Thanks a lot Canada...

It figures we have the most mild winter EVER in the history of winters... I think in Toronto we had 2 snowfalls that actually stuck to the ground.  Of course, the night we leave, there's snow and freezing rain, complete with salt trucks on the QEW.

  We think it was Canada's way of saying "Screw you for leaving!"

We found this gem of an iceberg when we stopped for gas in Erie...

The best part about making it over the border and coming to Cleveland was seeing our boys, Wrigley and Fenway.  My mom had taken them so we wouldn't have to worry about them while we were packing and living like Hoarders, and finishing up stuff in Toronto.  We missed them like crazy, but a huge thanks to Patty because we never would have been able to do it without her having them at "Spring Training."

We were worried they wouldn't remember us, or give us the cold shoulder when we got here...  Wrigley had a little attitude at first, but clearly, they got over it!

Now that the house is packed and we are on a 6 week "vacay," we can relax a little bit and enjoy our travels.  

So here we are, starting out our wicked trip in the great city of Cleveland, and I, of course, could not be happier!  We have a lot of fun things planned for our couple weeks here with two weeks in between traveling to a bunch of other fantastic cities, so stay tuned!

What do you get when you save all your loonies and toonies for 4 years?

A moving van of course!

I've always been a change saver.  Ever since my first job at Bob Evans, I have always saved change.  It's like free money that you didn't know you had.  When I moved to Canada, it was even better because of loonies and toonies.  Jackpot!  Then when we realized we were going to start filing paperwork and moving to California we knew we were going to need a moving van and it wasn't going to be cheap.  We began really buckling down and saving change.  A $2 coffee?  Paid with a $5 bill... A pack of gum?  Paid with a $5 bill... etc...

So Lucas and I had a change rolling party with a bottle of wine and these:

We dumped it all out and began sorting...

At the end of the day, we had rolled $2300 in change!  It.was.awesome!  The bank kinda hated us when we took in three money boxes full of coin, but at least we rolled it for them.

So we began with all of this after we were finished packing up the house.

We sold most of our furniture and still had this much "stuff."  It's crazy how much you accumulate when you're in the same place for 4 years!  

Will from ABF dropped off the 28' trailer, however we only were able to use 10' of the space, as every foot you went over was extra money.  The rest they may or may not load with freight and they drive it down and store it for us until we get there.

Lucas' parents and brother came down to help load everything up.  We definitely couldn't have done it without them!

Lucas was amazing at strategically packing everything so we maximized every inch of the ten feet, so it ended up looking like this: 

Will came back to pick up the trailer later that afternoon.

And we watched as all our belongings drove away.

It was kinda weird to watch everything you own being taken away in a giant truck to not be seen for 6 weeks... we'll see what happens when we get it back... keep your fingers crossed!

Welcome to America, F***er!

After a whopping 8 months, Lucas became a permanent resident of the United States of America!  How did we celebrate?  At an airport bar with some Bloody Marys of course!

We were headed to San Diego to find our apartment for when we get there in May, which we did... 200 feet from the beach!! :D

See you soon SD!

Watching Hoarders and packing for a move at the same time is BAD idea!

So we officially look like a Hoarders house.  There is stuff EVERYWHERE.  The good news though is that mostly everything is now in a box.  My mom came down this past weekend with oodles of boxes and got us started and was a MAJOR help.   Lucas and I have been working like busy little bees getting the rest of the apartment packed up and trying not to let our empty house make us stressed.  All of our silverware is packed.  I thought I had it covered with a giant Ziploc full of plastic utensils... That was until poor Lucas made a salad the other night and looked for a fork to no avail.  Luckily, there was one lone spork, so he could kinda stab at the lettuce.

We are closing in on our few remaining days here in Toronto.  We are here till Saturday and then we fly out to San Diego for a week to *hopefully* find an apartment.  We are really hoping this happens early in the week, rather than later, so fingers crossed!  We have been scouring Craigslist like crazy, so hopefully something will pan out.  After apartment hunting in the sunshine, we are headed back to Toronto for one last week to finish up last minute details, packing a shipping trailer with all of our stuff, loading the car up with whatever doesn't go into the trailer, and crossing the border with my new immigrant husband where we are starting the first leg of our journey in the beautiful city of Cleveland!  (And don't you worry Clevelanders, I am totally not being sarcastic!)

 

T minus 24 days...

"Wait... you're doing what?!"  Yup, we are moving from Toronto, Ontario (the T-Dot) to San Diego, California.

"You guys have jobs waiting for you there, right?"  Nope.

"You guys have family there?"  Nope.

"You have a place to live?"  Nope.

"Then why are you moving?"  Why not!!

This is a typical conversation that we've been hearing now for the past couple months from people.  People may think we are absolutely off our rockers to do this, but we could not be more excited!  It is such an adventure for us and we are ready to start our new chapter.

Most of our friends know that we are massive baseball fans.  We spent our honeymoon at Old Yankee Stadium and Wrigley Field... Our dogs' names are Wrigley and Fenway...  We spent Lucas' 30th birthday at a double header in LA, with a noon game at Dodger Stadium and night game at Angels Stadium... Our goal right now is to go to every baseball stadium and have so far knocked off 11...  In addition to moving 3000 miles away, we are also taking on an east coast baseball trip before heading out west and stopping at 4 more stadiums on our trek across the country!

So, as of March 30th, we will be leaving the big city in the Great White North and heading out for an amazing journey all around and across the country and end up in San Diego around May 10th.  Stay tuned for updates from our travels all along the way!