Hey, where's my stuff?

So a tornado hit 565 S. Orange Grove this morning, in the form of three very "interesting" but determined ladies and a young man who we think was the son in law of one of the women. We had woken up in a state of panic this morning, after a fitful night's sleep, and jumped up to finish packing our suitcases, get Logan off to school and do our last-minute organizing. At about 9:45 these people burst into our house with boxes, paper, and tape and started shoving our stuff into boxes at an alarming rate (they did not, as we had been warned, pack any of our garbage can contents). We can only hope that we managed to get everything we need for the next few days before they packed it, because there will be no finding anything now until it all arrives in Colorado (estimated to be Wednesday).

We had a busy and exhausting day and I honestly can't remember what it was we did - other than moving things from here to there again. But for better or worse, our entire life is packaged up into 102 cardboard boxes. The moving truck arrives at 8am tomorrow to get it all.

In the midst of all of the chaos, we got a call from our realtor to tell us that our escrow closed as planned and that we are officially homeowners. It is kind of strange to know we own property and a house but we aren't there to see it yet. But not long now.

We spent a bittersweet evening with our friends the O'Briens (who generously opened their house to our kids and Udayangani all day today, fed us all lunch and then cooked us dinner). There were a fair number of tears shed, especially when Jill showed us the movie she'd cut together out of home videos of Liv and Logan and Zach.

Tonight and tomorrow night we are staying in the Wilshire Crest Inn on Crescent Heights and Orange street. We've been driving by it for years and I've always wondered what it's like. Now we know and we would recommend it to anyone who wants a nice, comfortable although not ultra-luxurious stay in this area.