We moved! After almost a year in planning, we have moved from Chicago to Manhattan, Kansas (MHK). Over the year, we have travelled between Chicago and Manhattan three times, found the perfect house to start our new life there, looked around for good restaurants and supermarkets (Asian grocery markets!), and found movers we felt confident they would do a great job.
About a month before the actual move date (April 12th), we started to pack up the apartment in Chicago. We had engaged Stevenson Movers to help us move all the furnitures and other heavier items (and all the books) to our new home in MHK.They had also send tons of boxes and wrapping papers for our packing. Our goal was to pack a few boxes every evening, and hoping to be ready for the movers when they arrived. And of course, Lilith was starting to freak out, worrying that either we were going to leave her behind or worse, send her off on a plane! 😂
Slowly but surely, we had packed most of the items in the apartment. The movers arrived at 7am on April 10th, as what they had promised. There were four of them, with Cale as the in-charge. Cale is the person the company is training to take over as a "moving leader", and he would be our driver as well, transporting all our belongings to MHK. They were very professional, fast and meticulous. In a short 3.5 hrs, the apartment was empty as the day we moved in! The movers moved most of the items, except an old bed which we were going to discard when we leave, some personal items, food, cleaning supplies, and ALL OUR PLANTS!
Now, the cleaning starts! We had two days to clean up the apartment - sweep, mop, clean up the window sills, windows, walls etc. We started working, but by April 12th, Hannah still had to do some last minute cleaning! However, we had to go! Hannah's dad came to help us with the move. Although, Hannah and I thought that we would be able to handle it ourselves, we were very grateful that he came to help - It was actually more plants than we imagined, and there were a lot of last minute miscellaneous items!
Hannah's dad and I picked up the U-Haul trailer at around 6pm, and we started loading in the plants as soon as we reached home. The plants took up every single space in the 8 ft x 5 ft trailer, and we had to packed the rest of items in the back of the Jeep and Hannah's dad's car (VW). Around 8 pm, we were ready to say goodbye to our Chicago apartment - Hannah and I took a last walk-through, took a photo as a goodbye memento. Hannah and her dad drove the jeep, pulling the trailer, heading straight for the highway. I drove the VW to return the keys to Mac Apartments, and tried to catch up with them on I-55.
It was a long drive - 9 hours without pulling the trailer. And we added about an hour or more due to the speed limit of pulling the trailer. We stopped at MacDonalds for a late night supper, and continued driving. At around 4am, we decided to pull into a Walmart parking lot and took a nap. It was a short but refreshing nap (at least for me 😀), and at around 6.30am, we were on our way towards Kansas City! Hannah had ordered a Crate and Barrel bed frame, and we were to pick it up at their Kansas City warehouse. As you can imagine, there wasn't really a lot of space left, and we ended tying the bed frame on the jeep's roof rack. It was an adventure, and in approximately 2 hours, we were very near to reaching our new home in MHK!
We reached our new home in MHK around late morning, started to unload the plants, and unpacked the mattress that we had ordered through Amazon. We started getting busy - setting up the bed, putting the plants in the room etc. By afternoon, we were all done and ready to set out for a drink! We went to a local Irish bar in Aggieville for lunch and drink, and walked around town for a bit. We went to Target to get some supplies, and went to The Fridge (Wholesale Liquor) to pick up a few beers before heading home.
Hannah's dad stayed until Monday morning, and we had the opportunity to visit a couple more restaurants (most memorable - Tallgrass Tap House) and also took a walk around Tuttle Creek Reservoir and Konza Prairie.
On Wednesday (April 17th), Cale delivered our furnitures and the rest of the items! He was again on time, and arrived at 8am (I love this moving company -
https://www.stevensontransferinc.com/). The crew he hired in MHK had not arrived on time, and he started unloading the stuffs himself. The rest of the crew arrived around 8.40am, and in a short 2 hours, all our items were off the truck and into the house. Over the rest of the week, Hannah and I started un-packing the items box by box, and by the weekend, most of the items were unpacked, and set-up. I had to go back to Chicago on Monday, and thus, we took the boxes to recycling facility on K-State campus, and got grocery for Hannah (hopefully lasting her a month).
Now, Hannah and the dogs are enjoying themselves at the new house, while I am back in Chicago. I would be visiting them at the end of May (during Memorial Day weekend). Until then... enjoy some pics, and we would put up more photos of the house and introduce our new place in MHK in due time.
