Last many of you knew, we were eagerly anticipating the arrival of the moving truck on Friday the 13th. What a gorgeous day it was! Seventy-six degrees and not a cloud in the sky to hamper the big day. The 80 foot truck arrived about 8:45 and carefully manuevered into the parkling lot of the clubhouse. We quickly gave Joe and his helper a run through of the place so that they could get to work. We explained our color coded system that would help them as they unloaded and had our key posted prominently right inside the door.
Joe was quite a character, and I imagine that some of his ancestors lived under bridges at some point. His phone manners weren't too proper. The first time that he spoke to me I was whizzing down the mountain from Park City, and even though I didn't recogize the number, I thought I'd answer. When I did, he barked at me, "This is Joe." And I was thinking, Joe who? So finally I asked. And instead of telling me that he was with Atlas Moving Company he shouted, "This is Joe. I've got your stuff!" Needless to say, we were glad to see him finally arrive after about six discussions of how to get here, but we were even more happy to see him go, especially after all of his snide remarks about our crummy "pressboard" furniture that just falls apart. Like he lives in a mansion! :) But, hey, our "stuff" is here now, so I can't complain too much!
One of our concerns about moving to Utah was finding a church that we like as much as we liked Emmanuel. Through the powers of the Internet, we were able to find Grace Lutheran in Sandy. It is quite a drive, but we have found it to be a very nice place. My grade school cheerleading coach and my high school algebra teacher (who are married to each other) attend Grace, so it was nice to find a couple of friendly faces in the crowd. We were also able to meet the pastor and his wife as well as the choir director, and they all seem very lovely. Though Grace doesn't have the historical building that Emmanuel did, we like what we see so far.
Other than work (which we SO enjoy!) and church and a quick get together with some of our colleagues on Friday night at Cath's house, it has been a week of unpacking. My mom would tell you that I am relentless, and Beth would concur. We have an incredibly liveable house only ten days after the truck arrived. The kitchen and living room are in working order sans decor. Our bedrooms are pretty well organized, though I have some boxes of books yet to tackle. Our bathrooms are outfitted and in working order. Granted, there are some few areas that need attention, like the pantry and a few drawers in the bathrooms, but seriously, things are getting pretty settled. It has been fun being reunited with my "stuff." Here is one box that made me giddy when I opened it!
That's all of my colored hangers, if you can't figure it out. They look totally fantastic in my new closet!
The room that is most ready for action is the scrapbook room. I'm going to make you wait for pictures because there are some final touches that we want to make, but this room is utterly spectacular! Since we would for the first time have a space dedicated to actually scrapbook (as opposed to a place just to store everything), we wanted to make it easily accessible and incredibly cute all at once. Earlier this week I gave Beth a homework assignment to write down the top ten things that she reaches for when creating, and I did the same. Our lists were nearly identical, so we knew that we needed those things in convenient places. We were also inspired by an article that Jessica Sprague wrote in the April issue of Creating Keepsakes about her scraproom organization. Beth and I chatted with Jessica via e-mail on Thursday asking a few questions to get a broader scope of her method. You see, Jessica organizes her embellishments by color. What a breakthrough. We have done it, and we can't WAIT to see how it works. And this room has more going for it. With the futon, it will be an ideal place for visitors to sleep, and there's a TV and the computer, too. It's a little piece of heaven, and we are so excited to finish it completely!
Barb Hogan commented to our last post that she wanted to hear a little bit about our trip out west and the adventure that must have been! I'd say it was a little like Thelma and Louise without the anger and the guns and Brad Pitt.
We left Fort Wayne on Monday, June 2nd, and waved goodbye to the Monroes who had so graciously given us a place to stay for our last few days in the Fort. Here at Karen's blog there is a You Tube video of our cars actually pulling away. Yes, two cars - Beth and I drove the entire way in two separate cars, but we love to drive and we have cell phones, so we actually kind of enjoyed it. Karen had made a lunch for us and a little snack bag, so we were able to make good time. As the last few miles of Indiana sped away beneath me, I pulled out my Mellencamp's greatest hits CD and listened to the pride of the Hoosier state. Ironically, as I crossed the border into Illinois, his song Your LIfe is Now was playing. I have to admit, I got a little teary-eyed. You get a little attached after 13 years! Monday night we arrived in Des Moines unscathed.
Tuesday morning our destination was Cheyenne, WY, and the terrain really began to change rapidly. We made it to Cheyenne with no problems. What a cute city! Despite the fact that it is the capital, it seems really small - but hey, they had a Starbucks, so we were happy!
The next day, we began to see signs like this:
and we knew that the journey was about to come to an end, but our adventure had only begun!
Today, Beth was on KSL TV (SLC's NBC affiliate). You can watch her segment here. How fun is that?
Susan
