Settling In

You would think that after dealing with all of the packing and crazing moving stuff in New York City plus driving across the country that we would be done with all the big stages of moving, but no. Once we were in Utah, we had a whole other list of things to take care of. You know, things like finding a place to live and buying a car...nothing too monumental. At this point, we were way beyond exhausted and so ready to just be done with moving. 

Luckily, we already had pretty much found a place to live. We just needed to look at it for ourselves to make sure it was a-okay, and then sign the lease. After leaving John and Gwen's, we headed over to the realty company that we would be working with. The place looked great, so we took it. All in all, it wasn't too complicated, since we had done most of the groundwork ahead of time. We signed over the lease, handed over a check, and just like that we had a home. It's a two bedroom, two bath condo and we love it. 

We're still working on getting everything unpacked and sorted, so I won't post pictures yet. That has been a process. We had to unpack all of our NYC belongings first. Then during Labor Day weekend, my family came down and brought us all of the things we've had in storage for the last five years, basically a whole other household of stuff to deal with. That's been exciting. We've found things we'd totally forgotten we had. My favorite box that I opened contained shoes. So many shoes. It was like Christmas! And we have all of our kitchen dishes and utensils back. It's amazing being able to use two or three pans at once to cook a meal instead of having to wash the one you have three times during a single dinner preparation. And I don't feel bad at all about using dish after dish for meals because I have a dishwasher to put them all in afterwards. I get all excited just thinking about it. And we have a real live table now that we can sit at to eat, instead of our coffee table. Life is good.

After unloading our boxes and furniture from the rental truck, and stacking them in our new home, we needed to find a car. We arrived in Utah on Sunday, August 23, and moved our stuff into the condo on the 24th. Brian was starting work on the 31st, just a week away. That was how long we had to find a car. 

We started out by returning the truck, (we were so happy to get rid of that thing, especially Brian) and renting a car to drive around town in. We were still on a tight budget, so to minimize the expense, we went with the smallest car they had -- a Chevy Spark. Haha! It was so tiny, and quite the change from driving a 12-foot truck. It was so fun to tease Brian about his driving in the Spark, at first he was still making wide turns and such because he was used to driving the truck.

We are happy to say that our car search was successful and we ended up buying a Ford Escape. We love it so much. At first, we were just thinking of buying a little four door sedan that we could pay off quick and then get a second car, but we changed our minds and decided to get something bigger and with 4WD for the winter. Now we will be a bit more self sufficient in that we can haul things around when needed and not have any trouble in the snow. It may take us a little bit longer to get a second car now, but we feel like this was the better way to go. I've missed driving so much, so I'm super happy to have a vehicle again.

We were so blessed in that we were able to find a good home and a good car so quickly. It really helped moving in on this end a whole lot less stressful than we thought it would be.

The rest of the week before Brian started work, we just worked on putting our place together. We had to call the gas company to come out and turn the gas on, and then we had to light the pilot light. Well we were getting frustrated because it wouldn't light, and then we realized that the gas company just unlocked the gas line, they didn't turn it on. We didn't have any of our tools yet (they were still in Idaho) so we had to run to Walmart and buy a cheap wrench so we could turn on the gas line. After that, lighting the pilot was a cinch. It took a couple days for the gas company to come out and for us to figure all of that out, so we both took a couple of really cold showers in the meantime. 

The first time that it hit me that life would be different (better!) here is when we went to Walmart on our first day. Not only do we have access to Walmart again, but when we were leaving the store, I was getting ready to load up all the bags and carry them out, when Brian reminded me that we could leave them in the cart...and push them to our car...and drive them to our house. Hooray! I was so excited, that the people walking past us must of thought I was a loony toon. Haha! Our condo is on the second floor, but there is only one flight of stairs to carry things up instead of 8 (four floors x two flights each floor).  Hooray again! We don't have our washer and dryer yet, but I can drive my laundry over to the laundromat instead of having to carry it. Hooray, hooray! We've only been here 3 1/2 weeks, but everyday I find something like that to be excited about. And we've already been able to visit Brian's parents and my whole family. It's so wonderful. We are just ecstatic to be so close to family.

Brian is also loving his new job. He's doing great at it, and has better hours and is much less stressed when he comes home at night. I love having him home at 5:30 pm instead of 7 pm or later. It's all working out wonderfully. I just breath a sigh of relief and happiness every time I think about our new life here. We're finally home.