Moving Day

So I guess I need to post about WHERE we are moving to and why. Joe has wanted to start a cleaning company for quite some time. Really his passion is business but a cleaning company presented him with a low risk, low overhead opportunity to be his own boss. I thought he was nuts at first until I read up on the cleaning industry and now I wonder why more people aren't in it. So after a LONG conversation on the subject (two years) we both agreed that it was time to jump in. We also agreed that Idaho winters are too cold for two wusses like us. So....

We decided to move to ST. GEORGE, UTAH!!!

We drove down about a month ago to feel things out and I fell in love with St. George. I'd been there a few times before (Joe proposed at Zion's) but this time as we were driving down from Cedar City, past Zion's National Park, the clouds parted and a single beam of sunlight illuminated our first glimpse of the famous Southern Utah red rocks. I almost cried. It felt like home.

And now it is home. Last weekend we loaded up a Budget Truck and moved down all our material belongings. Goodbye, Boise! Well, okay.. not quite goodbye... we're actually back for a few weeks. We're staying with my parents until the first week of March. Hopefully by then we will have finished all the necessary equipment testing, logo/business card/flyer designing, card playing (when you live with my parents this is a must), and loose-end tying that is required to start a new business. Joe's a trooper. He's been training with several local carpet companies for the past few months. Every spare moment he spends reading business and marketing materials. I wish I could post all the different uniforms he had to wear but he FORBADE me. My favorite outfit was a pair of brown, 70's style pants that were about an inch too short and two inches too wide paired with a matching (equally as dated) brown polo. Precious.

We're very excited to get back to our house in St. George. We found a cute little house in a cute little neighborhood in a cute little part of town. It's very... cute. And nice. Coming from our last house I feel like one of the Beverly Hillbillies. "What's this?... Running water!"

Anyhow, our plan is to eventually come back to Boise. We both want to raise our kids in Idaho. St. George will hopefully just be a very warm adventure. Maybe 5 years.

This Old House

It's official... We've moved out of our house in Meridian. I never thought it would be this hard to say goodbye to the place. For those of you who don't know, we lived in this horribly rundown cabin looking thing in Meridian for the past two and half years. When I first saw the place I about died. I walked in to see hundreds of dead spiders, mysterious carpet stains, holes in every wall and door, and the smell.... well two and a half years were not long enough to forget that. Anyhow, it took an entire month of work to fix the place up. I had some awesome friends that came and helped me almost daily. Our single's ward even came and helped for FHE. Fifty people crammed into our 1200 square foot house scrubbing, scraping and sanitizing. I am forever grateful to those people (especially the boys that cleaned the dead birds out of the furnace area).

Our families were a giant help arranging for the carpet to be replaced, a new window, and doors. It was sooooo much work. We painted every wall. Just to give you a little glimpse, the living room went from this:

to this:

(sorry this is after all our stuff was out except the couches)

and from this:

to this:

The kitchen went from this color:

to this color:

I wish I could have gotten the exact same angles but this at least gives you the idea. It was so cozy and wonderful inside. I'll miss so many things about it. Even the annoying stuff... like how our pipes froze every winter, and we had to bug bomb all the gigantic spiders, and how we couldn't put dishes in certain cupboards because that's where the mice lived, and how you could hear birds in our ceiling every morning when you took a shower. I will miss how we were basically all alone on 7 acres. I will miss the gorgeous view at sunset:

I will miss the flowers,

and giant yellow trees:

I will miss all the things about our house that made it ours. Like the note Joe wrote me on the wall where the baseboard was supposed to go...

It says, "I love Stacy". The baseboard never did make it over that spot.

I'm so glad that Joe was smart enough to make us live there. It was the greatest way to start our marriage. We have so many memories that I will never forget. Like when I was pregnant and Joe made me get a trapped bird out of our wood stove because he was scared, or how our first winter, when we actually used that wood stove, it was so cold that we would drag our mattress out in the living room and sleep by the fire. I just know I'll look back on this part of our marriage as "a simpler time."

I will miss you dear house.

Third Time's The Charm

The title of this would probably lead you to believe that I have made some positive breakthrough after trying something twice before. Well not exactly. Drumroll please....

Jay went to the emergency room AGAIN! It happened on Monday when Joe and I were moving out of our house... oh p.s. we're moving but more on that later... Anyway, I was at our house, Joe was running errands, and Jay was at my parents' house. My mom ran to the store and my poor dad was all alone with Jay when it happened. Apparently, Jay's sippy cup was getting low so my dad went to fill it back up. He accidentally grabbed my milk (which looks a bit like Jay's soy milk) and put it in his bottle. Of course it didn't take long for Jay to start throwing up and my dad gave me a somewhat panicked phone call. He didn't know what he was reacting to though so it was a bit scary. I got there as fast as my car would take me and called 911. Once my mom got home she figured out what had happened and I gave Jay his Epipen a.k.a stabbing and crying. The ambulance then arrived and Jay wouldn't let the paramedics touch him. Oddly enough Jay's reaction was not as bad as the other two times. We think that's because my milk is "lactose-free" milk which still contains a small amount of lactose. Anyhow, the paramedics said that even if his reaction wasn't as bad he should still go to the hospital so in to the ambulance we went! Yes... I had to be strapped to a gurney (which if you don't know includes straps around your calves, thighs, stomach, and chest) and Jay had to be strapped to me. Then when we got to the hospital they actually wouldn't let me walk myself to the room. I had to be wheeled in on the gurney... still strapped in! Oh dear.

It was all very relaxed this time. They didn't even give him an IV, just some oral steroids. It was more of a photo op than anything horrifying. Jay was being really cute after his reaction settled down. He kept crawling to the end of the bed, pulling the covers over him, and saying "Nigh-nigh."

Cute boy.

Here's Jay and Daddy playing peek-a-boo with the blanket.

I guess we just couldn't leave Boise without another trip to the ER. One last hoorah.

(I'll post about us moving soon.)