Goodbye to Manassas!

It's official.  My parents no longer live in Manassas.

I'm excited for them- their new house is a better size for them.  The community is great.  The lake is beautiful.

But Manassas was home.  It has been home for 12 years, twice as long as my family has ever lived in any one city.  I mean, I haven't lived there full time since about 7 years ago, but still.

Anyway, last weekend we helped my parents move.  They've been gradually moving ever since they bought the new house in November, but with the closing date fast approaching, they needed help getting the last of it out.

They rented the biggest U-Haul thinking it would be overkill.

It was not overkill.

In fact, we had to leave some stuff behind because it wouldn't all fit.  They had to fill up the station wagon twice to get the rest of it.

We spent Friday packing and loading the truck.

The house sold fast.  I mean really fast.  They had an offer on it before the house had even been on the market for 5 hours.  And then the buyers wanted to close on the house in 2 weeks.  Unfortunately this 2 weeks came at the same time as YW camp, where my parents were coordinating staffing and scheduling, and my sister delivering her baby boy.  Not super convenient.  So there was a lot of packing to do still.  It took all of Friday and some of Saturday morning, too, to get everything packed up and the truck filled.

When we got to the new house, we discovered that the truck couldn't get up the driveway because it scraped the road or the driveway no matter how we angled it.  So we had to park it on the street and carry everything up the driveway.  Aaron, Austin, and my dad did most of the heavy lifting.  Andrew took a pretty good nap though, so Mariko stayed inside with Harrison and the baby monitor so my mom and I could help with unloading too.

Finally we finished unloading and headed off to the beach.

There's still a lot of unpacking and organizing to do- they are downsizing after all, and I think they still have more stuff than they have room for.  But they officially only have one house now.

And I've seen my old house for the last time.

So goodbye Manassas.  For good this time.  It's been great (mostly).  I'll miss you.