It has been a whirlwind of a month. I feel like I've been running a marathon for the past few weeks and it's been a busy, long road to get to where we are. We are finally in the new house and we're not completely surrounded by boxes anymore so I think we're having some success.
I was semi-prepared for all of the physical work that it takes to move out of state, but I was not prepared for the emotions that I had. We lived in ABQ for 7 years and made so many fantastic friends. Friends doesn't even seem like the right word, because they were really our family!
It started the week before we moved when I had my quarterly "girls night out" with some of the most amazing people I've ever met. It's a bunch of us girls that were in the same ward when we first moved to ABQ. They are really like sisters. We had a special night to say goodbye and we had a gift exchange and just had so much fun. Then it came time for the goodbyes and the tears just wouldn't stop coming. We vowed to have a "girls night out retreat" in the summer so I'm going to hold them to it.
On Saturday we had lots of help packing the moving truck full of our stuff and then we spent the rest of the day cleaning our house and packing up odds and ends. Some of our fabulous friends offered to feed us that night and so that was a nice break from the packing. We all slept on the floor that night.
Sunday was a really hard day for me. Kyle got released from being in the bishopric. I didn't expect THAT to be as hard as it was! The last couple of years have been filled with Kyle being gone a lot... many times the kids would ask me why Dad had to be gone for church things all the time. It was definitely a sacrifice for our whole family, but oh my goodness the blessings that come when the whole family pulls together for something like that. I will miss a lot of things about it.
Sunday was really hard too because that was the day that we said goodbye to practically everyone. We also had dinner with some great friends again and said goodbye. I shed a lot of tears that day and by the end of the day, I was just exhausted. We slept on the floor again that night.
Monday morning was the day that our family left ABQ. We said goodbye to our neighbors and good friends early that morning. More tears shed. And we drove away from ABQ. What a weird, sad feeling. We have loved our home and our neighborhood and our friends and our ward and SO MANY other things. We have so many really great memories there. I think all of us cried as we drove away.
I didn't take many pictures at all of the last few weeks, but here's a few.
This is a picture of one of my really good friends. We've become really close in the last year or so because we have gotten up really early to go workout together. She's such an amazing person and I'm already missing her!
I've been teaching piano lessons for the past year. We had our Christmas recital the weekend that we moved. And this is a picture of my students. They are all amazing people and I'm so sad that I won't be able to teach them piano anymore.
Kyle has really gotten into biking the last couple of years. And he has a group of guys that all go biking together. Well on Saturday, he needed one last bike ride, so he and Bishop were able to go on a ride together. I think he said they rode 18 miles or something. Kyle really enjoyed it and I'm so glad that they were able to go one last time.
I think this is the only picture having to do with our move that I took. Sad.
So we arrived in Utah on Monday night and stayed at my parents house by Price. We left the kids there so we could come and unpack the truck without having to worry about stepping on the kids. We left early Tuesday to try to dodge the big storm that was coming that afternoon. We had a lot of help from our family and we actually unloaded all of our stuff by early afternoon. Just in time for the big storm! It was SO cold!
And while Thanksgiving was crammed between so much craziness this year, we were so grateful to be so close and be able to see our family! We went back down to Price and had Thanksgiving. It was so fun!
Then Friday we brought the kids back up to the new house. It was fun to watch them run around and discover things.
We've been just trying to get into the swing of things here. Get things unpacked and make this home feel like ours.
I really wanted to get the Christmas decor up even if the rest of the house wasn't organized, so my dad brought up our other trailer full of stuff on Saturday and we got it out. This is our fireplace all decked out for the holidays.
And we've already loved being able to see our family so much! Here's Parker and one of his cousins. She's so cute!
And the kids have loved having a big jetted tub for bubble baths.
We seem to have a really welcoming ward and neighborhood, so that makes things really fun. We've met most of our neighbors on our street and the kids already have a lot of friends. They are always outside in this cold weather playing with them.
We also went to Kyle's work party on Friday and I met the Dr. that he is working with. He seems like such a great person and we had many people come and tell Kyle that he's working with the best doctor in the whole hospital. We met his wife too and she gave me a hug and said they were so excited for us to finally be here.
I have to say that I've had my reservations about this whole move/change. It's always hard to leave what's comfortable and make a change that may or may not be better. But through fasting and praying I knew that this is what our family was suppose to do. Sometimes you just take that leap of faith and that's what we've done.
We still have a lot of concerns/challenges/worries - A. LOT. But so far everything that is really important has worked out.
We're home.
On the train ride going around the old village.
It was SO foggy! It made it feel so much more like Christmas- we loved it!
At the live Nativity. Spencer actually walked right into a sheep that he didn't see. We all laughed. 
Christmas Eve at Kelli and Matts. 
Katie and Mike
Our Christmas Eve PJ picture....
After threatening the kids, they finally took a smiling picture and made it look like we were having fun. 
Okay, so we did have fun.
Decorating cookies for Santa
One of the toys Parker got.
Explaining to us what he was doing. 
