We made it! (sort of)

12/19/08

Oy.

I think I'm going to need mental help after this move. (Something in the way of retail therapy would go a long way right now...or just being able to find my shampoo.) I don't know why we seem to be so darn lucky, but when we moved to Albuquerque from St. George two years ago, we were met with the biggest snow storm they'd had in 30 years :

The day after we moved to ABQ

...and as soon as we unloaded the moving truck (into our cold, dirty house that wasn't ready for us but was supposed to be), 22 inches fell and the whole city was closed down for 4 days, leaving us with no real food, no microwave, no internet, no phones, and all our suitcases with our clothes and toiletries we had packed for the first few days were stranded at my grandma's house 30 miles away...you get the idea. It was horrible. (Did I mention that it was our anniversary, too? That was just the icing on the cake.)

So this time we had high hopes that even if it was snowing in Albuquerque when we left (which it had been the day before but had melted) that we at least wouldn't get snow where we were headed, since southern Utah and the surrounding areas never get more than a dusting. Ha, ha! You laugh. OF COURSE IT SNOWED. It snowed so much that schools and airports were all closed and we spent the last 200 miles of our drive driving on black ice in whiteout conditions.

Before Flagstaff, AZ the roads had been fine, but we got such a late start that the sun went down and we then got to deal with rain and fog that turned into sleet and snow, and then a full-out blizzard. We had all been up most of the night before because Madelyn, who has been sick for a couple weeks, developed pink eye and was very uncomfortable and kept crying and thrashing around. We got up late and still had a few things left to pack and the whole house to clean. So it was noon by the time we finally left. It was 11:39pm when we got to Hurricane, and the next morning it was still snowing. Siiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhh....

Anyway, I know a lot of you were worried and praying for us, and I am very grateful that we at least got here in one piece and now only have to unpack 20,000 more boxes before I will be able to post some pictures of our new home in its non-garbage-dump state. So it's back to work for me-- hope you're all doing something fun. And if you know of anything that we could do to appease the moving gods so we have a better experience next time, do tell!

Madelyn thought that this moving truck was the greatest plaything in the world. Here she is rolling a ball down the ramp while she waited for us to finish cleaning up in the house.

Good-bye, "white house" (as Madelyn called it). We had some good times there!

My family had written "WELCOME" in giant letters in the snow to greet us in Hurricane.

My mom Carolyn and my sister Megan--we live right across the fence from them now.

This is my brother Kevin's house, and that ramp leads down to our basement apartment.

Mark's car the morning after. It was being pulled behind the moving truck on a car dolley while I drove my car with Madelyn.

Starting to unload...

Our current state of affairs... Actually, my dad still has some of his stuff down here, and we're getting a storage unit to get a lot of our junk out of the way. I'll let you know if I ever resurface.