June 12.
That's when we found out we would be moving from Durham:
Our first house, and ward we'd called HOME for almost exactly 6 years.
We have known and love this town and oh so many people within it's boundaries.
After finding out that Jeff received the professorship at BYU (Nicely done my Jeffery!), we had until
July 15th to be ready to move our family of six people and one dog across the country.
We did try to do some normal-for-us things along the way, like one last dance recital . . .
Taking in the museum water features . . .
Going to the Fourth of July celebration downtown
(which brought back the water with the firetruck, yay!). . .
All the while, stacking up boxes, organizing our house, and having the kiddos spend a lot of time in front of the television and playing the wii. I'd like to say that we took in everything one more time, but there just wasn't a whole lot of that. The phrase "pulling it off quickly like a bandaide" pretty much captures how we felt. Surreal. So much to do, in such a small time period, it made the reality of the move seem far off in the distance.
Our last weekend was spent with friends, and saying goodbye, many times. Jeff told me to make sure I took pictures, and so I used my cell phone to capture a few of my favorite people our last Sunday together at church. I was so calm and collected all of church. Enjoying the well prepared lessons, and smiles from so many people that I truly, truly love. And then, during the Relief Society lesson, the sister teaching mentioned that she was almost out of time . . . what? No, that can't be right! Please, just continue talking for another 3-4 hours please? It just really hit me that this was it, and I kind of started to really cry, like as in close to bawling. But hey, that just meant I got to leave tears as souvenirs.
Looking at these pictures brings fresh tears to my eyes, but that's okay. It just means that I fell in love with you . . .
all of you . . .
and so many more who moved before we did . . .
Thank you for sharing your lives and love with us for so long.
The morning we packed up our cars with as much of the kitchen supplies, electronics, and clothes that we could reasonably fit while still giving people at least a few inches to sit . . . was really, really hard. I had vacuumed around the mountains of boxes as best as possible the night before, and cleaned the bathrooms . . . and that morning as we were leaving, I thought, I have to wipe down these counters one more time . . . I can't leave dirty counters . . . and it was a foggy morning. Foggy, misty, moist, and humid. It was time to go, but oh, was it hard . . .
Jeff wanted to get the kids Biscuitville before we left NC, so we stopped there for breakfast (hoping to catch a Bojangles for lunch maybe? Nope! They're not in Tennessee, what?!!!!!) We made the trip across the country in THREE DAYS. I just had to emphasize that, because I think it was pretty impressive actually. The first day we drove about 15 hours to rest in St. Louis.
The second day, we were moving along quite nicely, right up until we stopped for gas in Missouri, and Jeff noticed there was a nail in the side of his brand new tire. You know, an area that cannot be repaired? Yup. But, this was really a blessing, because we were able to drive about 20 more minutes, find a place to completely replace the tire, and get back on our way within about an hour, all safe and sound. We made it to Denver (and just in case you're wondering, Kansas is NOT interesting to drive through, at all) in about 14 hours or so? Amazing, as soon as we crossed into Colorado, the pretty factor jumped a lot.
Fun to see John and Kara for a little bit, and we felt like we were home. The following morning, we only had about eight hours in front of us. Sounds pretty easy right? Oooh, those were hard hours, because the mountain passes with loaded down cars were just a bit stressful, and tiring. We knew those roads, but had to stop and rest in Grand Junction, just to catch our breath and regroup.
So nice to make it to Bestemor and Bestefar's house, and see cousins, aunts, and uncles. Strange to think that we get to see these people we love all.the.time now . . .
These two were so cute. Fast friends who happen to both love their thumbs, blankies, and belly buttons. Who knew?
2156 miles.
That's how far we traveled in three days.
The days in the car made it feel more real, and gave our brains time to process the move a little bit.
I think Grace has had the hardest time transitioning, until our stuff made it here last week. At one point she said, but when are we going home? (This was while we were living in Bestemor's basement while waiting for our house to go through.) I had to explain that we are home, and she said, no, I mean to North Carolina!? Oh, sweet Gracie, North Carolina will always feel like home, but we live here now . . .
Our last Monday in Durham, we were invited to go on a day trip to the beach. I wavered several times, because I didn't think I really wanted to do a day trip, we'd spent a week in May, and I thought it might be a bit depressing . . . but Rachel convinced me that we should go, and we were able to car pool and have a lovely day there with the kiddos enjoying friends, and us ladies (and a token husband of one of the ladies) enjoying our time together as well. I just had a feeling that we would be back again. And I'm determined that we will.
Oh, how truly you will be missed . . .
All of You.
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