Our Hotel Home Sweet Home

Our Home for the past 8 Days!!!!

This is actually the living room, Cam was sleeping in the fold out couch, you can see the T.V. in the picture. He was not happy about the fact that everyone was always in "HIS room." But it also happened to be the living area, I am standing right next to the kitchen table, yes, it is tiny but for a hotel suite it sure was nice. It just wasn't quite suited to actually, "live in."

Here is our lovely Kitchen. We were atleast able to have, cereal, PB&J sandwiches and of course I made some chocolate chip cookies, with no recipe. The cookies turned out amazing I was pretty proud of myself for that one!

The kitchen was really tiny but it was nice to have one while living in a hotel.

Here is our bedroom, it was a nice room. Okay, so I realize you are thinking, B-O-R-I-N-G, right? Well, when you have been traveling (and sharing a bedroom) with children suffering from "permawhining" for 3 WEEKS. Your 'OWN' bedroom is like heaven on earth!!!!!

So as you look at this boring picture of a hotel room, keep in mind that this was actually the key to our sanity! :-D

Toby, Kenzi, Katie and Cam all in Cam's bed in the living area. You can see Dave's bike in the background. It should come as no surprise that it is there, Yes, there are days I think he loves that bike more than me. Just kidding, but of course he can hardly part with the thing even though it's only been ridden once in the past 4 weeks.

Toby and Katie have been wonderful. Although as I write Toby is sleeping in his crate, in the back of the truck with the windows cracked. Why? Because the little pill wakes up and scratches, loudly, on his crate at 4am and 7am and we have HAD IT!!

Fishy made it the WHOLE 3200 miles across the country!!

The amazing thing about fishy, he is 4 years old and traveled in the front of the truck in a quart jar with a lid that had a bunch of wholes poked in it. He rode the whole way, stayed in hotels with us and yes, it did get knocked over a few times, we had a few water spills but he's here and still swimming.

Grandpa Gerber didn't think he'd make it but he did!

Virginia Warning;

Okay, so it's probably a fair guess that none of you will ever be moving to Virginia but if you ever do, DO NOT rent a house!!!! Ever!!!

We naively thought it would be like Utah, OH NO!! Not so! As our Real Estate agent put it, very politely, people in Virginia make everything Difficult!! Well, that was an understatement:

After blood samples, DNA testing, giving up our first born plus a few fingers, being searched, credit checked, accountant called to verify income, all previous employers verified, background checked, bags searched, and being fingerprinted we finally got a house!!

Okay, so maybe that was a very slight exaggeration but not by much!!!

The real story: Rentals are done by management companies and real esatate agents. You pay a processing fee of $80 to $100 per application for a rental and you will NOT get the first rental you apply for, so plan on spending minium $300 to $400 just to apply for rentals!

Your credit is checked, they will call all previous employers in our case up to 10 years ago, they will call your accountant, they will check your current employment, they will ask for W-2 forms to prove income, the do charge application fees, it does take up to 10 days to "process" your application and you haven't even gotten to the 14 page rental agreement yet!!

They will reject your application for rediculous reasons even if you asked before hand if it was okay. Basically they make some money off application fees for awhile and then rent out the house, talk about a conflict of interest!

So, yes we applied for three homes and only got the last one because the owners were desperate to rent it. It was more a blessing than anything. Can you tell we are just ever so slightly bitter about the rental process.

We ran into a family living in the next hotel room over who had been living in the hotel much longer than us looking for a rental too. Apparently it is common to spend $3500 to $4000 per month in a hotel while looking for a rental.

Everyone we have talked to gives us a smirk when they find out we came from a laid back small town and the say, well, the people out here are quite different. Meaning uptight and I will tell you they are nice but perfectionistic like you've never seen.

So, after the nightmarish rental process I hope things will settle down and we can enjoy our adventure.

I think once the bleeding stops and the wounds heal we'll be as good as new. Okay, I'm just kidding, it was just a rough reality check that we can look back at and laugh, although it wasn't funny at the time.

I know there were some valuable lessons in patience and faith that we learned through the process so it wasn't really a bad thing, but in our imperfection we found the whole process a little over the top. The big lesson in all of it, is have faith and enjoy the ride because no matter how much you dislike the situation, it is what it is and your frustration and worry won't change a thing!