Thursday, August 7, 2008

Our Move

After a change of plans, (where we decided to not go up to Alaska again, but to instead move down to Arizona) we hurried to find an apartment. We weren't prepared for how long it would take us to find and lease an apartment. Luckily Chel's second cousin Tanya was nice enough to go look at a couple of apartments and let us know if they were decent. They were, and we then waited while the apartment complex completed credit checks, criminal checks and all other sorts of background checks. We finally were told we could move in on July 25.  There was a family reunion in Vernon, Arizona so Chel's mom graciously offered to take a truckload of our stuff down to Mesa on her way to the reunion. So we packed up our stuff in the back of the truck and we also filled up our subaru. And then we headed out. It took us about 16 looooong hours to drive from Highland, Utah to Arizona.  Thanks to fully loaded vehicles, tarp problems and driving at lower speeds for optimal fuel usage.  
and to kids. Thomas and Gabriel (Chel's cousins kids who are currently staying with her parents). Thomas was often asking to stop for bathroom breaks.
Here is Thomas after yet another stop, unfortunately this was an unplanned stop due to his throwing up lunch. Thankfully we were able to clean it up to the point that throw up was only smelled occasionally.
We made it to Parker's at about midnight. Jeff was dismayed to find out that it was still over 100 degrees outside. He quickly realized that the warm temperatures 24/7 was going to make our marathon training harder than ever. It's true. Instead of running outside during the summer we either wake up insanely early to run in the coolest part of the day (88 degrees), or we run on treadmills. We successfully moved into our apartment only to leave immediately for Vernon, Arizona for a family reunion. Here we are by the Salt River on our way out to Vernon.
It was an interesting trip as it rained over 5 inches in under 2 hours our first afternoon there. It blew our tent upside down and flooded all the others. Unfortunately just three miles away received absolutely no rain. We didn't get any pictures of it because the camera was in the truck, and we waited out the storm in the Parker's trailer. We have now lived in our apartment for about one and a half weeks and are getting a little more used to the heat

2 comments:

Steph said...

Sounds like things have started out nicely for you all! You can keep all that heat to yourselves.

Kate said...

good luck in Mesa. I've decided that I hate the desert and it is the closest thing to hell I've ever experienced. And good luck with the marathon training. Which one are you running? I've been treadmil bound for the last couple of marathons that I've done.