We had breakfast at the hotel for the last time, then packed up our belongings, and checked out. We spent eight weeks plus one day there. It really was starting to feel like home in a weird way.
We went back to our house to do rabbit chores and to re-evaluate the stuff we took out of the hotel. We seem to have accumulated a lot of extra stuff we don't need. We had coats and jackets, boots, and end of school stuff, papers and receipts, and all kinds of other random tidbits. We took three trolleys full of stuff out of the hotel (we certainly didn't come with that much - it barely fit in the car with all of us in there). Heading to the new hotel each child had their clothes plus one 18" duffel bag of extras to keep it to a minimum. The car ride was much more comfortable.
I found someone needing to find a home for a Flemish buck today. Since we have two Flemish cross does (Alice and Charlotte), I figured the price was right. We went and picked up James today.
Upon returning with James, I did my daily headcount for the bunnies. Alice was still grumpy, but now displayed a line up of wiggly kits, all born on the wire. I grabbed one of the plastic tote nest boxes and filled it with the straw and fur she'd left in her built-in nesting area, and then added the kits. She seemed upset that I was handling them, but let me get them situated (her cage door open so she could see what I was doing), and return them quickly. Her built-in nesting area is narrower than the tote box, so now it's taking up her entire cage space on the other side of the nest area. She just lays in the front of the cage with her butt in the built-in nesting area and her head in the area with the new nest box. She has five spotted and five dark kits. This is her second litter, but her first was born too early in the season and didn't survive. We're hoping she's a good mom... She's certainly behaving like one so far.
We took several hours at the house going through hotel stuff, paring down what we'd be taking to the new hotel, feeding and watering all of the rabbits, playing with James in the outdoor kennel, checking on the plants. The Siberian irises are finally blooming for the first time. They're beautiful.
We went to the new hotel and got checked in. The rooms are a lot smaller, the bathrooms seem impossibly tiny, but at least the rooms are adjoining this time! We are right next to the grocery store and a nice locally owned diner, so hopefully things will work out for the best. No pool, but it's pet friendly, which means Moose will seem less out of the ordinary. He will continue to wear his vest and accompany me everywhere, but at the end of the day when the vest comes off, now he can jump up and sleep at the foot of the bed (on top of the cover of course - not on the sheets).
Once we checked in we headed out to my parents' house to do laundry before returning to "the new hotel" (as #5 calls it) to get settled in for bed. It took the kids an hour to finally settle in and stop disagreeing over who sleeps where. These rooms have two beds each, which means two of the girls will need to share a bed. The previous hotel had a hide-a-bed so they each had their own space. There is no couch in either room. Honestly there'd be no space to put one.
So by the end of the day, we moved to a new temporary home, washed our clothes, stopped to smell the flowers, and expanded our rabbit herd by twenty!