Movin' on

Sorry it's been a while since we last added to our blog.  Life has been crazy!  The end of the semester came and went and surprisingly we survived!  Besides Richard having more credits than usual (16) and most of those English classes with big papers and portfolios, we had to move out of our apartment by midnight on Friday, the day after school ended.  By the way, in case you didn't know, Richard did not graduate this semester after all. We found a few more credits he still has to take, so we are planning to go back to school next fall.  It's actually probably for the best.  Still, he wasn't really able to help me until Thursday after school, and moving in one day, or even two, is not possible.  Luckily they were able to give us an extension until Saturday at 4 (so generous of them) and we still didn't make it.  The difficulty was that we were moving into a fully furnished apartment, and thus we had to decide what would go with us and what would go into storage.  Also we had to do most everything with just a little Nissan Sentra.  We were extremely grateful for all the help we received from Richard's family. Ian and Richard were able to move all our furniture over to the storage unit using their dad's truck, while Sarah, Betty,  and Richard's parents took turns babysitting Ethan.  Poor little Ethan had the croup the whole time, no less.  On Friday, Richard and Shauna each took a load of stuff over to Jackson, and still there was more stuff left than we could fit into one car load with Ethan and I in there, so we had to leave a bunch of stuff at the Samuelson's  residence to get later.  What a headache. Saturday was a race against the clock.  We finished moving everything out and worked on cleaning the place.  I had no idea how long it was going to take.  Thankfully, my friend Jana came over and offered to help us clean.  She was a godsend.  We couldn't have done it without her, and I don't know how to thank her enough for her kind service.  

After a quick dinner from Richard's mom, we were on our way.   Poor little Ethan had a hard time up and over the pass with the pressure in his ears.  I felt so bad, and there was nothing I could do.  It was a nightmare.  We arrived in Jackson just as it was getting dark and worked on emptying the car.   We just piled stuff everywhere and crashed.

So, if you didn't know the situation, we are living in a two bedroom condo in Jackson Hole, WY.  It is normally a very expensive place to live, the condo goes for $1,800 a month normally.  The catch is that we are sharing it with another couple, Ron and Julie Anderson and their little girl Ashlyn, who is a few months older than Ethan.  TCWP is committed to providing housing for their workers, but since Richard and Ron also have families they are just subsidizing the rent for us.  TCWP pays $900 and we each pay $450 a month.  Not bad eh?  Ron and Julie are really nice, easy-going people who actually used to be in Scott's BYU-I married student ward when he was bishop.   I think it will be interesting, but fun as well.  It'll be nice to have company when the guys are away at work.

It took us two days to move in, and then we were off to Utah for a little break from the frozen North and to visit my family before Richard starts work.  Luckily Ethan was feeling a little better, and the trip went relatively well.  Of course, it snowed on us the whole way down.  In fact, I think we brought it with us.  There were a few times we outran the storm, but then we'd stop for food or gas and it would catch up with us.  We made it to Utah, which had just enjoyed 70 degree weather on Sunday, and as soon as we got here it was in the 30s again and snowing.  We just can't escape it.  On the brighter side, today is looking better and tomorrow should be warmer. 

The sad news is that we may not have internet in Jackson.  We're trying to make the most of having access here.  Richard was able to check his grades here, and we are pleased to announce another successful semester.  He got a 3.944 for this semester. All A's with just one A-. I'm so proud of him!  He worked so hard this semester I let him buy a laptop.  He's made good use of it in school, and he's also had a lot of fun with it including playing with video editing stuff.  He put together this record of our weekend, as well as a video montage of Ethan's first 9 months.  You may recognize a lot of the video clips since I already put a lot of them on here, but oh well.  Here they are.

Moving and traveling:

Ethan montage: