The Move

Well, the end of June finally arrived, and it was time for us to move.  Ben had done some part-time work for a local start-up and they'd planned to hire him, only to tell him right before graduation that they couldn't hire him after all.  He spent the next two months job searching, but when our lease was up and he didn't have a job, we decided to take the opportunity to spend time with family.  We were looking forward to catching up with parents and siblings, with the additional prospect of a trip to the beach.  :-)

We packed our stuff up in 3 U-Boxes.  These U-Haul containers are like PODS, but cheaper and much less secure (notice the plywood construction seen below).  They're small - just 8'x5'x7'6" - and we filled them to the max.  We had them stored in Utah, planning to have them shipped to our new city, once we knew what that would be.

We found a large car-topper and packed up tons of stuff to take with us on our trip, from clothes to baby gear to bedding, not knowing exactly what the next several weeks had in store or how long we would need to be without the bulk of our belongings once we moved in to a new place.

We - mostly Ben and a couple of friends - finished packing everything up the day before we left so that we could have a day to just clean.  That means all of our beds were gone, so this was our living room the night before we left.  (The couches and piano belong to the owners of the house.)

And just because I don't think I've ever posted a picture of the front of the house, here you go.  This picture was taken in March, which is why there was still a good amount of snow on Mt. Timpanogos.

I felt such relief at the thought of leaving Utah.  I wasn't sad about moving.  I just felt ready to close the Utah chapter of our lives and begin a new chapter somewhere else.  Ben and I were both excited at the prospect of getting a job closer to home, maybe even in the same region of the country??

The fact that I kept Cat's and Jack's spots at Cat's charter school for the upcoming school year is a testament to the absolute uncertainty that faced us as we began our trip.  Though Ben and I hoped and prayed that we would be able to live in the Southeast again, we also knew that coming back to Utah was a real possibility, especially since Ben established so many great contacts here during the MBA program.

In the meantime, we tried to make the most of the opportunity before us, and I think we did a pretty good job.  We made lots of memories seeing amazing sights as we criss-crossed the country (twice).  And, best of all, we were able to spend time with so many dear people we'd been missing.  This was a wonderful blessing.  Our visits weren't enough long enough to make up for the time we'd been apart, and we wish we could have seen more people, but we are thankful for the experiences we had as a Band of Gypsies.  (Cue: Willie Nelson)