Pulling away...

 My sweet friends in our ward got together for our last "book group" as a send off. It was the end of an exhausting day for me and it really meant a lot.

This is the book they gave me. Everyone wrote in it. Very appropriate because they all knew I hadn't wanted to move and kept thinking we could put it off. 

Poor Rebecca said some pretty hard goodbyes. Sarah and I were sad for her.

While we were loading the van we bunked with my grandpa. This picture can't adequately show the amount of crap required to live for the approximately 2 weeks we estimated living out of suitcases. 

Then there was Peter's computer equipment, which he insisted had to be transported in the cars. Not even kidding this is what he packed into 3 cars.

He was working up until about 6:30 that night finishing up work & the two classes he was taking before he unplugged everything and finally started loading them up. We were all pretty well done. After an hour or so I gave up and took Will out for dinner.

Will not only lined up these sauces but then used them all and DRANK THE REST. 

Got back to the house where it was insanity and tension levels were at their peak. My poor brother Aaron helped us out so much I can't even express. We won't belabor the meltdown both Peter & I were having at this point. (I did not want to leave at 8:30 at night. Peter & the kids wanted to go.) Aaron literally stuck it out with us to the bitter end and then hung out at the house for an hour waiting for us to call him to tell him we'd forgotten something. We made it to Moab that night.

So many goodbyes I didn't want to do. So many people came by with cookies and meals and best wishes. The ladies in the ward showed up to help clean. My good friend Debbie drove up from Cedar City to help paint. You just can't cry for everyone you're having to say goodbye to or you'd fall apart so I tried to set those feelings aside while I did what I had to do. 

Saying goodbye to Aaron & my grandpa was more difficult than I want to discuss, but suffice it to say it was hard. I semi-held it together the best I could until I was alone in the car caravaning behind Peter & Sarah. 

 I swear I cried most of the way to Texas. 

Utah was the place I planned on having my daughter graduate from high school and where I had pictured in my mind a thousand times seeing Nathaniel come home off the plane in Salt Lake City from Peru. This is where we were going to have him visit all the time on weekends while he was going to BYU. Utah was where I could see myself living all happy and content for the rest of my life. My only comfort was that I knew we were doing the right thing for the right reason and I never really doubted that after we made the decision. Life is funny that way.

My good friend Michelle texted me something after we left. She has a daughter on a mission in Brazil who wrote, "There's no growth in the comfort zone and no comfort in the growth zone."  
I guess we're all in for some growing.

Moving part I

 This was my plan for the summer. 

Three. That's all I got through.

It started out well enough. Bought another zoo pass and went to the awesome dinosaur display they had there.

Things were going along pretty well and I was planning for a fairly normal summer. I had less than a month before Peter & I finally got a belated getaway for our anniversary. He had just returned from Austin and we were getting ready to see our Shakespeare play when got the job offer. When we saw they wanted us to start in July I hung over the toilet and thought I'd be sick.

Once we decided to take it there was the question of when we should leave? Should we try to do the separation thing and just send Peter so Sarah could finish her senior year? Sarah, my adventurous child, wanted to go ahead and make to move. Rebecca was less impressed. It was hard. We all felt bad. We moved Peter's start date to August but there was SO much to do and all he could think about was getting his own work done before he started a new job. It was kind of a big announcement for the ward as well. The fact is I love Utah. Love my ward, being close to my grandpa, my brother, having built in friends for my kids right in the neighborhood, release time seminary, our amazing Springville library, my dentist, doctor, even my grocery store. You know how it is when you've been somewhere a long time. It's so gloriously FAMILIAR. Not to mention I was on track to do the OTA program at SLCC, which I really wanted to do. 

So instead of lounging about the new Springville Reservoir and hanging around the zoo I packed. And gutted. We just had to make the break with so much stuff. Not only were we moving out of state but the plan is for us to go on from there out of the country for Peter's job. That really puts things into perspective because how much crap do you want to drag halfway across the country to then move into storage a year later? 

When you're going through something like this you get real about what it is you really want and what you really need. Peter and I spent our time driving home from Oklahoma putting together a list of what we were going to sell. Just about everything was on the chopping block if we felt we couldn't get it into the one van we were paying to have driven to Texas. We made a list of going, maybe going, and will go if it has to.

We got rid of more things than I could list. Almost every dresser went, the couches, the fridge, chest freezer, crib, beds, desks, BBQ, picnic table, and 1000 other items. Some stuff we gave away, some we sold (for next to nothing), some we drug to the DI by the truckload, and the rest went to the dump. I can't even begin to say how much work was done in three weeks. We had the largest 2-day yard sale ever. Tools, crafts, frames, furniture, toys, clothes, snow gear, and 95% of my beloved books. It all went. What didn't sell I organized to be picked up by a charity organization in a big truck. The rule was once it went out it didn't come back in.

 Preparing for the sale. This isn't even a quarter of it.

 Proceeds from day one

 What the boys did while the yard sale was going on. When we opened the garage on the first day Sarah there was already people waiting outside on the street. Sarah said it was like the zombie apocalypse, actually was a pretty good description!

Everyone only knows this but just to be clear MOVING SUCKS.

I didn't feel like doing any of it. That's also when Jay and Mel showed up with the kids and helped us out. Jay disassembled furniture and Mel packed my entire hutch. Took the poor girl 2 days. 
I was a terrible hostess and never even really fed them-- they just had to fend for themselves. Love these guys so much and their efforts to come and see us every summer in Utah.

We did get to enjoy a night off at a friend's home whose backyard pool has a front row view of the AMAZING firework show Mapleton City puts on every year for pioneer day.  

Eskimo kisses with Uncle Jay

Truck came and unloaded the trailer. We packed it for three days. Day one we hired a moving company with a bunch of BYU boys to move all the big stuff including most of the boxes. 
Peter says it's the best money he ever spent.

Was SO happy to see that truck pull away and be done with it. 

Afterwards Will and I did this.