Moving!

Ah moving....

A subject left alone or at least not participated in

but alas it is the only way to...well...move!

As soon as Christmas was over I was immediatly in moving mode.

It was crazy, hard and couldn't have done it without the help of sooooo many.

Thank you all!

The biggest adventure was definately the drive to our new home. 

It all started when we were about 1/2 way done filling the moving truck and it started raining.  We knew we couldn't just wait for it to stop so we rigged a tarp from the back of the truck to the garage door.  It ment that we had to watch our head and take a step up at the end but we could still load.

At first the loading went really fast but..

well have you ever tried to play tetris with all of your families material possesions? 

If you have then you have an idea of what Marty got to do that WHOLE day!

Yes it took until very late that night but he did get everything in!

The rain kept up all night and by the next morning all roads to 1-40 were closed!

Only we weren't sure of that due to internet sites and phone systems not working so we took off headed up to Payson.

We went

S  L  O  W

or what I called moving truck speed.

After a few hours we arrived in Payson only to sit at Taco Bell hoping the roads would open.

The rest of that day we spent wondering if  we should/could find a room, what other routes we could take or not take, can we find tire chains for a huge truck?,...

We found a room (one of the last ones available Whew!)

The next morning the roads were open but only to chains and 4wd. 

Ugh!

I had already scoured all of Payson looking for chains and there were none to be found.

So we had to decide should we wait and hope the roads eventually opened up or go clear back down to Phoenix, to Tucson, and take I-10. 

This would not only increase our trip by several (I mean several) long hours but don't forget we are paying moving truck fuel prices too!

We prayed as a family and felt impressed that a miracle would happen and somehow we would make it up to I-40.  It sure seemed unbelievable but I guess that is what miracles are eh?

Just as we were loading in the car and truck ready to go and try and see if we could go on the "chains only" road.  I got a phone call.

The man introduced me as a man from a store I had called the night before asking for chains.

I knew this was our miracle.

He asked me "How badly do you need chains for your truck?"

I explained the situation and with a lot of hesitaion said

"Well, I have a set of chains here that you could get.  I am not supposed to sell you these as they were set aside for a company I have a contract with.  They are a little bit more expensive but really good chains as they have ice grippers."

"You can't tell anyone you got these from me because I would be in really big trouble if they found out I sold them too you but I can tell you really need them."

With a much lighter pocketbook I left the store with 2 sets of chains. 

It took more than an hour to get our chains on (and we got lots of help from other who have experience putting on chains-- Thank you for the help nice man and nice trucker)

We were finally on our way.

25 mile an hour

 maximum way!

Hey at least we were moving. 

Once we were past Snowflake we could finally take off our chains and really be on our "truck pace" way.

We still had to spend a short night in another hotel and reschedule with the Elders Quorum till later on Saturday (thanks to the many willing and strong men who came on their New Years Day to help us) but by Saturday night we were unloaded and here. Our 1 day turned 3 day trip was over!  We were officially moved in! ( I am not quite sure that is a fair way to put it when there is still the unpacking, shopping, registering the kids for school, setting up internet,... to do, but ok)

Yahoo!!

A big huge

Thank You

 to all who helped us move!  Thank you! Thank you!