Are we there yet?

We are finally somewhat settled in Yuma and I had a few minutes (that I should be using to unpack boxes) to download some pictures from our trip from San Antonio to Yuma.  Moving is such a painful process.  After 3 years I had forgotten how much I actually hate it.  Last time my mom watched the kids at her house while I packed up and moved and that made all the difference.  It was a long couple of days waiting for everything to be packed up and living in a sea of boxes.  Oh I hope we don't have to do this again in two years.

I will have to say that the kids were pretty amazing for such a long drive, especially Brooklyn.  She was a trooper who got back in her carseat without a fuss every time we stopped.  We spent the first night in San Antonio in a hotel with a plan to leave at 3am so we could get 4 hours down the road before the kids woke up.  My mom came with me since Abe still had to work for a few more days and then outprocess.  Of course I had forgotten how hard it is to sleep in a hotel room with the kids and how hard it is to fall asleep with the stress of moving on your mind.  I think I was awake most of the night and felt like a zombie the next day. But it did work out perfectly that we could make it until about 7am without stopping and then eat breakfast when everyone woke up.  So by 1pm we had done our 8 hours of driving for the day and we stopped in El Paso at our hotel.  The kids loved the huge slide at the hotel and had a blast until tragedy struck and Ethan ripped off his toenail.  Poor kid just managed to hit a paver by the pool at just the wrong angle.  Because of all the blood I couldn't tell if he had just cut it or what and the wonderful (completely helpless) lifeguard assured me that the toenail was still there and just put a bandaid on it without washing it off or anything.  It looked like it hurt like crazy and continued to hurt for a long time.

So the next night we once again woke up before 3am and got an early start on the drive and my super travelers were just as good in the car.  I can be a little bit of a slave driver when it comes to wanting to get somewhere but we all managed to survive and make it to our house in Yuma.  I had only seen pictures of the house so it was so nice to know that we had a house and that it was just as nice as the pictures showed.  Once I was confident that we had a place to live we headed out and went to spend the week in Phoenix while waiting for our stuff to arrive.

We had a great condo up in Scottsdale for the week so we could find more things to do rather than hanging out in Yuma.  The kids loved playing chess and checkers on this huge board but it was so hot that we could only play early in the morning or after the sun went behind the hotel. We spent many hours in the pool, playing mini golf and enjoying the last few days of shopping before we get to Yuma where there isn't much.  

Brooklyn had a blast crawling and walking around the condo.  But we had a lot of bonks as she tries to learn how to cruise and walk through the place.  She always manages to fall on the hardest surfaces.

One day we spent driving to the Mesa Temple.  I can't believe that Phoenix will have 3 temples operating soon.  We walked around the grounds and spent some time in the visitor center.  San Antonio has a small temple so there is no visitor center so the kids had not been to one in a long time.

Poor Brooklyn is always hot and sweaty in this weather.  It will be nice when we can turn her carseat around and she can get cooler in the car.

On our way back from the temple we ran across a Bass Pro Shop and once they found out that my mom had never been to one they knew we had to stop and show her around.  The kids got lucky that they were having some kind of "summer camp" activities and had all sorts of games to play.  They loved shooting a real gun (A bb gun), riding the carousel, and all sorts of other games.  I don't know if we convinced mom that Bass Pro Shop was awesome but the kids had a blast. 

It seems like it has been a couple of years since we have seen fireworks for some reason so the big kids and I went to try and find some place to see them in the Valley.  Lucky for us and the flat terrain it wasn't too hard to find them.  From where we were standing we could see 3 shows going on at the same time.  Taylor was so enthusiastic and would reach up to them each time a big one lit up the sky.  I love fireworks and it was fun to share them with the kids.  It would have been better if Abe had been with us but maybe next year.

We spent one afternoon at the children's museum in Phoenix and the kids had a blast.  I think they spent the most time in the grocery store where they gave themselves very important jobs.  They are both so bossy sometimes but they both were working very hard to make sure things were sorted and put back on the shelves.  They were so serious as they discussed the chaos that would happen if they didn't do there jobs and there was no food for people to eat.

Brooklyn found some huge spoons in the restaurant that she loved carrying around.  She can be exhausting as she wants you to hold her hand while she walks around all the time.  

Taylor is a true salesperson.  She stood "selling" ice cream cones even when she didn't have any customers. She was so persistent. She and Ethan are always asking to start a lemonade stand in the neighborhood so this was right up their alley. 

We had really thought, based on conversations with the moving company, that our stuff would probably arrive during the week while we were in Phoenix but I was happy that it didn't turn out that way so I didn't have to make an extra trip from Phoenix to Yuma but by Saturday we were all ready to get our stuff and be settled.  Abe was scheduled to fly into Phoenix on Saturday and we would pick him up and head to Yuma and our stuff was supposed to get there on Sunday or Monday.  So we camped out in the house with the few supplies we had and patiently waited for a call that our stuff was coming.  By "few supplies" I mean that all three adults were taking turns in the 1 camping chair that we had.  But we were sure it would only be for a day since the last day they could deliver it was Monday, or so I thought.  On Monday morning I called the moving company representative and she casually said that no they would not be making the deadline with our stuff and gave no explanation.  I couldn't believe that was all the information we got.  So with no furniture and nothing to do we hung out a lot.  Here are the kids at the hotel watching tv.

Brooklyn loved the beach chairs that someone from church let us borrow so we didn't have to share the one chair.  She thought she was such a big girl!

We had plenty of room to play with the boxes that the patio furniture came in.

And the most fun we all had was in the pool.  We have gotten spoiled by quick nighttime swims after Brooklyn is in bed and Ethan and Taylor are getting to be even better swimmers than they were.  Brooklyn isn't a huge fan of the water because "Miss Independence" can't do it all herself but she still joins in.

Over the next several days there were stories about the truck breaking down, and the driver having no cell phone reception but no one would say where the stuff actually was or when we would get it.  All this time my perfect plan of having my mom and Abe there to help me as we unloaded and unpacked the house were dwindling.  Both my mom and Abe had flights out of Yuma on Friday and it was starting to look like the stuff wouldn't come before then.  The company told me once that they were in El Paso but then started saying it would take 3 days to get to us from El Paso.  My blood pressure was through the roof as I tried to find out when I would get my stuff and get some straight answers from someone.  Finally on Friday the stuff arrived and thankfully my mom was willing to buy a new ticket to stay a few extra days.  I don't know what I would have done if I had 3 kids by myself for the unloading and unpacking of the house.  

I came in to take a shower at the end of the move in day and this was my bathroom.  This is how to whole house looked.  The movers were supposed to do the unpacking but they won't put stuff away so if you tell them to unpack it then it will be put on the floor until you put it away.  So knowing that I was on my own to put stuff away I only had them unpack the kitchen.  And I really think the packers were trying to be awful with how they labeled boxes because it was impossible to determine what was in a box to decide if you wanted it unpacked.  Like my sheets that I looked for for a week were in a box in the garage labeled "garage tools".  I was going to wait and have Abe deal with those boxes when he gets here in September but I couldn't since there was important stuff potentially in those boxes.  

 It was a happy day when I could finally clear enough space to park the car back in the garage.  Brooklyn cries a lot less when she gets in the car when it isn't 120 degrees in her seat.

Finally the house is starting to feel like home and we are starting to feel settled.  I think we are really going to like it here once we get Abe here and life settles down.  We are loving the gorgeous sunsets and all the new places to explore.  But we just can't wait for it to cool down some so we can spend more time outside.  San Antonio was hot but it would at least give you a couple of hours in the morning when we could go to the park but here the minute the sun comes over the mountains at 6am it is hot.  And by midday it truly feels like you opened the oven door when you walk outside.  It is funny how upper 90's seems cool now and we go for walks at 105 degrees.  I wasn't thinking when I suggested an after dinner bike ride on a rough day only to realize after the fact that it was 111 degrees still.  We can't wait for fall and winter so we can enjoy all the fun things that Yuma has to offer.