Safe in Cali

Wow, I can't believe it has almost been a month since I last updated. I definitely would have liked to have updated sooner since I hate playing catch up but as you all know we have been rather busy. The week after Nathan graduated we packed up all our belongings into a moving truck and left Maryland. It took six LONG adventurous days to drive from Maryland to California but we made it! Then it took another week+ to unpack (still working on this) and get settled. Here's a day by day glimpse of our exciting adventure moving and driving across country:

Saturday 5/22: Members of our ward came and helped us pack up our stuff in the truck (this went very smoothly-Thanks to everyone that helped!) Later that afternoon I start to not feel well but we still have things to do (last minute things to pack, cleaning, and getting Nate's car on the trailer). By the time we bring the last minute stuff out to the truck and go to the church to put Nathan's car on the trailer it starts raining. To make things worse, while we are trying to get Nathan's car on the trailer the bottom of his car is scrapping and we realize there is no way to get his car all the way on without causing damage to it. Of course we don't want any damage done to our car so we had to come up with another idea. Eventually we realize that if we can get the tire ramp (with the car tires on it) to be parallel with the ground instead of at an incline then the car should go on with no problem. We pull out Nathan's jack to lift up the ramp but unfortunately his jack is very rusty and wouldn't open very well so we take mine out and in the process break it. Luckily, Bishop Abbott was leaving the church parking lot to go home and saw that we were having issues. He volunteered to go home and grab a ground jack (I think that is what it is called-a heavy duty jack anyways) and thankfully it did the job perfectly. That night we all slept on the floor and as I said earlier I wasn't feeling well. I had a fever (not sure how high but I could feel the heat radiating from my face). I woke up twice during the night and had to change my clothes twice because they were drenched with sweat (gross I know).

Easton the morning we left Maryland.

Sunday 5/23: What was supposed to be a little over 7 hours of driving to get to Ohio turned into easily 10 hours. With all the hills/mountains and the truck's check engine light coming on Nathan was lucky if he could go 40 mph and for some parts he could only go 15 mph (yes you read that right 15 mph) on the interstate. That made for a really long day.

Blair the morning we left Maryland.

We switched her to a forward facing carseat since she was only about two weeks from her first birthday and we figured she would enjoy the car ride a lot more this way.

Monday 5/24: Luckily this trip was only about 5 hours and mostly flat. I never thought that I would ever be grateful for flat land but boy was I after the adventure was had the day before. This day we got caught up in a crazy rain storm where I could hardly see anything in front of me. It definitely didn't help that the lights on the trailer didn't work so I really couldn't see Nathan very well and at times not at all in front of me. And it was really scary when a semi passed me and splashed even more water onto my windshield because I couldn't see anything. I had no idea if I was driving in my lane or straight for that matter.

Also on Monday we stayed at a really nice hotel and we got to go swimming and soak in the hot tub. This was Blair's first time swimming.

Tuesday 5/25: We are trying to find our way to base when Nathan's GPS tells him to take a quick exit (a very sharp corner) and he is probably going about 40 mph when he should have been going less than 20 mph. Nathan and I still have no idea how he didn't flip the truck. I felt really unsafe taking the corner after him in our freestyle. Also that same day Nathan's AC broke about an hour from our destination so he had to suffer in 90 degree weather for an hour (poor guy). Nathan tried for a couple of hours to fix the AC and trailer lights himself but with no luck he finally called Penske and luckily their shops are open until midnight. Nathan took it in around 10pm. They fixed the AC and trailer lights but didn't have the right part for the check engine light so they had to keep it over night. Thankfully they open at 5am and had the part when they opened. It took about three hours to fix it and test drive it but we were able to get back on the road by 8:30am.

Wednesday 5/26: We got caught up in a hail storm where the hail was at least golf ball sized. It was one of the scariest things I have ever driven through. Our cars definitely got a beating. They look so bad. Nathan says that they look like golf balls themselves with all the dents they have in them. I was just glad that our windshields didn't break. It was kind of funny though because Nathan's car alarm kept going off because it was getting attacked by the hail.

These pictures are really hard to see that anything is wrong with our cars. Too bad it doesn't look like that in person. Maybe I can get better pictures later.

Thursday 5/27: Easton got car sick and threw up all over himself and his carseat. I tried calling Nathan but because his truck was so loud he couldn't hear it to answer. This happened right as we were going into a construction zone where there was only one lane for about 10 miles so I couldn't pass Nathan to tell him to pull over. Once we got out of the construction there really wasn't a place to pull over for several miles after that. Thankfully that was the only time Easton got car sick on our trip.

Also on Thursday we stopped and stayed the night in Salt Lake with Nathan's Dad and Sue. All of Nathan's siblings were able to be there for a nice BBQ dinner. Layne and Sue also bought a cake to celebrate Easton's birthday. Thanks you guys!

Friday 5/28: As we were going over part of the Sierra's it started to snow. If you know me you know that I am terrified to drive in the snow. I was a little mad when I found out that Nathan and his Dad were ahead of Sue and I and #1 didn't warn me that it was snowing and #2 didn't pull over and offer to take my place driving. They of course didn't answer their phones because they couldn't hear it but later they said that it wasn't snowing when they went through that area. Plus, Nathan said that I couldn't get mad at him because who would have thought that it would be snowing in Nevada in May? I guess he is right but I still hate driving in snow!

Thanks Layne and Sue for helping us drive the last leg of our trip. We really appreciated it. It definitely helped out a ton.

Saturday 5/29: We decided we would take the car off the trailer before we went to our house to unload our stuff from the truck. Just as we needed to have the ramps parallel to the ground to get the car all the way on we needed them to be parallel to get it off in the beginning as well. Nathan's Dad drove up over the cement things in the parking lot which worked great but some how someone forgot to release the pin to the trailer and as we were driving the car off the ramp it caught on to the front bumper and pulled part of it off. I find it a little ironic that we were so worried back in Maryland not to cause any damage to our car when in the end it didn't matter. Nathan's car looks like someone beat the crap out of it. Saturday we will bring our cars in and get them appraised.

Random pictures and stories while packing up to move:

I was just looking through pictures and forgot to tell this story. A couple of days before we moved Blair was being really cranky but I just figured it was because she was teething. Since we were just packing boxes all week I didn't bother getting any of us ready and we just stayed in pjs most of the week. The Thursday before we left we had to get some stuff notarized to close on our house so I asked Nicole if she would watch the kids for a couple of hours. I had to change Blair's diaper before we left and I figured if I had to take her pjs off to change her I might as well put her in a cute outfit. I'm glad I did because when I took her pjs off one of her toes was purple and had a huge blister on it. She had a hair (probably one of mine) wrapped tightly around her toe (hair tourniquet) which was cutting off her circulation. It was pretty scary but we were able to get it off.

Also while we were packing Blair came across this box and kept putting her mouth on it and licking it. Nathan and I are pretty sure that she was trying to breast feed. Too funny!

We set the pack and play up so we could take Blair's crib down but of course Easton had to jump in it.

Blair loved climbing into all the empty cabinets.