And we're off!

Well, it's actually happening! We've spent the last few weeks and more going from cleaning out random cupboards and under the beds, to actually moving out all of our furniture and most other things, to cleaning (and cleaning, and more cleaning!) before finally disappearing out of our house yesterday! Holidays have officially begun! Although it really does feel at this stage that we're just away for a few days (or possibly weeks), then coming back as per normal!

When we still had furniture.... 

Goodbye little house!

We rented a moving truck a week and a half ago and spent all of Saturday packing up our remaining things and putting them in the (rather large) truck, with the great help of Kerry & Lachlan and my Mum, then Lawrie tested out his truck driving skills up Mt Ousley and all the way to his parents' place, and all went well, so hats off to Lawrie for good truck driving skills! :) As it was my first time in a truck, it did feel pretty strange being up that high, and felt slightly worrying that we would hit all of the bridges that we went under... But needless to say it was fine.

Rental truck (It was definitely bigger than it looks here...) 

Slightly modified loungeroom furniture 

And slightly modified sleeping arrangements! 

And the rest of the house looks like this!

We spent the last week while we worked sleeping on little mattresses on the floor, with some camp chairs and a table from Mum, so you think we'd be accustomed to the idea of actually leaving, but it still didn't feel real when we actually left the house yesterday!

We finished up work this past Friday, at the end of May - now that was a strange feeling, although still not quite real! Cleaning out my desk after more than 5 years at the same spot, scary how much stuff you can accumulate! So hopefully it'll still be there after we come back, as I'm planning to return to my job...

First stop is Christchurch (we leave tonight) to visit Renita & Joel and their new (1 month old) little girl Ella, and catch up with Megan & Justin who are flying down for the weekend, then we come back to Australia for a couple of days before flying to Vancouver next Wednesday!