Attic cleaning & fall leaves

We are in a 'hurry up and wait' mode right now with this relocation to Germany. A contingency offer has been made, but we are awaiting the final approval from the German government allowing Steven to work there. He's been approved twice this year on his previous TDY's, but they were for short term contracts. This one is for an undetermined amount of time and government paperwork goes extremely slow. We are not worried about the approval...we've been told it is just a matter of time, but there is so much that needs to be done, and plans cannot be cemented until that final offer is extended. Feels like we're at the airport...hurry, hurry, hurry to the gate...only to wait to board the plane. We'll get there. We have about four or five days here in North Carolina before the boys take off to drive to Colorado. Maya and I will meet them the following Monday and we'll have a little more than a week of vacation before returning to wrap up all the loose ends. Then we'll be Europe bound.

Until then, Scott and I began a big clean out of the attic. Yikes. Okay, it's not nearly as bad as it could be. I did just clean the attic out last April while Steven was in Stuttgart...but we decided to go through all of it again, take as much as we could to the thrift store, and decide what needs to stay in North Carolina for storage, and what needs to get loaded on the that ship to sail overseas.

We found a Wiggles bin with not one but four Big Red Cars in it. For those of you who don't remember, Scotty was perhaps the biggest Wiggles fan here in the U.S. I still remember all the songs. I even went to two Wiggles concerts. The Wiggles rock. Soooo much better than Teletubbies, I can tell you that.

"Toot toot, chugga chugga, big red car...we travel near, we travel afar......"

That's a Wiggles back pack, along with two of my dolls from when I was a child...Mandy below and Coco who talks when you pull her string. This is not her real name, by the way. I think her real name was "Baby Beans" or something, but to me, she's always been Coco. 

I got this cap on eBay once upon a time ago.

Trust me...it looks a lot worse than it is. Mostly, these boxes need to be brought down and put in their respective piles. I've got it under control...honest.

We were awakened this morning by the sound of leaf blowers. 'Tis the season. There are so many leaves on the ground with still so many more up in the trees.

Moving in the winter is no picnic, but I'm very glad we got one more east coast fall. The colors here are so pretty.

This cracks me up. Our neighbor got up and blew just some of his leaves away. You can see the bright green grass...just a patch. I suppose he felt overwhelmed with the task...I'm not sure. He didn't stick with it for long.

Booterific. He's so handsome. 

The reds are my favorites. I hear they don't have many red trees in Germany. I will miss them.

Okay...my little fall break is over with now. I must go back to my clean up and organization. We are all hoping that we have our final confirmation soon. This week is going to be a busy one so I need to get as much done as I can. We're excited for Germany!

Back to work I go. :)