Yep, still haven't posted pictures of our place. But let's be realistic, only 3 people still read my blog anymore so I can handle letting 3 people down. Maybe if there was a 4th, I would have gotten them up sooner. We are unpacked, it's just a matter of making things presentable for pictures. I can guarantee that the pictures won't all be taken on the same day. My entire apartment completely straightened and clean all at the same time? Like I'd let that happen.
So since pictures aren't available yet, I'll tell you 3 about our journey here. And oh was it a journey. The 2 days before we left, my parents came down to help us pack and clean. Seriously we couldn't have done it without them, our ward and Grady. The previous weekend Scott's sweet brother and kids came and helped us clean as well. But the day before we left we really got down to business. We had a neighbor stop by and help as well which was nice, as well as my visiting teachers who stopped by with dinner for my parents and us. My dad spent 3 hours scrubbing my oven. My mom cleaned bathrooms, the fridge, among other things, even with a wounded foot. So we scrubbed and scrubbed and finished packing the truck (just thinking about it all makes me so glad that it's all over with). My parents stayed until about 10 and then we said our goodbyes and they left. The cutest thing my dad said when he was saying goodbye was that now he knew how his parents felt when he moved his family from California to Utah. It was super cute.
After doing a few other things, we finally made it to bed. And by bed I mean the air mattress and sleeping bag on the living room floor. We were both beyond exhausted and the plan was to be up by 4:30 so we could be on the road no later than 6. We had calculated how long we thought it would take us to get there, knowing that we had to be to the apartment by 6 in order to get our keys. We planned an extra 90 minutes into that just in case we had any trouble. The night was way more eventful that we had planned. Scott was out like a light but of course my mind was reeling with everything that I needed to get done in the morning. I finally fell into a fitful sleep despite Cosmo who was totally weirded out by sleeping in the living room. The night was anything but peaceful. It all started when sometime during the night our doorbell rang. You might think this odd and it definitely was for the middle of the night but we have a wireless doorbell, and unfortunately there are other neighbors in the neighborhood that have the same doorbell so if someone rings our doorbell their chime goes off along with ours and vice versa. Of course my initial reaction was panic. Everything we owned was sitting in a Penske truck and 2 vehicles outside and so I wondered if someone was trying to distract us to steal our stuff (of course it wasn't rational thinking but I was exhausted). Scott got up and no one was outside. We fitfully went back to sleep only to be woken up by the chirping of our smoke detector. This is one of Cosmo's least favorite sounds so he was shaking and can't sleep because he's so scared. And I'm getting really mad because I just want to sleep. I don't do well driving on extended trips and I had no option to switch drivers. Scott took off the alarm and we went back to sleep, only to be awoken 2 more times by our doorbell. Of course all of this had to happen our last night in that house. I was so creeped out. Truth be told, the previous owner of that house that lived there for 40 years had died in that living room (didn't know that til about 2 months before we moved). I had never felt any presence there but of course the thought going through my mind was that it was Howard playing tricks on us. After finally getting some sleep, we got up at 4:45 and finished up things around the house so that we could go. Our neighbor Grady came over since he was up and said goodbye again (he had said goodbye the night before as well). This was a super hard goodbye. Grady later told us it was as hard as saying goodbye to his own kids. I got emotional, Grady got emotional, Scott held it together. But after driving away at 6:30 with the horizon starting to glow on Price America, I couldn't help but cry.
That first hour drive to Green River was a booger. I was so exhausted, and I had to keep snacking on stuff to keep myself awake. We stopped in Green River for breakfast and that was good to get my body awake. We had all of our stops planned since we didn't know previously how far apart each town was and we were basically traveling through desert. The rest of the drive both of us were surprisingly awake. We each had a book on our iPod's to keep us entertained and it really made the time go by a lot more quickly. At our halfway point we were about an hour behind schedule. The Penske truck was not only completely full and heavy but it was hauling Scott's Pathfinder, that was completely full, on a trailer. So it was not going very fast. Of course panic started to set in for me, the planner. The Elder's Quorum in our new ward was planning on meeting us at our apartment at 6, and the leasing office closed at 6. With the way things were going, there was no way we were going to make it on time. The leasing office didn't open again until 10 the next morning and that is the time we had to have the Penske truck back by. Scott made some phone calls and luckily the apartment complex was able to make arrangements for the emergency maintenance guy to come and give us our key when we got there. And the Elder's Quorum were able to come at 7:30 instead. The rest of the drive went smoothly.
As for Cosmo, he was such a trooper! We were blessed with a really pleasant day with temperatures in the 80's rather than the 90's and 100's like we thought it would be. He didn't sleep much in the car but he was really relaxed the majority of the time. He wouldn't do his business until we were 12 hours into the journey and even then we had to prod him to, and then he wanted to go right back to his bed in the car. He didn't like the noises around him.
I've only cried 3 times since being here (shocker for me), and one of them was when we pulled into the valley. Our long anticipated journey was almost over... or was about to begin, depending on how you look at it. After 14 long hours, we arrived and were soon greeted with 95 degrees and close to 100% humidity even though it was dark already. Along with that hot hot weather we were met by Scott's cousin and kids, who live here, along with men and young men from our new ward. Honestly we couldn't have done it without them. It took an hour to unload with about 10-12 people. It would have taken Scott and I all night to do it ourselves. We are so grateful for their service to strangers. Especially since all of them were drenched in sweat by the end, including myself who was just lugging around a very confused 16 lb. dog.
Scott and I have talked about that drive and honestly we both believe in divine intervention that made everything fall into place. Just the fact that we were so awake and alert was a miracle in and of itself. Plus Cosmo didn't get sick from the stressful situation which was a miracle for him.
After a month, we are still so grateful to be here and love getting to explore a new place and meet new people. More to come later.
