Moving

Moving is always such a hard thing for me.  I grew up in the same house from the time I was 4 until college and marriage.  I never expected to move around so much, but there are a lot of things about adult life I didn't expect.  :)  I have enjoyed every place I've been able to live and while some I was more excited about leaving than others, I have fond memories of each place.  Idaho Falls is one of those places I could see myself and my family living in forever.  We spent 3 years of our lives there and they were wonderful years.  We had our 2 little boys there, met many wonderful friends, and really grew to love the area.  I will miss it dearly and always look back at our time spent there with fond memories.

Moving time came the end of July and I was not nearly as prepared as I would have liked to have been.  Luckily for my I had a lot of help from many of the women in my ward.  On Tuesday I took my kids to the church to be watched by the young women and then I welcomed at least 10 women into my home to help me pack.  I was expecting about 2 or 3 and was totally overwhelmed and overjoyed by the 10 or so that showed up.  They packed my entire kitchen, my pictures, my living room, and brought everything up from the storage room.  I would have been lost without them and I'm forever in their debt.

About an hour after they left my wonderful mother-in-law came to help.  She spent the night and the 2 of us were able to get many things done.  Sometime you need an outside person to come in and look at the situation and take charge.  That's what Helen did.  I had no idea what the next move was and I was still fighting the flu so I had no ambition whatsoever.  Helen was a huge help and I'm so blessed to have her as my mother-in-law.

Hannah and Dan helping wash the door while grandma snaps picture.

We had to go say bye to Mr. Guymon.  He sells cotton candy at the farmers market in town so on Saturday morning we dropped by to let Sarah say bye.

Mr. Guymon gave her a going away present of a jar filled with cotton candy.  It was entitled "The BFG's Dream Jar"  (The BFG was a book they read in class) and it was filled with cotton candy.  The writing on the jar reads: 'If you open this jar, you will dream about a young, brown-haired girl who left a place called Terabithia (the student-chosen nickname for their classroom) and traveled to a new home.  She went to a new school, learned new things, and made new friends.  Something that wasn't new was her love of learning and her imagination.  And those helped her biggest dreams come true.' He was an amazing teacher and I wish all my kids could have had him as a teacher.

After a week that seemed like an eternity and a lot of help from many neighbors and friends, I was finally done putting everything in the garage where we were leaving it all until Kenny was able to get time off to help load the truck.  I was exhausted and very ready to be done with the whole process.  

I had the 4 oldest kids sleeping in Ben and Sarah's room so I could clean out the little girls room.  We'll all miss this great big room.

The following week we left the kids in Grace with grandma and grandpa and Kenny and I headed to Idaho Falls to load the truck.  We planned on getting it done on Saturday, but we quickly realized it was going to take a lot longer to load than we originally planned.  We loaded the truck the entire day Saturday and then late that afternoon we watched the storm clouds roll in.  We crammed everything back in the garage just in time for the rain to come crashing down.  Realizing that the rain wasn't likely to end anytime soon we decided to call it a day and we headed to a movie.  It was a treat we weren't planning on, but we don't get out much together, just the 2 of us, so it was extremely nice.  We spent the night on our mattress in the back of the U-haul truck, and woke up the next morning ready for another day of packing.  The day started fine until Kenny started feeling sick.  Turns out he had the flu I had been fighting for over a week.  He did a great job helping load the truck while feeling so yucky and just as evening approached we were ready to head out of town.  

A few of the things we'll miss about Idaho Falls:

Our friends and neighbors and our kids friends.

Our beautiful house that was perfect for our family.

The windmills.  Whenever I saw them I knew I was close to home.  I love those windmills.

The view out the back of the house.  I loved having horses in the backyard and the view of the hills and again, those windmills.

The falls themselves.  We had so many fun outing to visit the falls.

The close proximity to Yellowstone and other beautiful areas.

Rimrock Elementary and all it's wonderful teachers.  It's going to be hard for any school to be as wonderful as Rimrock was.  It's so hard to leave a great school.

The small town feel.

Speech and the wonderful people the kids worked with.