Real Life

A lot has happened since I last posted on the blog. We accepted a job. We packed up all of our stuff and moved to Texas. It has been a big, interesting, fun, sad, hard, exciting, not-quite-what-I-expected adventure.

We were really sad to leave Utah. So many people helped us in the process of moving. We can still hardly believe how nice everyone was. People watched our kids, made us dinner, helped us clean, gave us money, wrote us nice notes, moved boxes, found us a realtor, gave us couches, and the list goes on. We felt loved.

 Oh, Felicia! It's a hard thing to leave a sister behind. She threw me a cousin/auntie party on my birthday (I turned 30!) the week before we left. It was wonderful. I have the coolest extended family. Living in Utah and getting to know them was a huge blessing in my life. I really appreciated the effort everyone made to come. The great thing is we actually enjoy being together.

Heather took these cute pictures while she watched our kids for about four days straight. So sweet!

 Moving is hard! Even when you live in a 700 sqft apartment and think you don't have that much stuff. I'm glad I took this picture to preserve the memory of the absolute chaos that takes hold when you're moving.

 Aaron made a really delicious pumpkin cake for my birthday. Wish I had some right now.

Book club with my old roomies was a highlight of our Utah years. I will miss these two ladies a lot.

So glad we squeezed in a Chinese New Year party with the K. family. They have been such good friends to us. Not exactly sure how we'll survive without them.

For so long I was always praying and hoping that Aaron would graduate sooner rather than later. But I really don't regret any of the years we spent in Utah. It would have been nice to have the PhD be an easier process, but we really loved where we lived, our ward, our friends, and our amazing family. I look back now, after moving, and am so grateful for every minute we had there.

Just want to say that Aunt Charlotte busted out a Thanksgiving lunch for us the day before we moved. It tasted SOOO GOOD to me. What sweet, sweet women Charlotte and Kathleen are. They're our heroes.

Moving day actually came. We actually got all of our stuff out of the house (minus the kiddie pool and an old bike which Felicia took care of--thanks.) Felicia came to wave us off. It was sad and hard. Still hard to believe that we actually left.

In Moab, we found out our application for a house had been accepted. So we weren't going to be homeless. That was a huge blessing. There have been several adventures with the house--more on that later. Here's Aaron on his first day of work.

It's just been really interesting being in a new town. I haven't moved around a lot in my life, so I sort of forgot that it takes time to make a really good friend. It takes time to be able to find your way around. It takes time to get used to a new grocery store. I'm feeling physically and mentally lost so much of the time here in Texas. And it's hard to be around a bunch of (really nice and friendly) strangers all the time instead of people that you already have a history with. So being in a new place has been harder than I imagined, not a magical dream of excitement and wonder at all moments. The other day at the park, some women in my ward were talking about streets in Provo. I almost felt like crying. In my mind I was like, "I know those streets! I know where that is! That sounds familiar!" But we're still really grateful to be here. Things will get better. We will start to feel normal again. The ward has been awesome. Aaron really likes his job which makes the whole family super happy and grateful. We made it--out of school and on to a real job. But it's been very clear that graduating from school doesn't make you a real person with a real life. We definitely have had that all along. But it is still most excellent to be done with his PhD. You won't ever hear me say I would want to have Aaron back in school.