Moving

This move sucked.  There is no other way to sugar coat it.  It sucked.  Never move in 2 weeks.  NEVER!
We got the truck and loaded it up Monday the 10th and it was awful.  We weren't ready at all.  I was still cleaning dishes and packing the kitchen...we were a mess.  Fortunately, I have great friends.  Serene came and collected my kids for a full day of madness at her house and Katie ignored my "don't come, we will be fine".  I don't know if it was her prompted as the Relief Society Pres. or just being a great friend, but she ignored me and came anyway.  It was so wonderful that she did, because she helped finish us getting packed up.  She was awesome.  Kevin did an awesome job loading the truck.  Ashton swore we would have needed 2 trucks if it weren't for him packing it so well.  Well, we scrambled getting everything packed/loaded only to find we need to rent a trailer, too.  We had to much junk.  So I ran Dex to his 4 year old appointment (yes I scheduled a Dr. Appointment on that day too.  We didn't know when we would be able to get him in if we didn't do it then.) and Ashton got the trailer.  Dex and I said our goodbyes to nurses and to Natalie, our awesome audiologist, and then we raced home to get as cleaned up as we could for the inspection @ 4:30.  Well, I got the 2 bedrooms ready and the rest......was what it was.  She came, walked through directing us clean this, clean that, you get your deposit back minus $25 for the hole in the wall Ashton made a week before.  Ash and I finished cleaning/packing at about midnight, and I won't tell what corners I cut for cleaning.  I'll just say, it all looked clean.

The Sweeten's came over and brought the kids some presents and got the grill.  It was hard saying goodbye.  Serene is one of the closest friends I have, and I so enjoyed having them as close by friends.

We tried to go to sleep on the floor downstairs.  We tried.  We were leaving the keys in the rent box and leaving at 4am.  We only had 4 hours to try to sleep.  It was rough.  We were emotionally/physically worn out or mourning.  Then it happened.  We both ignored promptings to make sure the car was locked.  Sometime, in those 4 hours, someone got into the car and stole the kids and I's snacks and GPS and Ashton's old wallet that had nothing in it but his Eagle Scout card.

Always remember, Heavenly Father can't protect us, if we haven't done our part first.

When Ashton got up, he noticed the light was on in the car and that a box of kleenex was sitting outside.  He went out and checked it out and came back looking like someone had stolen the Uhaul.  When he told me the GPS was gone, I was done.  I bawled.  I had to drive across the country, with no directions, and my 2 kids.  I was done for.

I pulled myself together, got dressed, loaded the kids in the car, we all waved goodbye to our home, and then we dropped the keys off.  I stopped at the Stinker station with the dinosaur on the corner and picked up another Pepsi and some snacks.  Then we were off.  We waved goodbye to Iowa, to Creighton, and Omaha, eventually Nebraska, and made it to our hotel.

It was there that we realized that there were still blessings for our car having been rummaged through.  Ashton's laptop was in his backpack.  We noticed it was unzipped, but somehow, the laptop was missed.  We found it at the hotel.  Also, we had put our TV in the trunk.  It was covered by mounds of blankets to protect it, but it was still there too.  The thief could have really hit it the jackpot, but we were still blessed.  AND we all made it to the hotel safe and sound.

One other thing that made this move even more fantastic, we didn't have a move in date.  We knew we had an apartment, we put a deposit on it, but we didn't have a move in date, despite desperate attempts to get one.  So we tried one more time in the hotel with no luck.  Yes.  Here we are all packed up with no place to go.

Next morning, we got up and left.  The kiddos and I stopped in Lyman, WY at my cousin's house for a leg stretch.  It was so nice.  We had stopped there 4 years before on our move out.  Then with a pretty drive through the Ogden canyon, we made it.  We made it to Idaho.

We spent a couple of days at my Mom's till we got the okay to move in.

Dex rode in the Uhaul for the ride up to Boise.  He was nervous, but had a lot of fun.  

We got out keys, our ward helped us move in, Shauni and Blake came and brought dinner over while Ashotn and I dropped the Uhaul off.  While we were gone, Blake got our beds put together.  :)  Gotta love family,  and Shauni helped to unpack the kitchen.  While unpacking the kitchen, I realized, I didn't unload the knife drawer.  We left our knives in Iowa!  After many attempts to get them back, they are gone.  The complex in IA says they aren't there.... but I know I didn't pack them....I had a lot of anxiety/stress over it.  So much so, I almost got in the car one night and drove there, just so I could see with my own 2 eyes.  

It was not good.  

I was a mess.

And as if it couldn't get any worse, I go to make soup for dinner and realize, we left our big pot there as well.  I do remember unpacking it and putting something that fit in it's spot better, and putting the pot back in the cupboard.  Why? All I can think of is out of habit.  And I think when I checked all the cupboards, I may have seen it, but it didn't dawn on me that that should be empty, in my mind, it was simply put away.  I also know I never opened the knife drawer.  Why?  Who knows.

So there you have it.  The move sucked.

Silver lining, when we got the check from the apartment complex, it was $90 more than we were expecting.  We some how overpaid, and even with the $25 deduction, we were given more than we put in for our deposit 4 years ago.