Our original moving plans for residency was to rent a large moving truck, tow Adrian's little eclipse and I would drive the Corolla with the boys and follow the moving truck. Once Adrian wreaked his car, our plans were tweaked a bit. We then planned on Adrian driving the moving truck and me driving the Corolla with the boys. Adrian would then buy a commuter car once we got to Florida. Well, my dad had an idea of selling our Corolla and buying a truck and trailer to move ourselves instead of renting a large moving truck. The moving trucks were $4,000 to rent for what we needed. We would move now, in a year and then in 3 years, with each move potentially costing us $4,000 just to rent the moving truck. So, in the long run of paying to rent moving trucks we could put the money into our own truck and trailer and have something to show for it in the end.
So, we made a bold move and sold our Corolla and bought a truck and trailer. It was hard to sell our Corolla. It was newer and very reliable. We ended up buying a 2011 Ford F250. It was a fleet vehicle so it had a lot of miles despite it being fairly new, and because of that we paid a bit less. We also bought a 20 foot enclosed cargo trailer. They each needed to be tuned up for the long drive across country but they both ended up working very well for our needs.
Since we were very limited on space using a 20 foot trailer instead of the 26 foot moving trucks like we were used to, we had to downsize our belongings. We sold our dinning set and couch we bought new 4 years ago. We sold all of our dressers, treadmill and other random items that were big or bulky. Surprisingly it was not hard to let go of a lot of our stuff. That's all it is, is "stuff". I gave most of our baby items to my sister who expecting her first child including all the kid clothes my boys have grown out of. We were able to fit all our belongings into the trailer. We weighed the trailer at a weigh station and it weighed almost 9,000 pounds.
We survived our big move from Cedar City, Utah to Port St. Lucie, Florida. It was about 2600 miles. We were on the road for 10 days. The first day we made it to Colorado, almost to Vail. We were in the truck for 12 hours only stopping to get gas. The truck's evap system did not work well so it took us 20-30 minutes to fill the truck with gas each time. The boys had been sick just prior to having to leave and still sick for the first few days of our trip. I had games planned that for the boys that they played, but the biggest life saver for the trip was the dvd player to watch movies. The second day in the car was worse for the boys. They were sick of being in the car and they just wanted to get out and play. We were still in Colorado the first time we stopped for gas that day. Adrian noticed the caps over the wheel bearings to the trailer had popped off and grease had flown out all over the rim of the wheels. He came to me when he noticed and said this was really really bad. I could hear the stress in his voice. He was imagining every possible scenario he'd have to do to fix it. He figured he and my dad had put too much grease in the wheel bearings and that had popped the caps off. We were able to find a NAPA auto parts and the nice guy who worked there told Adrian his caps were just loose and they popped off. We easily bought some new caps, pumped a little bit more grease in and went on our way. It was really NOT a big deal at all :) We stayed in Salina Kansas the second night after another 12 hours of being in the car. We left early the following morning. I wanted to meet up with my friend from Missouri that afternoon so we left the hotel at 6 am. We just woke up the boys in their pj's and strapped them in the car, accidentally leaving Levi's new shoes.
We met up with my friend Danielle in Columbia Missouri. She was my neighbor while I lived in Kirksville and I had not seen her in two years. We went to the park, got lunch together and walked around the mall for a bit.
After Columbia, we had a short drive to Kirksville, Missouri. Adrian graduated on Saturday May 16th and he was required to walk so we were forced to go back to Missouri for that. There was graduation events all week long. There were meetings that Adrian was required to attend so we had to be in Kirksville for a few days. Kirksville is such a small town that all the hotels in town were booked for graduation and we had to stay in Macon which in 30 minutes south of Kirksville. Levi was feeling awful and started to complain of a sore throat and stomach ache. Adrian stated that's classic symptoms and strep throat in kids so we had our Cedar pediatrician fax over an antibiotic to Kirksville. The pediatrician is a KCOM graduate and Adrian also rotated with him so we were lucky Levi did not have to go in anywhere to be seen, the pediatrician must trust Adrian's judgment.
Adrian's extended family from Georgia came to see his graduation. I'm glad they came because all of Adrian's classmates seemed to have loads of family there. I'm sure Adrian's parents and brother would have come if it were possible. My parents were able to watch it live online, unfortunately, Adrian's parents were not able to watch it online, though they tried.
We decided to head off to Nauvoo one afternoon since it was so close. Adrian's family is not LDS so he thought they might like to see a bit of church history. We arrived just as the last horse drawn wagon was leaving for a tour. Levi did not want to go on a wagon ride so Adrian stayed with him and the rest of us went. It was a tour I had never been on before so it was great for me. I hope Adrian's family got a good impression of the church. (This picture is not of the wagon we rode).
Here's Adrian's aunt Rosario and cousin Gaby by the Nauvoo temple. Our trip was cut short by the weather taking a stormy turn. I knew tornado conditions were forecasted for parts of the United States, so we were all a bit nervous with the dark clouds. We ate dinner and headed home.
The whole time we were in Missouri it was rainy weather. That made everything so green, greener than I remember it being when we lived in Missouri.
After graduation on Saturday we went to Thousand Hills State Park. We rented a boat and some fishing poles for an hour. Levi threw a huge about not wanting to get on the boat and hating the life vests. But, eventually we all boarded the boat and departed. Both the boys loved being on the boat. Levi enjoyed it so much he's been asking to go for a boat ride here in Florida. Malachi is not a fan of life vests. His kept creeping up and making it hard for him to move his head.
Here's Adrian's cousins Edgar and Gaby.
Saturday evening we drove to St. Louis and stayed the night there. We wanted to take the boys to the St. Louis zoo the next day since admission to that zoo is free. But, the boys were so grumpy from traveling and being off their routine that we did not want to extend the trip, even for a day of play. We just wanted to get home and start getting settled in. We drove all day Sunday and stayed the night in Monteagele, Tennessee. It was a very sketchy Super 8 motel. After we had settled in Adrian and I both had bad feeling, so Adrian went and got the shotgun from the trailer and slept with it by his side just in case something happened. Nothing did of course. Our sleeping arrangement for the whole trip was 2 queen beds in the hotel rooms. Adrian slept with one child and slept with the other. We figured they would fight too much if they were put together. We traded off who slept with who. Levi was not bad to sleep with. Malachi on the other hand moved a ton during the night. The first night he even rolled off the bed, poor guy. Malachi likes to be right next to you/half on top of you while you're sleeping. Nobody got good quality sleep the whole trip.
After Monteagle, Tennessee, we drove a couple hours to Atlanta, Georgia where Adrian's cousin Edgar lived. We stayed with him for a few nights to visit. Edgar and his wife Sandy have two little boys who are close to Levi and Malachi's age (Eli and Aden). The boys all played well together. Adrian played with Edgar's boys and it didn't take long for them to warm up. Here's a picture of Adrian and all the boys. They all just naturally sat down by Adrian.
We went kayaking at a lake by their house. Here's Adrian and Levi.
Here's Adrian and Malachi.
Levi received a remote controlled car (Killer Whale style) for his birthday. It's called a Morphibian because is floats and zooms around in the water as well as on land. All the boys loved this car. It stopped working after they submerged the controller and car in the water. They did not seem to care that it would not go on it's own. They pushed it around by hand on land and in the water. It started working again after everything dried out.
After a few nights in Atlanta, we desperately just wanted to get to our new home. We had wanted to stop in Savannah Georgia because I had heard it was so pretty there. We ended up just scrapping the trip and we drove all night long and arrived in Port St. Lucie at 8 am. We drove at night hoping the boys would sleep all night, and they did for the most part. When we arrived we did not have keys to our new house and had to wait for the real estate office to open. We were able to open the garage window and get into the house. Our first impression of the house was that it was dirty. It was a bit irritating since we spent days cleaning the house we just moved out of and now we had to clean this new one before we could unload boxes into it. There was a dead frog on the kitchen floor and a couple live lizard running around the house that I had to catch and release outside. Adrian stated he's never cleaning a rental house again after we leave because clearly no one else seems to do so like we do.
We were very blessed to get into this house. As we were looking for homes we had called the local bishop here to ask what neighborhoods were good and bad to live in. He put us in contact with a real estate agent in the ward who helped us secure the house. We were really discouraged at first. For weeks and weeks we looked at available rentals, but there was nothing that met our needs/wants. We wanted a 3 bedroom single family home preferably with a garage for $1,000 or less. We could find no homes like for the price we wanted. It seemed all 3 bedroom homes were at least $1200. We also needed a house that had a place to park our gigantic trailer. As time went on we started to settle for looking at 2 bedroom houses that were within our price range. Then one night a 3 bedroom house that was 1700 sqft with a single car garage popped up for $1,000. Adrian called the real estate agent late that night and she had us fill out the application and she would go check out the place in the morning. She went early the following morning and was quite surprised at the place. It was in good shape, large, had a place to park our trailer and was only $1,000, which she said the price was unbelievable. As she was leaving the property another real estate agent showed up to show the house to some other people. She immediately got in her car and drove as fast as she could to put in our application at the real estate office. Right after she did two other people came in behind her and put in an application for the same house. We were very blessed and got the house!! Another incredible thing about it is that they were willing to wait 2 weeks to start the lease for us, putting our move in date at May 15th. Everyone else was going to make us pay for the full month of May.
The day we arrived our bishop came over to meet us. Later, the Elder's Quorum President came and helped up move boxes in. We are amazed at the help we received before anyone had even met us.
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