The Big Trek West

Phew, we are officially moved back to Utah! Every morning when I look out my window I say to myself (or to Brian), "It's so pretty here!" I guess I never appreciated the beauty of the mountains before.

I am doing some major blog catch-up, so excuse the photo overload and multiple posts!

Our move back was not without a little excitement. The weekend before we were to load the moving truck we had tornadoes come through. I saw a funnel cloud with my own eyes about a mile from our house, which I thought was cool, but was making the kids freak out that I was outside and not inside hiding in the closet.

Four days before our move the Moore tornado hit. That pretty much put a halt to the packing, as we needed to keep an eye on the news to see if we were going to be in the path of destruction. We lived about 25 miles north of Moore so we were fine, but since we were in the same county, the sirens kept going off by us. There is no way to describe how horrible it was. Unless you see it with your own eyes, you can't imagine how damaging the large tornadoes, like the F4s and F5s, can be.

Three days before the move we celebrated Emi's birthday, since she was going to be at her Grandma's house on her real birthday. We had some yummy BBQ at Rudy's and had a blast bowling as a family. Emi was just happy that she didn't have to spend her birthday hiding in a closet like she did on her 6th birthday!

Two days before the move was the last day of school. Phew! Talk about a crazy busy month! There was not one day during the entire month of May that there weren't multiple activities going on!

One day before the move we flew the kids to Utah. Thanks to Brian's mom for taking them in while we finished up packing and cleaning the house! My Dad flew in that night so he could help us load the truck and then drive it back to Utah for us. Isn't he awesome? We couldn't have made the move back without him!

When the big day finally arrived, things were moving along very smoothly. We had some young men come help us load the truck and things were moving pretty quickly...until we realized that our stuff was not going to all fit in the moving truck. Seriously?! And we even got the biggest truck you can get! Since it was memorial weekend which is the busiest moving time of the year, we were lucky to find a U-Haul trailer to put the rest of our belongings in. Well, most of it anyway. We did have to leave some furniture on the curb...

The rest of the trip went pretty smoothly. We got to Amarillo about 2 a.m. and slept at a hotel across from a club. You can meet some interesting people outside of a club at 2 a.m. in Amarillo. I'm just glad our car and trailer were still there in the morning. The next morning we stopped at Cadillac Ranch just outside of Amarillo before heading on to New Mexico. We spent the night near the Four Corners area and made it to Utah the following day in time to celebrate Memorial Day with Brian's family.

Touching four states at once.

Visiting Brian's Dad's grave.

We had to wait until Thursday to close on our house, and let me tell you, we have never been so happy to finally get those keys!

These pictures were taken a couple months ago when our house was still under construction.

Piano/Sitting Room

Dining Room

Family Room

Kitchen

 Master Bathroom

We are *mostly* unpacked, all though it will take some time to get totally settled. It is so great to live just a couple miles from our old neighborhood! My friends have already welcomed me back and it's great to be with them again! The kids have already made some cute friends, so we are all very happy! *this is us doing a happy dance*

I am truly grateful for the experiences we had during the past six years, and I know that our family is all better off for those experiences, but we are glad to be H.O.M.E.