House Hunting Trip, Part I

We just got back from a very intense house hunting trip to Yreka, CA, our future home. A few things made this trip a little more involved than it would've been otherwise. For one, we weren't able to book it until a week before our planned departure. This made it cost prohibitive to pay out of pocket for Evalyn's ticket as well. Fortunately Grammum in PA was able to schedule time off to watch her while we were away. Another complication was being limited to only 3 airlines on which I could fly because of my late stage of pregnancy, 36 weeks. This prevented us from flying into Medford, OR, a 45 min drive from Yreka, and necessitated flying in and out of Sacramento, a 4 hour drive down I-5. But we persevered and this is what our itinerary looked like:

Weds 4PM: Leave for PA to drop Evalyn off at Grammum's (the same 3.5 hr drive we'd made 3 days earlier)
Weds 11:30 PM: Check into the Doubletree in Pittsburgh to sleep 5 hours and park our car before flying out the next morning.

Thurs AM: Fly 4.5 hours to Phoenix, wait an extra 2 hours for our delayed flight to Sacramento.
Thurs PM: Arrive around 1PM local time, get our rental car and start driving.
Thurs 7PM: After numerous bathroom stops for Holly and run around stops for Henry, we pull into the Best Western in Yreka. An hour later we had our reservations straightened out and settled into our 2 bedroom suite. Only we'd lost Matt's very essential Blackberry in the process and it took another hour to find it wedged between the seats where we'd both checked throughly at least 3 times! Panic over.
Thurs 10PM local time/1AM eastern: Finally fall asleep.

Friday 4:30 AM: Henry wakes up thoroughly refreshed and ready for the day. Matt wearily plugs him into the DVD player until I awake a couple of hours later to find a curious arrangement of kitchen utensils, kleenex and lamp shades.
Friday AM: After an omelet breakfast at Grandma's House, we drive around the hillside neighborhoods of Yreka enjoying the crisp morning air while awaiting our 9AM realtor appt.
Friday 9AM-4:30 PM: Teresa shows us 15 houses with a lunch break for sandwiches at the park. Henry becomes adept at helping us "find the door" as we exit the car. He also loves how prevalently people use rocks in their front landscapes. We narrow it down to 4 houses we'd like to walk-through again. Teresa is able to schedule 3 that evening and one the next morning.
Friday 4:30-6:30 PM: We take a much needed break and jump in the hotel swimming pool, which Henry loved of course.
Friday 6:30PM: Walk through 2 of the 3 houses while anxiously awaiting the arrival of my mom and sister who drove down from Salem, OR to stay the night and check things out with us. They make it in time to see the last house of the evening.
Friday almost 9PM: The town shuts down pretty early plus Henry is asleep, so Matt takes Henry to the hotel while the rest us bring back Round Table Pizza.
Friday close to midnight: After visiting and catching up, we finally turn out the lights (except for Heather who'd come down with a yucky cold virus and went to bed much earlier). Oh, I have to add that my wonderful mommy brought me flowers from her garden and even gave me a pedicure/foot massage for my poor unreachable feet!

Sat 6:30 AM: Henry wakes up for the day after only brief stirrings around 4:30 AM :)
Sat 8:30 AM: After a continental breakfast at the hotel we depart for the mornings house hunting in Lake Shastina, a planned golf course community 25 min southeast of Yreka. We meet Bruce and Sally who show us 5 houses, 2 of which we love love love. We then dashed back up to Yreka to meet Teresa at noon and see the 5th house from the day before. It was good to review it because we took it off our final list after seeing it again. We also snuck in the 3rd look at our first choice house in Yreka so my mom and sister could see it, too. Very patient owner. :)
Sat PM: Break for lunch at a Mexican restaurant, then a nap for Henry (all of us actually) and relaxed until Heather and Mom headed north around 4PM.
Sat 6:30PM: Dinner with Matt's future boss. Lovely brand new tapas style restaurant called The Silver Spoon. We sat in the patio area by the fountain and enjoyed the cool evening breeze and twinkling lights in the overhead tree. Only drawback was that Henry wanted to go to bed about 40 minutes after we got there, but we didn't leave until 2 hrs later. Delicious food though!
Sat 10PM: Sleep

Sun AM: Continental breakfast, hurried packing and checkout. We'd been debating whether to attend the Yreka Ward (3 mins up the hill) or Mt Shasta Ward (30-40 min down I-5) since they both met at 10AM. At the last minute we created Plan C and went to Yreka Ward first and slipped out as soon as Henry got restless, which wasn't very long after the Sacrament portion ended. We piled in the car and pulled up to "Mormon Way" in Mt. Shasta just in time to hear the strains of the closing hymn. We poked our heads in and talked with the bishop for a few minutes before taking off again to Lake Shastina for another walk through of our two favorite houses. Again, very helpful.
Sun PM: With heads full of decisions and numbers and kitchens and bedroom layouts, we drove south to Sacramento to spend the evening with Matt's Uncle Jack and his family. We hadn't seen them at Christmas so it was great catching up. Victoria is a few years younger than me and Allie is a senior in HS this year. Henry had a blast playing in a little wading pool and we all enjoyed a scrumptious farmers market fresh dinner of salad, corn on the cob and Chaka's Mmmm Sauce chicken, perfectly BBQd by Jack. After Matt and Uncle Jack returned from dropping off the rental car, we had vanilla ice cream topped with fresh O'Henry Peaches. There is definitely something to be said about living in the produce-basket of the country!

Mon AM: After a quick repack and stowage of Jack's gift of jam, we piled in Aunt Diane's car and headed to the airport. Our 1.5 hr flight to Las Vegas was a bit cramped as it was a "regional jet" with only 2 seats on either side of the aisle. Fortunately there were a couple of empty seats nearby so Henry scored his own, again (phew). The bad part was the 25 minute SCHEDULED layover and we came in 10 minutes late and in a B gate needing to depart from an A gate!! We barely barely made it after a strenuous walk/run/waddle and lucked out again to get a middle seat for Henry since the person occupying it was willing to move to another empty middle seat further up. (Amazing how the prospect of a squirming child, pregnant lady and broad-shouldered gentleman motivate people to flexibility.....)
Mon PM: Flying. 4.5 hours. Henry spilled half a waterbottle all over himself and seat within the first 20 min. He did watch some of the rented DVD player. After "reading" all his books and becoming bored of the two new toys Aunt Diane got him, he finally squirmed to sleep in Matt's arms for the last 1.5 of the flight. I finished knitting one arm of my baby girl sweater. (Though the bind off needs some help, Kellie.) Matt ran out of battery power watching the end of his Mission Impossible 3 DVD.
Mon 8PM eastern time: Arrive in Pittsburgh. Very last ones off the plane collecting Henry entertainment detritus. Gather luggage. Find taxi. Testily install Henry's carseat for the 5 min ride to the hotel parking lot to retrieve car (Okay so it was 10 minutes on a major hwy but the free hotel shuttle wouldn't have made us if we'd been willing to wait. I know, bad parents even contemplating not buckling our child.)
Mon 9PM: Buy gas and drive the 1.5 hrs along the PA Turnpike to Johnstown. One stop along Hwy 30 to buy pacis for Henry and contact lens solution for Holly.
Mon 11PM: Finally see our sleeping daughter's face again and get all teary eyed at how much we missed her.

Tues AM: Wake up to hugs and kisses from Evalyn. Throw her things in the car and reinstall carseat. Wave goodbye to Pappy and the dogs. Stop at Grammum's work to say goodbye. Get breakfast at Burger King. Drive home!!
Tues later AM: Follow the sign to "Lovely 6 mi" at the bottom of Babcock Mountain. We pass it every time we drive Hwy 56 and say we'll see where it goes but never do. It was lovely. And put us back on our way without getting lost. It was so pretty we'll have to do it again in the fall.
Tues 1:15 PM: Arrive home!! After 2 different rest stops and naps for everyone in shifts we finally made it back to our own home and beds. I napped while Matt entertained the kids outside. Our cat Jadie was happy to see us, but not nearly as desperate as previous absences thanks to the generous attentions of our neighbor Donna across the street.
Tues PM: Unpack, laundry, more naps, grocery store, late bedtime. Contemplate our future and how much house we can or can't afford.....

So we made it back home without having a baby. I followed my midwive's instructions to the T and drank so much water while flying and driving that taking breaks to move around wasn't a problem either! I still can't believe we did it. Two 6 hour flights sandwiched with 4 hour drives on either end, separated by 3 days. But I'm glad we did. Exhausted as we all are now that it's over, I'm glad we know the area and have some houses in mind. Much better this way than going out in October (with a newborn) back to back with moving a few weeks later or only going when we move in November and staying in temporary housing for a month or more while waiting to settle.

More thoughts on houses and the area in "Part II". Plus photos. Or for some great descriptions of the weekend from Heather's perspective, check out her blog entry.