This post will make all the other posts wet their pants!

Alrightie, this post is about The Move. Where we drove 3,780 miles across the country, basically coast to coast.

We had two 14-hour + drives; I pushed my luck because Nadine did ridiculously well on the drive. I was so pleasantly and gratefully surprised.

My wonderful sister Kelsey allowed us to fly her out to drive across the country with me and Nadine (Todd drove his car). We drove caravan-style until Nebraska; then Todd drove to Salt Lake and we drove to Las Vegas. Todd took his anesthesia boards on the 29th, so Nani and I spent time away from Washington so he could devote his time to studying.

We were supposed to spend Independence Day apart, which was sad, but then Todd surprised us by making a less-than-24-hour trip down to Vegas. What a great guy.

Here's our Maryland house while I was being Crazy Packer Woman. The Army couldn't schedule movers for us (grrrrrr to them, and for waiting until two weeks before our move to finally tell us the truth), so I packed the house, with the help of my wonderful friends and Kelsey.

We're still fighting with the military to try to get this all reimbursed, and it looks like we won't, because of a weight miscalculation on our movers' part; so the moving saga continues. Arrrgh, Army!

Here's our huge ABF truck. We packed 27 linear feet. Holy crap. My wonderful father-in-law flew out to help, and we are so grateful, especially because he was so great at fitting everything tightly together in the truck.

We have been very happy with ABF, except for the weight problem. (The Army reimburses based on weight, but ABF charged us based on how much space we took up in the truck. So instead of the Army reimbursing us the entire amount we paid to ABF, on a last-minute move because of the Army's incompetence, they will only pay us what ABF mistakenly said was half the real weight.) But I digress....

Our last night on the road, we stayed in North Platte, NE. It's basically in the middle of nowhere, but it happens to be the headquarters of Cabela's, so they had astonishingly nice hotels (yay!). It also had this hilarious sign on their gas station.

While I was in Nevada, all four of my sisters happened to be there too (for a blissful week window). We haven't all been together in nearly three years, so of course we had a Ripp Girls night. Unfortunately Mary and Ashley weren't able to join us, but we had Maren, Kelsey, Maggie, Whitney, me, and Lindsay. Beautiful women, and some of my favorite people.

I didn't contact anyone while I was in Nevada, and I apologize, but the women above are my excuse for not seeing anyone else.

I have many other pictures from our time with my family, but they're on the Nani blog.

But before you click over, here's our house in Washington!

I really enjoy this house. I like the layout, I'm so grateful for the backyard, and I love having a garage. And surprisingly, I really enjoy Washington so far. That's easy to say in the gorgeous summer, but still. I like it more than I thought.

I'll attempt to show the layout, for those who haven't seen the house (which is most of you).

Here's our front door. (I took this in the kitchen.)

Facing the front door: to the left is the stairs, to the right is the family room.

The family room is still a work in progress, but I have our curtains up, the TV works, and all the furniture is in the right spot. Phew.

Randomly, one of my favorite things about the house are the wide stairs. Well, that and the fact there's only one set of stairs in the entire house, and no stairs to climb to get into the house (again, garage!!!!!).

I'm now a bit embarrassed to be posting a picture of our stairs. Ah well.

The kitchen is HUGE. And it has a gas stove. And it's my dumping ground for boxes. BUT, all the boxes are out of the garage!!! Now it's time to organize the house. As you'll see in a few pictures.

We have a wall of shelves. We didn't have nearly enough shelving space in our MD kitchen, and I've apparently been traumatized by it.

On the left is the valence material that was in the house before, and their opaque window covering; on the right is my fabric choice, and thermal curtains to block the sunset-facing windows (we don't have AC, and though the mornings are gloriously temperate, that direct sun bakes the house).

The dining room is in a walkway between the kitchen and the family room, in a corner. One window faces east, the other west (with thermal curtains), so I got these fantastic curtains to tie the room together. I LOVE LOVE LOVE these curtains. Love. They sold as only one panel, so I cut the panels in half and then sewed the cut side. I am so thankful I can do that kind of sewing.

Next to the main stars, down three steps, is the living room, a hall pantry, a 4th room, a bathroom, and the garage entrance. (The hallway to the 4th room, the pantry hallway, is straight ahead. The door in the far right is to the bathroom. Next to that door is the door to the garage.)

The living room has the computer, treadmill, and a couch. Right now it's a catchall, but soon it'll be nice and sparse. For Nadine's toys, I'm sure.

The pantry is basically two shelved closets, and it's AWESOME.

This 4th bedroom will be the toy room/sewing room. I don't want to think about organizing it.

The picture below was taken in the living room, with my back to the hallway (the exact opposite of that first picture of this room). To the right is the living room, and to the left is the kitchen and further through that is the dining room.

Upstairs are the three bedrooms AND the laundry. Upstairs laundry was one of the top three renting points of this house.

Our room is a nice light blue, though I'm afraid of how dark I'll feel in the winters, so I got fun yellow curtains for our window. It brings out the yellow in our quilt and I love the look. I also cut these curtains and resewed them.

Here's the guest room. I try not to think about this room yet.

 Aaaaaaaaaand now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for.... ;)

THE GARAGE

 I know, I know. It looks like . . a garage.

But we haven't had a garage in four years, and I've missed it greatly.

The other major renting point of this house is the huge backyard. Seriously huge. We also haven't had a real backyard in four years, so we're trying to remember to use it.