Alpine

We loaded up the bus and left first thing Saturday morning.   My mom came out to Utah with us to help unload and drive my car, so I could help with the kids in the bus.   Austin posted this on his Instagram as we were leaving town. 

The trip was long and I was grateful for the bus so we could stretch out. 

Sweet Austin fell asleep laying down with Paige.  I found the note Kristie had put in my purse the night before.  I couldn't hold back the tears as I read her sweet message.  I wish Utah wasn't so far... I leaned my head on Jason and watched the road disappear under us.    A new adventure.  A new chapter.

We arrived in Alpine around 2am (I think).  I was wide awake as we drove through the dark neighborhood, anxious for the first glimpse of our new house.  As we came over the hill, I was surprised at how pretty the neighborhood was!   It looked so charming, I thought. 

The house looked like the pictures from the outside, but we were all still anxious to see inside.   The sleeping kids woke up quickly when we stopped and couldn't wait to run through the house and pick a room.  They were disappointed when it really sunk in that there were two less rooms than our other house.  We tried to decide if we could make the office into a bedroom, but with french doors and no closet, it didn't really make sense.

We brought cots and mats to sleep on while we waited for our furniture to arrive.   We decided we should unload and get the little ones back to sleep.  My mom left to sleep at my Aunt's house.  She offered to have us stay there as well, but we were anxious to get used to our new place.   We got the kids settled and I kept walking room to room trying to figure out where to put everything.  Jason finally dragged me to bed, reminding me that the truck wouldn't arrive for a few days and we would have time to figure it out.

I woke up a couple hours later when the sun came up.  Everyone was still asleep, but I couldn't help getting up and wandering around the house again.  As I came down the stairs, this is what I saw out my window.  Mountains. 

Yep we are in Utah.     I just stood there and took it in. 

When I finally pulled myself away from the window,  I wandered all through the house and the unfinished basement and then did it again.  I walked back upstairs and peaked in on my sleeping family

and eventually crawled back into bed with Jason and Paige to try to get a little more rest.

 

We were all finally awake around 9AM.  My mom's friend had dropped off a basket with all sorts of yummy food for breakfast for us in the middle of the night.  We did a search on our phone and found out church started at 1.  As we were finding everything we would need to get showered, our doorbell rang!  Who even knew we were here?!  We were still in our pajamas and looking road trip worn from the day before, so we sent Austin to answer the door with instructions that we were in the shower. Haha!  As Jason and I hid, Austin endured small talk with one of our new neighbors who had come to welcome us to the neighborhood and brought us freshly baked bread, butter and some tomatoes from their garden.  After they left, Jason walked around and closed the blinds!  LOL!  I made a quick mental note to shower first thing in the morning and wear a bra at all times, just in case! 

It payed off.  The next few days was a parade of unannounced visitors, all so incredibly sweet and all with a yummy homemade something and something from their garden.  The only exception was Lori, who showed up on my doorstep with cinnamon rolls.  "Hi!  I'm Lori.  I live just right down the street.  I don't bake, but these looked really good, so I hope you like them!"  Oh my gosh!  My favorite surprise on the other side of the door so far!  Loved her!  I asked if she had a garden and she said she did.  I guess we are going to have to grow a garden...

Paige and Ashlyn eating watermelon from one of our neighbor's garden.

I actually enjoyed the few days without our furniture.  No TV.  No Computer.  I did miss having somewhere to sit.  The stairs worked well enough though.  We had an ice chest and our new neighbors brought us dinners and treats.   The kids played on the rock climbing wall in our basement to help pass the time.

Registering the kids for school was quite a fiasco.  Utah requires an extra immunization that California does not.   Our health insurance was California based and not available in Utah and I didn't have the information of our new insurance or a computer... blah, blah, blah.  I finally had to pay $25 per kid to sign a waiver. $100 later, I thought we were good to go, but they said needed custody paperwork for the three oldest!  What the heck?! Really?  Yep.  Can't go to school without it.  I wasn't sure I even had anything like that.  Travis and I have always just agreed on things.  The school said it should be in my divorce paperwork.  Hmm.  I don't even know if I have that and if I do, it would be buried in a file, on a truck that is probably somewhere in Nevada.  They wouldn't even let Travis fax something in that was notarized saying I had custody of the kids and they could go to school in Utah!  In California, they go bonkers if kids miss school for even a day, but our new school wasn't concerned about how long it would take to get the paperwork or how behind the kids would be getting.  Grrr.  We eventually found a loop hole and had Travis sign a power of attorney regarding the kids and school.  I was glad I wasn't trying to unpack boxes and deal with all that.

After filling out oodles of paperwork for each of the kids, getting schedules for the older ones and teachers for the younger ones, we were ready.   I got a call the next morning from Ashlyn's school.  "We just noticed Ashlyn's birthday on her birth certificate.  She doesn't quite make the cut off date for kindergarten."  I told them she had already started school in California and asked if she could enroll as a transfer student.  Nope.  Utah law says no one can be in the public school system that is not 5 by September 1.  Ashlyn's birthday is October 1.  I called the district office and talked to a lady who had moved to Utah in February with a kindergartner whose birthday was in September and they wouldn't even let her finish the last three months of her kindergarten year!  So, no way around it.  Ashlyn wasn't going to be in Kindergarten.

I got a call from Lauren that afternoon.  I had given her Ashlyn's teacher's name and the room number she would be in with instructions to go straight there when class was out to pick up Ashlyn so they could ride the bus home together.  I had forgotten to leave Lauren a message at the school to let her know that Ashlyn wasn't going to be in school.  She had gone to Ashlyn's classroom and she wasn't there.  Worried, she asked a teacher to help her find her little sister.  They walked onto every bus and asked if Ashlyn had gotten on that bus.  No Ashlyn.  They went to the other kindergarten classrooms, the bathrooms and the office and no Ashlyn.   Lauren was panicked and called me sobbing.  I could barely understand her through her sobs.  "I can't find Ashlyn! I've looked everywhere!".   I felt to terrible!! 

And Austin, who was just starting his first year of high school, found himself in "middle school" for another year.  I actually think being the new kid, it's better to be the oldest than the youngest.   And I was happy that Austin and Jessica would be at school together.    

Finally, the truck arrived.

Check out how stacked in there everything was!  That's Jason's motorcycle on the top "shelf"!

I SO did not like the crew of rough necks that showed up to unload!!  This guy creeped me out the most, so I smiled and asked if I could take a picture of him.  I really just wanted him to know I had one... just in case.  I wanted my kids out of the house as quickly as possible!  Luckily, my mom was around to help. 

As the boxes piled off the truck, it was glaringly obvious that we weren't going to fit in this house.    There were five guys and one HUGE Samoan that counted as two, unloading things faster than I knew where to send them.  They would ask where this went or that and I felt like I was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, checking for space. Finally I just started saying to send it to the basement.  I really just wanted these creepy guys out of my house.  Frank (the truck diver) assured me that they have all had background checks, but he had just met them that morning.  When the box came off the truck with the security cameras, I made a point of asking them to set it off to the side.

 

Finally, they were gone and I was once again surrounded by boxes.