Catching Up

Hello again everyone!! We arrived safely in Nebraska, are mostly moved in (thanks to Shane), and have the internet again. It's funny how much you rely on it to do so many things these days. Anyway, we thought we'd catch up all up on our adventures in moving.

First of all, the company that Shane works for paid to pack and move us. We were told by the liason that the packing would take 2 days and the loading of the semi would take 2 days. They came at 8:00 a.m. Tuesday morning and by 3 p.m. had almost everything in the house boxed up. They only had to pack our beds and bedding up, and a few other things. This is what we came home to after they packed the first day.





The next day they came at 8 a.m. and had the rest of the stuff packed and everything loaded by 2 p.m. We spent the next day cleaning, and were done by Wednesday night with our house. We will sure miss it, especially it's country setting. We are in the middle of a neighborhood here and miss the wide open spaces we used to have.

Thank you, Suzy (Shane's Mom), for letting us hang out at your house for a few days after our house was cleaned and before we headed east. It was so nice living next to family while we were in Pocatello and Aberdeen. We really miss Suzy and the kids and being able to pop in for a visit. It was really hard to leave them that Saturday morning. Many tears were shed on both sides. It's very weird to think that we are so far away from our families now. That will be the hardest thing to adjust to, I think.

Anyway, we left Saturday morning for Salt Lake City. We figured that we'd better take the kids to see Temple Square one more time since we don't know when we'll be back that way and get the chance. We saw the temple, the visitor's center with the Christus, and another museum that we don't remember. It had the exhibit on the prophets, a children's museum, and a lot of pioneer things. We even got our picture taken with an almost life-sized Angel Moroni.





Sunday morning we started driving for Cheyenne, WY. Boy, what a boring, boring drive that is. Wyoming is so flat and dull. The only thing that saved us with the kids was a traveling box from my mother, Michelle. She sent a box with games, movies, fun books, treats, etc... to pass out along the trip, and boy, was it a lifesaver! Thanks, Mom, for the box of goodies. We did see many "cantalopes" (antelopes in Luke speech). It took a while for him to be convinced that cantalopes were fruit and antelopes were the animal we were seeing. I don't think he thinks we know very much. After all, we are just old parents. Someday .... We got to Cheyenne around 6 p.m., got dinner, and hunkered down for the night.

Monday morning we made the last leg of the trip. Nebraska is very flat, too, but is very beautiful (I think). It has rolling hills that will be gorgeous come spring. There are many, many corn fields, too, which will be interesting come July and August, as that is all that you will see as you drive that time of year. We got into York around 5:00 p.m. and were very glad to have arrived. We didn't get to close on our house until Tuesday afternoon, so we spent a couple of days in a hotel and swam to pass the time. The kids loved it. Tanner has no fear of the water. He just jumps right in and tries to walk by himself, which is a little difficult since the water is at least 3 feet deep and he is lucky if he's that tall.

The kids started school on Wednesday, since the moving truck was scheduled to unload that day and it was better to have them out of the way. They were very nervous going in, but had a great day with lots of kids coming up to them and asking them to be their friend and sit by them at lunch and be in their clubs. The people in York are very kind and friendly, and the kids are no exception. We were so glad that they made our kids feel so welcome there.

Again, thanks to Shane, we are mostly moved in. Shane doesn't like to put off putting things away. He digs right in and gets it done, which works great for me. As I type, he is putting away odds and ends that have been hanging around all week. I feel a little guilty about not helping, but not enough to actually stop and help. => Sorry, honey, but you know I'd just get in your way. Speaking of Shane, he started his job on the Wednesday that we unloaded the truck. It was a whirlwind few days as he jumped in and started learning exactly what he'd need to do and getting oriented to the company, but he is feeling pretty good about things now. He is excited to start planting and get his fingers in the dirt again.

The last thing I'll talk about tonight is the branch that we are now in. It is located in a town about 25 miles away called Aurora. They are about 25-30 active families in the branch, but I use the work "families" loosely. Many of the families are single adults or older married couples with no children left at home. There are no young men in the ward, and only 3-4 young women. There are probably 15-20 primary children, and I think that that includes our kids. Two minutes after we walked in the door, I (Casey) was asked to play the piano for Sacrament meeting. I was a little rusty, but think I did OK. The hard part is having Tanner and Parker with us for the whole 3 hours. There is not a nursery at this time, although Shane and I have a plan for that. They have a coat room that is not being used (we don't think), and we are asking the Branch President if we can run our own nursery so that our two little ones don't disrupt everyone else trying to learn. We were about ready to pull our hair out by the end of church last week. It was totally crazy, but we seemed to be the only two that seemed to be really bothered about their noise. The branch members are really glad to have us there and are ready to overlook the noise for a while. When we're not the novelty anymore I'm sure that will change, but for now we're OK.

We'll, that's it for now. I'll post a few pictures of the trip and kids and hope to get back to writing on a somewhat regular basis. We hope that all of you are well and happy!!