just heading out and the truck was almost half full. So then mom called to see if another bigger truck was available. It took forever for him to get back to mom, but a 26' truck was ready. This was much better than the 14' (which she had been told was a 17'). However, it also took him forever to bring the truck (it was very nice of him to deliver it though-that is what small town SD is all about). He also only charged her $13 which I am sure was a good deal. The men unloaded everything that they had loaded and put it on the grass. They wanted to tried to sell some as a garage sale, but that idea didn't go over too well. Once the big truck came they could again re-load what they had and take all of the rest of the furniture out.
Meanwhile my godmother and I were packing the things that she hadn't gotten packed. This was while my aunt Pat put Claire to sleep in her arms and Rylee and Olivia helped load the truck. They were so cute and wanted to help so badly so Eric kept giving them little things to carry, they were so proud. I realized that I didn't get any pictures this day, which is unfortunate, but it was an insane day.
When we finally got everything sorted, packed and loaded we went to my aunt and uncle, Pat and Larry's for supper at about 7:30 p.m. They have animals and so we headed out there first to take a quick look at the sheep, llama and donkey. Larry brought out some feed and we all had it in our hands, including Rylee. The next thing we knew she had gotten bit by a sheep. It actually broke skin. It was unfortunate, but now she is very proud of the fact and I am sure she is telling someone right now at preschool what happened.
Yesterday there were just a few boxes left and mom's car. We got the boxes ( I should say Eric and Larry got them- I hardly moved anything.) Larry came to help get the car loaded where we had left the trailer at the rental place. He drove it on, and then couldn't get back out of the car. For a moment he was seriously worried that he was going to have to ride to Minnesota. He ended up crawling out of the window like the Dukes of Hazzard. He is a lanky guy and made it out fairly easily but then closing the automatic windows was another chore. The whole episode was hilarious and we couldn't believe the poor trailer design. I have no idea how it is supposed to normally be done, her car isn't any lower than usual.
Then we were off to Minnesota. As we drove away it was sad of course. Those of you who have never been to my homeland have no idea how beautiful it is, but it really is and in addition to the history, it was hard to leave the beauty. I guess it isn't like I can never go back, I just don't have much reason to.
We made good time and got to New Ulm by 5 which was what we hoped. Unpacking began immediately and Roger, Dave and Heidi came to join in on the fun. Claire was amazing and just sat and played while we did all of the work. The unloading was done by 7:15 and Millie arrived just in time with supper.
So, it was a crazy and tiring weekend, but now I can say my mom is a Minnesotan. The girls were amazing and are very excited to have their Grandma Fetzer closer.