Happy Caturday!

Erma Earns Her Wings

So by Monday (August 24th) evening most of our worldly possessions were Portland bound and all that was left was to get ourselves out there. Tuesday (August 25th) we packed up our year old kitty Erma, grabbed our bags, and headed to Will Rogers World Airport. Our other cat Max made the road trip by car with us back in May so luckily we only had to handle one cat during our day flying.

That said, Erma's past history of traveling has not been a good one. Every time we put her in the car to take her to the vet she gets car sick, so needless to say we were nervous about how she would handle flying. Erma handled the flying beautifully. She was so calm that we let her out of her carrier (she was wearing a harness and leash) during our long lay over in Salt Lake City, and she sat on my lap and we did some people watching.

It turns out the most nerve-racking part of traveling with an animal is the whole security checkpoint thing. Luckily we had the foresight to call the airport and talk to a TSA representative about what we could expect. The individual we talked to was surprisingly helpful, and filled us in on how to take a pet through security. Just in case you are wondering, we had to take Erma out of her carrier and walk through the metal detector while holding her. Peter volunteered to handle this task and it went very easily. The carrier was x-rayed like any other piece of luggage. The TSA agents were very helpful and didn't create too much of fuss so we were all worried for nothing. The part of the whole traveling that Erma hated the most was the shuttle bus from the terminal (PDX) to the parking lot to pick up our car. She meowed and protested the entire time, luckily the people sharing the shuttle with us were pretty tolerant and it was a short trip.

By Tuesday (August 25th) night our whole family was in Portland, Oregon. Max and I had a warm reunion, but Max and Erma's reunion would have to wait a few days...more on that later.

The Move Part 1

Note: The last few weeks have been pretty crazy for us, what with the move and everything. We apologize for not posting in a while, but we weren't prepared for how chaotic it is moving half-way across the country.

We at P.S. are no strangers to moving. Packing up a fraction of our belongings to go to college, only to move back home nine months later for the summer. Repeat three more times. Our first BIG move was from Ohio to Oklahoma, six years ago. That time we moved the vast majority of our stuff, and had the help/moral support of our parents.

This move is different because we had professionals packing and moving our stuff! All we had to do is sit around and sign papers. It's kind of weird to have all your belongings reduced to boxes. It is also weird to try and live in a home for two more days with this house of boxes (impossible to find anything).

Friday (8/22) six packers came to our house to box up our belongings. On Monday (8/25), the semi tractor trailer arrived and was loaded (led by "cheetah" 'cause he used to be fast). Our only casualty was one of our dressers. The loaders broke a leg off, but it will be repaired/replaced. By noon we watched our truck drive off with our stuff.

Goodbye stuff! We will meet again!