Gilbert or bust!

For a month now I have been nervous about everything fitting in the truck.  I measured out the area of the truck in our garage, then moved all the boxes out there in an attempt to guess if we could get it all in.  Really it's just stuff and if we had to leave stuff behind (which we did) I just wanted to be able to choose what we left.  Jer and his business partner Court began loading the boxes the day before.  The kids thought the truck was a wonderful play land especially with its automatic lift.  But to Jer and I it was a stressful thing.  We were glad to see the truck was brand new with only 2000 miles on it when we got it!  We packed that thing from floor to ceiling all the way to the last inch.  In the end it was tricky trying to get it all in!  But we managed to fit it all but the Barbie Jeep.  Ssshhh, don't tell the girls, they haven't figured out it's missing!

We spent our last night at Grandmas house.  Jeremy left at 4 the next morning and we followed at 5:30.  I had a pit in my stomach as we drove away.  I have felt good about our decision to move but at that moment I started to second guess what we were doing.  Grandma kept a brave face as we drove away for the kids but Jer says she sobbed as he left.  I thought about how this made our parents feel.  I tried to put myself in their position and think of how I would feel if it was Neeley driving away in a big truck with everything she owned.  And I decided they must have felt worse than I did and that moment.

We caught up with Jer in Boulder where we gave him a quick kiss as he drove off again and we went in for lunch.  From then on we switched places back and forth on the highway but in the end Jer's slow truck won out to our bathroom breaks.  He arrived at the hotel about 15 minutes before we did.

That night we went over to the house to show the girls their new rooms.  They were so excited to see the house they quickly forgot about the long 12 hour drive they had just endured.  The next morning we welcomed a crew of 8 strangers at 6:30 a.m. to unload the truck.  How thankful we were for the generosity of the elders from the ward to share their Saturday morning with us.  Jer and I feared it would be just the two of us there schlepping furniture off the truck for hours, instead it was one hour with lots of man power!

In all we feel so blessed for the support we received from family, mere acquaintances and pure strangers to make this move happen!  Tender mercies for sure!