In the tunnel

My brother Dallin drove down in my dad's van with a bunch of our stuff, while I drove in ours with the kids. We left in the evening so the kids would sleep on the way, since Kael has a hard time staying in his seat after about an hour. The trip took over 7 hours because we stopped for dinner in Payson and a couple other times. Kael never got too fussy and fell asleep, and the girls fell asleep just in time for Mia to not get car-sick in the canyon... around 11. The canyon was a freaky little stretch because it was dark, rainy and there was construction. But we made it at about 12:30 our time.

I thought I'd be able to make the trip alone, but it would have been awful. I'm so grateful he came. While I tried to get a bunch of cranky kids to bed, he unloaded all of our heavy boxes in the muggy heat, expecting to turn around and head home as soon as he finished charging his cell phone. I tried to convince him to stay one more day- the kids don't get to see him much and were calling him Uncle Tyson. He's going into the army and won't be back 'til next year, so I told him I hoped he'd stick around longer, and went to bed.

Dallin stayed the next day and that afternoon we all went to see the house. It was so big! I thought I'd be turned off by the gross carpet and messed up paint, but it was easy to imagine how nice it would be once we got it cleaned up. The girls had picked their rooms out from the video a couple of months ago, so it was fun to see them claim them again in real life. When we left, the twins were confused... they've been moved out of their home in Ohio to two different grandma's houses and into an apartment, so when they were told THIS was going to be their house they wondered where all their stuff was and why we were leaving it.

The next morning our realtor called to tell me the bank decided not to sell the house because of repair costs. (Which they don't have a correct estimate of- our underwriter pounded out a sloppy list of repairs that he said needed to be done based off the appraisal, and a few of the more expensive fixes weren't even needed... he just didn't look closely enough at the appraisal to see what was actually needed. So the bids that should have been coming back at around 4 or 5K are coming back at 15K.)

I asked the guy we're currently renting from if we could stay longer, like we'd talked about. I told him we'd be willing to sign a three month lease and we'd probably be longer than that. He had a lady lined up to see the apartment on Saturday who was wanting to stay for two or three years, so he said he'd like to rent it to her if he could.

We cleaned the place up to show her and she seemed really interested.

So after she left we went looking for apartments. As we left the house, we told the girls where we were going. They looked panicked and thought we were leaving to move right then without their things. It's kind of funny, but it kind of breaks my heart how much stress they are going through. I can't believe I have to move them two more times within the next six months.

Zach is on night shift this month so we're trying to keep quiet during the day... it is too hot to run around outside during most of it, but we've had some awesome rain and went out to play for that. After we looked at apartments Zach took the girls swimming. We're looking at a three bedroom house for rent later, and I think the hardest part of the decision will be to have our own house with a garage and enough space for all our furniture, or an apartment with a pool.

The girls keep saying things like "I don't want to live here anymore." And "I want to open the trailer." (They know where all their stuff is being stored, and we've been living out of our suitcases for five weeks. I can't make a lot of the things they ask to eat now because we have very limited kitchen tools and ingredients.) "When we make friends can we go swimming with them?"

I'm ready for this "camping trip" to be over, and it doesn't help that right now we have no idea how or when it will end.

Goodbye Bear Lake, Hellllooooooo Daddy!

Our last day in Bear Lake! We headed back to Sandy this morning.

We stayed at my mom's second house- it was big enough that I could put Kael in the master bath and close the door between us. It was really nice to be able to roll over without waking him up from the sound of the sheets just inches from his pack-n-play... ;D

Our last trip to the beach (on our last day) was pretty miraculous. All day long the wind blew so that the windows screeched and the trees bent almost sideways. The girls ran around all morning in their swimsuits contented with the promise that we'd head to the beach when Kael woke from his nap. I was banking on a typical Bear Lake storm that howls all day until about 4 or 5 when the sun always seems to come out. We left at about 3:30 in the pouring rain. If you look closely you can see the back window is being pounded with water.
We drove around in the rain for a few minutes to see the different places to eat, and then as we headed back toward the beach, saw a clear patch of sky blowing nearer. We drove to the same piece of beach we'd been to on a couple of other days, and the sky above us cleared completely for about 45 minutes.






Then, as dinner time loomed nearer, so did some ominous rain clouds. I love it when I'm not the bad guy for ending the fun... the girls took one look at the clouds coming and agreed it was time to leave.


It started to rain just as we drove away from the beach, and kept raining as we ate dinner. Then when we went to get some famous Bear Lake shakes, the sky cleared up just long enough for the girls to play on the playground at Merlin's. But when it was time to head back and get ready for bed, the sky played bad guy for me once again. We got back into the car just before getting soaked, outdrove the storm and got into the house before the drops could catch us there, either.



So, as you might have heard from my Facebook posts, our new closing date is the 15th. Exactly one month later than our original close date. Zach is thinking even that is an unrealistic goal based on the timeframes they've given us for the things that still need to be done, but we've got our fingers crossed.

Zach has already been down there for a couple of weeks, so we've been looking for a place for all of us to rent short-term, but with no success. People are charging an arm and a leg for rent down there because they can get away with it. So many people are losing their homes...

When we found out the new closing date, I put an ad up in the Craigslist wanted section explaining that we need to rent a place for July. That worked a lot better- we got three responses and decided to go with a two bedroom apartment on Summerlin (west side of the valley.) The owner had to move unexpectedly to the east coast and couldn't get out of his lease. He hadn't found anyone to rent for July, so we're a perfect option, it seems. He left a couple of beds and the bare necessities, so we'll be good for a few weeks.

Vegas here we come! We get to see Daddy (and the new house in person) when we head down on the 5th. Wooooooot!

In case you're wondering how those crazy Vans are faring

Well, here we are at Grandma's house- coming up on week two of our camp-out. Our gracious parents have told us we can stay as long as we need. Their eyes looked a little glassy when they repeated that for the eighth through tenth times in response to our plans H-K regarding this house closing and the second half of our move. At the moment, the date has officially been pushed back to the 30th. Of June.

Luckily, my parents' family has a place up in Bear Lake which was going to be empty this week, and which will now be occupied by us homeless people. Unluckily, Zach has to be in Vegas by the 23rd. So we'll be up there daddy-less. Luckily, a sweet family has offered to let Zach stay with them until the house closes.

All our stuff is being stored in an ABF truck. If the house closes by this new date, we won't have to pay for extended storage time.

If the house closes by this new date, we'll have exactly one day to unpack before Zach has to start his night float shift. (Work all night, sleep all day for a month. Which might be a blessing in disguise, Zach says. If he needs to take care of house stuff, all he has to do is lose sleep! ;b)

If this house closes by the 30th, we've got plenty of awesome family members to help us with the drive down and settling in. (Yay for close-ish proximity!!!)

We miss home. But things are going good.

Entropy

This has been quite the month. Two months, actually.

I can't even...

Here.

Last Easter:



This Easter:



That's all.