Hello all! Gonna try my hand at the blogging thing. Now, please don't be disappointed, I'm definately not as entertaining as my sister. And of course, she can spell. For anyone I didn't send this to, below is a recap of our trip..........
Hello all! Hope you had a nice weekend! We made it to SD in one piece. It was a quite exciting trip, but I'm glad to be getting settled. Being homeless is really no fun.
We left Saturday, and we stayed in Reno. BMO was very disappointed when we got there because the hotel we were staying at was doing remodeling and the pool was closed. So much for my bribery that he could go swimming. We were a little concerned when we left Modesto, the truck was full and there was still the corner piece of our couch. The driver told us it wasn't going to fit and they would have somene pick it up in a week or two. No biggy, we'd deal with it. So we let our renters know that it would be in the garage for a week or two.
Sunday was a long day. We got up early with every intention of making it to Salt Lake City by mid afternoon and calling it a day. We left about 4 hoping the kids would go back to sleep in the van, GIO was very cooperative, but BMO was wide awake and had no intent of sleeping. We made reservations at a hotel in Park City, UT, just past Salt Lake and figured from the time we were making we'd be there by 4. We were just pulling into Salt Lake City when we caught our moving truck on the interstate. You can imagine our surprise when we saw that they had actually tied the last piece of our couch to the back of the truck. And I thought I was stubborn. It was all shrink wrapped and covered with blankets, but it was ours. Looked really funny, I can only imagine what the other people on the highway must have thought. We were only 6 miles from our hotel in Park City when we came acrossed a bad accident that had just happened, maybe 5 minutes before we got there. They closed the interstate down. There was a big rig blocking all the lanes. They sent us back down the hill into Salt Lake. We did some checking and there wasn't really anyway around so we decided to wait. We ended up killing about 4 hours and going back up periodically to check if the road was open. We went to a park for a while and walked through a store and had dinner. Finally we decided it looked like it would be closed for a lot longer so we decided to take a detour. We ended up going north to Ogdon and staying there for the night. It was only about 1/2 hour to an hour out of our way, but we had wasted a lot of time because of the accident. We found out later what had happened, made some of the things we saw make more sense. When we had been going up the hill we had seen several cops and a couple miles before the accident we actually thought we saw cops putting out spike strips on the road going down the hill. Come to find out there had been a high speed chase coming down hills towards Salt Lake. They said on the news that they believed the guy decided to commit suicide because he cut acrossed the median and aimed for the only semi truck on the road. I felt so bad for the truck driver, and was very thankful we hadn't been just a little further ahead.
Monday we decided that the early morning thing wasn't going to work, so we didn't get up early, we just got up up normal and had breakfast and hit the road. We had another long day. We crossed all of Wyoming and spent the night in Sidney, Nebraska. It was a long day and by the end everyone was dragging.
Tuesday we didn't get up early again. We were all getting tired of being in the car by this point and that was the longest day of all. Taz developed a new nickname of pigion, because he was making the strangest noises all day long. Speaking of the dogs, the stupid creatures. We bought them 2 kennels and have been training them for weeks and wouldn't you know, but the second stop they had decided that they wanted to share, so they rode 90% of the trip in the big kennel togheter. That was a waste of money and space. Was sure glad we got the kind that fold up. We made it to Sheldon on Tuesday night around 5:30.
We spent the next couple of days trying to recover from sitting for so long.
Thursday afternoon, T and I loaded up the van again and headed out for SD. The kids stayed with the Grandmas for the next couple of days which was a big help. We got to Huron in the early evening and went and got the keys from the landlord. The first time we walked through the house, was a disaster. I wanted to cry and T was panicing.
All the rooms were way too small and even though they had redone a couple of rooms, there was still a lot that needed to be done. The stairs are awful, they are very sharp and steep and everytime I go up them I'm feel like I'm going to fall down. It's very drafty, nothing is straight, including the doors and the floors. It's an old house, and it was filty. We promptly got a list of available rentals in town and started driving around town. We were desperate but most of the others that were available were worse. So we went to dinner, had a few drinks and decided to make the best of it. The next morning we got up early, and went to the house, Tracy stayed and met the movers and I headed for Wal-mart for cleaning supplies. It was a long day of cleaning and moving. The truck driver, John, had his wife, Peggy, bring us over lunch and then she took me away for a couple hours. She is very nice and we got along well. It was a nice break and she showed me around town and introduced me to a daycare provided she knew. Friday night after we got everything into the house, we called it a day. John and Peggy took us out for a nice dinner at a nice place on the lake and then took us over to there lake house for a while. It was nice to unwind a bit.
Saturday was a rat race. My folks brought the kids up in the afternoon, and until then, Tracy and I were working our tails off to at least get a path through the hosue and get the kids rooms ready before they got here. We ended up with the kids in the 2 bedrooms upstairs and we made the dinning room into our bedroom. Not ideal, but it will work.
Sunday and today have been busy. Lots of trips to Walmart and cleaning while we go. We are starting to get settled now, and the house isn't so bad. The bathrooms and kitchen need work, and the stairs are very steep, but it had potential. It's definately a challenge trying to get things unpacked and working around the kids. But BMO has made friends with the neighbor kids and has been playing outside a lot. It's nice to have so many windows and such a quiet neighborhood. We can let him play out there with the other kids and not worry to much. The one neighbor actually lived in Sheldon for a couple of years and knew a lot of the same people we knew, what are the odds of that.
I don't know how things will work out after I start work this week, but so far it's been okay. It could be quite a challenge for Tracy to find work. There are lots of jobs but most want to pay $6-$8 per hour. It's crazy.
