Holy Whirlwind, Batman

I guess it's official: we fell off the face of the earth. Back-to-back "where are you?" phonecalls from my mother, and some cheeky little comments to the effect of "quit snogging and start blogging" confirm it.

In all honesty, we're not ignoring you! We've been just the teensiest bit busy. Here's the rundown:

Sunday, May 30th:
- Nicole sings two jazz services, skips the last postlude to jump in the car and race to the airport. Flies to Minnesota FOR THE LAST TIME.
- Nicole & Jim stage the classic greeting-your-long-lost-love-at-the-airport scene (which we gave perfected) FOR THE LAST TIME.
- One last adult beverage with our dear friends Bekah & Matthew
- Jimbo's apartment is consolidated into a 5x8 cube painstakingly arranged to fit perfectly in the 5x8 U-Haul trailer
- We arrive home at 11pm and give the apartment one last cleaning

Monday, May 31st:
- Up early to queue at U-Haul with the rest of the college students in the Twin Cities.
- Friends arrive to help with the loading
- Collective cursing of the three flights of stairs to Jim's apartment
- Sad goodbyes with our Minnesota friends
- by 10:45am we are loaded and road-ready. Nicole's total time in St. Paul was 12 hours and 15 minutes.

- Drive 11 hours. Comment extensively on the blandness that is North Dakota.
- Stop for the night in Miles City, Montana. Had a nightcap at the Gold Dust Saloon & Casino. Classy joint.

Tuesday, June 1st:
- Drive 8 hours across Montana. Let the record reflect that Nicole drove (and even successfully parked!) the truck and trailer. Pop would be way proud.
- Saw two funnel clouds
- Played "Bury the Cows" with moderate success.
- Dinner with Mom & Fred. Ahhh...real food.

Wednesday, June 2nd:
- Drove out to Florence to visit Sandy & Dean (Nicole's Aunt & Uncle) and picked up Miss Sugar for a playdate.
- Visited Sugar's home-away-from-home, Tails & Trails
- Taught Sugar to fetch...with moderate success.
- Visited Shirley & Vic (Nicole's "grandparents")
- Drove 3 hours to Ben & Treena's in Spokane
- Proceeded directly to Benedito's for pizza and beer. Did not pass go. Did not collect $200.
- Enjoyed the evening with the fam and the brown dogs.

Thursday, June 3rd:
- Up and on the road. Drove 7 hours to Portland.
- Stopped for hugs from Jim's parents
- Drive another hour to Salem
- Dinner with the Adams' and admiration of Ella's new "walking" skills
- Choir rehearsal (with cheers and applause at Jim's arrival!)
- Drive one last hour to Corvallis.
- Collapse

Friday, June 4th:
- Up early to unload the UHaul
- Created a giant mess in the spare room
- I abandoned Jim with his pile to go back to work

Saturday, June 5th:
- Up early to drive to Salem
- Quick coffee date with Jim's best friend Ryan and his boys
- Meeting with the wedding coordinator at Willamette
- Errands at Target
- Three and a half hour jazz rehearsal
- Welcome home party for Jim at the Best Little Roadhouse

Sunday, June 6th:
- Up early to drive to Salem
- One big fancy church service in honor of the Bishop's visit
- Picking out a dog bed at Costco
- Back to church for an Evensong service and our quartet's jazz concert
- Dinner with Jim's family at Rudy's

Monday, June 7th:
- Nicole goes to work and Jim commences the settling in
- Grocery store
- Errands
- Jim heads to Portland for a little family time

Tuesday, June 8th:
- Jim goes to the allergist to confirm what we already knew: he's allergic to everything. And especially grass seed. Did you know that Corvallis is smack in the middle of the Grass Seed Capitol of the World? Jim started the heavy-duty allergy injection therapy.
- Baskin Robbins for Dante's 31st Birthday
- Explaining the "31 Flavors" thing to Dante
- More unpacking...
- Wedding invitation assembly

Wednesday, June 9th:
- More work
- Meeting with the facilities coordinator and caterer for the wedding
- Pre-marital counseling session
- Dinner with Dante & Jenn

Thursday, June 10th:
- Lunch with Kate in honor of her last day as our Graduate Assistant
- Reception at WOU honoring our friend Karen's big fancy national award!
- End-of-the-year choir party (and hand-delivering the first batch of wedding invitations)

Friday, June 11th:
- College of Pharmacy graduation ceremony! My Favorite Student of All Time gets her Pharm.D.
- Jim and I interview graduates for a video I'm hoping to create for our orientation program
- Dr. Amanda comes over for dinner and is officially adopted into our family.
- We decide to put Amanda's car on Craigslist (Jim offered to help her sell it).
- Bocce Ball
- Responding to the nine quick inquiries on the car
- Rushing to the car wash to clean and vacuum the car in the near-dusk

Saturday, June 12th:
- Waffles with our new waffle iron!
- Jim and Amanda take the car for an alignment and run other errands
- We pile in the truck and drive to Albany to look at scooters
- Jim and I purchase our wedding/graduation/long-distance survival gifts to each other
-I picked out a sweet helmet, too. The front slides up and down depending on how I want to rock the Storm Trooper look.
- Load the scooters into the truck and drive to Salem
- Unload the scooters at Lucas' garage for a little temporary storage
- Drive to IKEA to meet the first potential car-buyer
- Buyer test-drives, haggles excessively (thank GOODNESS Jimbo was handling that one...) and eventually agrees to buy Amanda's car for the full asking price! Much celebrating!
- Long decision-laden tour of IKEA (with Dr. Amanda in tow) as we pick out a new mattress, and a huge shelving unit for the living room
- Pause for some swedish meatballs
- Load the truck and head to Lake Oswego
- Pick up dinner for Jim's family
- Say goodbye to Dr. Amanda. We won't see her again before she moves to South Carolina =(
- Quick visit with family friends

Sunday, June 13th:
- Coffee at Beth & Adam's
- Back to IKEA for the cabinet we decided we need after all
- Runs to Home Goods, Target, and Bed, Bath & Beyond for all those little things necessary for consolidating our households in some kind of organized manner.
- Setting up our new mattress and wrangling the allergy barrier around it
- Moving the old bed to storage
- Jim assembles the huge shelving unit, the new cabinet, and another storage cabinet for the bathroom.
- Remove and rehang the existing medicine cabinet to accommodate the additional storage
- 6 loads of laundry
- removing old shelves from the living room and rearranging their contents
- Consolidating and organizing two bathrooms worth of stuff into one
- Collapsing on the new mattress

Monday, June 14th:
- Jim begins his battle with the blackberries taking over the backyard
- Selling the futon and loading it up for the new owner
- Finishing and mailing ALL the wedding invitations! Crossing our fingers that they arrive safely.
- More unpacking, cleaning, and organizing
- Editing the wedding website and developing a scenario to manage RSVPs
- Falling into bed at 9pm

Tuesday, June 15th:
- Driving to Portland for Nicole to attend a faculty meeting while Jim starts work on a new patio at his sister's house
- Picking up our "new" couch (new to us anyway!)
- An hour at the fabric store on wedding-related errands
- Drive home in an Oregon downpour
- More Battle of the Blackberries and weed-pulling
- Packing for the trips that we each leave on tomorrow
- Blogging.

PHEW! If you aren't up to date now, you require too much information! Thanks for bearing with us (and our neglected blog). We're looking forward to the moment when the dust settles. =)