The Big Move

Elora leaving our old home headed for the new

We are now in Logan, and have been here for about 8 days. I am so behind on writing all of these events!
It took us three days to get here rather than the two we had planned on.
My mom, dad and brother Thain came up to our house on Friday and helped us finish up on our packing and getting things ready. Mom was invaluable in getting all the rooms cleaned up. Dad just tried to stay out of the way until the time came to load the truck on Monday. Thain wanted to help more, but there wasn’t much I could find for him to do. His main job was keeping Elora occupied so that she wasn’t in the way.
Elora adores Uncle Thain, and was happy to spend all of her time with him. Of course, he gave her whatever she wanted, so when mom and dad had to take over, or it was time to go to bed, she threw worse temper tantrums than I have ever seen her do before.
We all went to our ward’s barbecue at Mukelteo beach, so that was a nice way to spend our last Saturday in town. It was overcast and fairly cool, and the food was pretty good too. On Sunday, we blessed Joshua at church, and Thain got to help.

On moving day, we had some of the young men come over to help us. They were great and got the job done quickly. I think my mom was surprised as she didn’t expect teenagers to be much help at all. One of my older friends came over with her son too, and she did a lot to help with cleaning and doing last minute things. We still had a lot to take care of after the big things were loaded on the truck, and we ended up leaving after 2:00.
Thain drove mom and dads car and I rode with him and the babies in the back. We arranged it this way because we didn’t want the kids overheating in our car, which has no air conditioning. Elora loved riding with Uncle Thain, which is probably why she was so well behaved. Joseph drove the moving truck, and my mom and dad were kind enough to take our car. They drove with the windows down the whole way so they weren’t too hot, but I bet it was just miserable with the wind and not being able to hear any music. We all had walkie-talkies to keep in touch with each other, and that made things kind of fun.
We had to stop several times for baby feedings and to get food and gas, and each stop took longer than anticipated. We were glad Elora and Joshua were actually very good on the whole ride, but that first day we only got to Spokane. We went that way so we could stop and see Joseph’s dad, and since it was evening already anyway, we thought we might as well stop there.
Elora threw a major fit when Thain had to go to another room to sleep in the hotel, but we eventually got her to calm down, and Joseph brought McDonalds into the room for us to eat. She likes hamburgers.
The next day we made o ur way into Idaho and down through Montana. Cuor D’Alene was beautiful…you would never know it was the headquarters for the white supremacists! When we drove through northern Montana, we saw some forest fires just a mile or two from the road, and we saw helicopters carrying stuff to drop on them. That was pretty exciting. We heard a few days later that the fires were still burning, and they might have shut down the road right where we were traveling.


Thain and I had fun driving; we sang some songs together, and he even sang me some hymns in Slovenian. That day we only made it to Idaho Falls. It was already pretty late, so we decided to call it a day.

The next day, Wednesday it was slow going again, but luckily we didn’t have too far to go this time. The drive off of I-5 and onto the smaller highway (30?) was very pretty and scenic. We arrived at our new apartment around 1:00. We had to go to the head offices to get our keys and to get all signed up, but that didn’t take too long. One of our downstairs neighbors helped us move some stuff. But he was very out of shape and couldn’t help much. Despite that, we unloaded everything fairly quickly. My pessimistic father was of course, quite surprised by that.

Thain helping out

There is a play area behind our apartments and my mom took Joshua and Elora and kept them occupied while everything was unloaded. She met a bunch of my neighbors and told them all about us..now everyone is going to expect me to be all social like my mom. Dang it!

After we were unloaded, mom and dad had to go to visit my other brother in Salt Lake.
Our new apartment is much bigger than our old one. I think its very nice , just a little too hot right now! Our living room seems to trap in the heat, so in the evening when its cooled off outside, our thermometer says it is still around 85! The bedrooms aren’t that hot though, so that’s okay. ITs a big difference from the daily averages in the 70's that we're used to.
That night I think the heat must have got to Elora and Joshua, because Joshua screamed for a long time, and Elora got very sick. She threw up in the hallway, the living room, the bedroom floor…I was trying to help her go to sleep and she threw up on me and her pajamas. We got that all cleaned up and she was almost asleep on my lap again, when she suddenly sat up and threw up all over herself and me again! It was quite disgusting. The next morning she threw up one more time, just a little bit, but now she is better.
And that is where I will end this little tale, that is already way too long! Hope you enjoyed it.