The Move

The weekend after graduation we enjoyed a reunion with my family.  It was the first time we've been all together since Jesse's wedding.  It really was the perfect weekend.  A tea party with the ladies.  A wedding shower for our soon-to-be-sister Kiley.  A bash for my Mom's 50th.  Badminton, croquet, horseshoes, refreshments, movies, relaxing.   BINGO.  We stocked up on some quality time with my family before the move and probably ended up worse off remembering more clearly all the things we'd miss.  Love you guys.  And ya know, I didn't really get a chance to thank my big sister Micaela for all of her hard work.  It's fun to watch all of her fabulous ideas come to pass.  Thanks Mica, Mica.  Love you.

And then we moved.  

Moving's rough.  I'll try not to go into a ton of detail here.  See that picture of me in the truck?  We shoved all of our belongings within eight feet of that truck.  Including two scooters, one of which is broken.  Sure, we were proud-- but after hours and hours of stacking and arranging every teeny thing we owned in the bitter snow and cold (I'm not exaggerating), we were exhausted and ready to go.  That's that.

Well... I should mention our little goodbye.  Our tribute to Rexburg.  We were so done with moving once the truck was packed.  We had gone back and forth to the store and D.I. over and over.  We kept finding those little things that you can't chuck but you don't have a place for them either.  We'd done our best to scrub down our apartment and vacuum and whatnot.  By the time our little place was cleared out, we were irritable and could barely walk, we were so tired.  And then we paused.  We opened our eyes and realized that our little apartment was empty and we were leaving.  It was a strange feeling.  It was like a movie where the character walks through a house and flashes of memory coat the screen.  Suddenly a year that had seemed so full and long was over so fast. I don't think we'll ever forget our Rexburg adventure, both in courtship and our first year of marriage.  We've learned a lot about ourselves and each other from it.  Thank goodness for it.

And then we went across the country.  Short version: we made a lot of stops.  And what would usually have taken us two days driving took us five.  Some of it was car trouble.  We also went a little out of the way to visit Ian's Grandpa in Oklahoma. What a blast we had. I've shared a couple highlights of the trip, but certainly not all.  It was especially fun to stop at the St. Louis Arch.  I've seen it so many times from a distance, but it's quite another experience being up close.

You have to get creative sometimes with all of that extra time in the car.

This was a rest stop and a breathtaking one at that

It happened!  We made it!  We've moved!