And Then We Moved

On August 1st we took care of a few last errands and hit the road! As I mentioned, we were really busy  up until that point, so I didn't have much time to be sad, though it was hard to say bye (for now) to my family. I said goodbye individually at different times to each family member since they all had jobs, girls camp, etc. going on, which I guess made things a little easier. I was luckily able to say bye to Madie (my friend of 17 years!) last minute as well. She was so cute and put together a little goodie bag and note. We somehow had forgotten to get any snacks for the road so it was the perfect little gift.

             

 We made a last trip to the cemetery to visit my dad's grave. It was hard knowing that I wouldn't be able to visit it any time I want like I could in Provo. 

It technically took three days of driving to get to our apartment in Houston. We had all of our stuff packed in a Penske moving truck, pulling our car on a trailer behind us. The moving trucks cap at about 67 MPH, although sometimes going downhill we would get up to 75MPH which made us feel like speed demons :). On the first day we drove from Provo to New Mexico where we visited and stayed at my aunt and uncle's house. We were so grateful they let us stay over. Their house is so comfortable and nice it was hard to leave the next morning. After getting some good rest and having a nice visit, the next morning we left and drove (very late) into the night to San Antonio, where my sister's in-laws were so kind and let us stay at their home. I can't tell you how nice it was to have a nice hot shower and comfy bed to sleep in after the second long day of traveling (though Taylor drove the whole way, somehow even just sitting in a moving truck all day wears you out!). The next morning we only had 3 hours more to drive to get to Houston which sounded like a breeze after driving 12+ hours the previous two days. I am so grateful that Taylor drove the entire trip! For a boy who grew up only ever driving an hour and half at the longest living on an island, he was such a champ. We drove with my cello in the moving truck to make sure it didn't get overheated, which made for an interesting third passenger up front :).

Day 1 of traveling:

Day 2 of traveling--the picture speaks for itself: 

These next two pictures are the first things I saw that said "Texas" on them. The gas station is the first place we stopped when I realized we were in the state we'd be living in for the next 3 years! 

Once we finally got into Houston we dropped off the trailer and I drove our car following Taylor as we got to our apartment. My heart was so nervous as we drove to where we would call home for the next little while. Our street is very industrial and full of random warehouses, so I was pretty nervous, but then I saw our place (shown below), and felt a little better. For having never seen our apartment before we were really blessed to find a nice place to live that actually looked like it did in the pictures advertised. There is good security, pest control, and cleanliness, which are all very good things to give peace of mind! 

We had gotten in touch with our new ward and asked for some help moving our big stuff in. We had hoped to get all our small stuff in before they came, but we showed up only a few minutes before they did because we were running late, so they ended up helping us move ALL of our stuff in. I was so grateful for the help of complete strangers because at that point we were exhausted. 

Our first night in our apartment was relaxing, yet exhausting because we were so tired from traveling and unpacking. We ordered pizza from a place the apartment management recommended. The pizza took over an hour to get there (it ended up being in a city not super close to us but we had no sense of direction at the time), but it gave us time to get cleaned up and at least get our bed set up so we had somewhere to sleep. The pizza finally came and we had ordered salads with our pizza but we couldn't find any forks! We ended up using fondue skewers, which was interesting but we didn't care. We spent the next few days (and weeks) getting settled in our apartment. We really love our apartment, especially all the extra storage space that we didn't have in our old one!