After my Mom arrived on Sunday to help with the move and the baby, I allowed myself a few days to rest and recover. Pretty soon though I was having to pack and get ready to move whether I was ready to or not. My mom took this picture of me when I was supposed to be packing but I fell asleep on the job.
My mom was a huge help with packing and everything else and we couldn't have done it without her. For our posterity I will give some background. We were planning to move to Lehi and Garrett was going to be working as general counsel for his Dad's development company. The problem was that his company was in the middle of a lawsuit that has been going on for 10 years and so we were having a hard time coordinating with all parties involved about when the job was going to start. But we had to get our kids in school and settled since school had already started in UT and Spokane and they were just running around like it was still summer. So we decided to head out 12 days after Dallas was born so that way he and I could go to our 2 weeks doctors appointments a couple of days early and get those out of the way before leaving the state.
Well the day of the big move came and with help from amazing friends and neighbors, my mom and I had managed to get almost all the cleaning done. The men showed up around 6pm to help with the move and if you know my husband, you know that he hates being a burden on people and he organizes everything he can before people actually arrive to help load the truck. So the whole third garage was all packed and organized and ready to load. However, about half way through the process it became clear that we were not going to have enough room for all of our junk in the largest size budget truck we had rented. So basically they spent hours trying to rearrange and make it all fit but it was no use. It seriously took almost 5 hours. It was so discouraging and we felt so bad about how long people had been there helping us. Finally I told Garrett that we were just going to have to go get a trailer to pull behind the truck to fit the extra things that wouldn't fit and we sent everyone home. That was a horrible night because along with the exhaustion and stress, I had to say goodbye to my best friends throughout the day and by the end I just started bawling. When everyone was gone I just laid in my bed(mattress on the floor) and cried.
The next morning I had to run to doctors appointments while Garrett figured out the trailer and got that all packed up. Then we came home and cleaned the final things and here(picture above) we are all ready to go in front of our car. At this point we still had not found a rental house either and so we basically were driving to nowhere. This honestly was the biggest trial of our faith to date. We had felt for almost a year now that we needed to move to Utah and we felt like we would know what to do by the time Dallas was born but things were still really vague. We finally had to just come up with a plan and leap with faith into the darkness. The plan was to put our things in storage in Lehi until we could find a place.
I forgot to mention that during Dallas' 2 week appointment the doctor asked me if he had had some clavical(collar bone) issues during the birth. I said no, feeling a bit alarmed. She then told me that he had fractured his collar bone during the birth and she had me feel this big ball of bone on his collar bone. I was a bit panicked but she explained that it was healing correctly and that it should be fine. Awesome! So on top of everything else, I had to strap my 12 day old baby with the broken collar bone in his car seat for 2 days. So we finally loaded up and headed out with a giant budget truck that was pulling a tiny U-haul trailer. We looked like a circus. Oh and this is an important detail. When Garrett went to Budget to get a trailer, they said you aren't allowed to pull a smaller trailer behind a large truck which is ridiculous really because the let you pull car trailers behind them all the time. But anyway, they said no, so he went over to U-haul and they didn't care so he rented from them. The only problem was that he had to strip the wires and cut things and rearrange so that the back trailer would be hooked up to the lights on the truck.
It's a good thing that Dallas is a complete angel baby because this trip would have been so much worse if he was screaming the whole time. We didn't leave Spokane until about 2pm after all the trailer debacle, but we got on the road and everything was going fine. We stopped for dinner somewhere in Montana and then loaded back up and got back on the freeway. My mom and I were driving in the van with Dallas and Carter at this point. Shortly after we got on the freeway we saw Garrett pulled over to the side with his hazards flashing. I slowed down a little ways down the freeway and he called to tell me the truck had stopped working and he thought one of the kids had kicked something but wasn't sure. It was pitch black at this point so we just all started taking turns saying prayers that it would start again. Nothing. The truck engine just kept turning over and over again. Finally, after about 10 minutes Garrett got out and noticed black oil all down the side of his door and the truck. He didn't know anything about giant trucks but he figured that wasn't a good sign so he told me to go back into the town we had just passed and get a hotel and then come back and get Rylynn and Beckett from the truck while he called the Budget people. I was so panicked that they were going to come out and yell at us and blame us for the truck breaking because we had attached a trailer without their permission but we had no choice.
So my mom and I drove back into town and found a tiny motel and by this point I was just too exhausted and emotional to go in. So my mom went in and just started crying and telling the front desk lady our whole sad story. She was so sweet and felt so bad for us and gave us half off the rooms and even gave us her own lock for the trailer because we thought we were going to have to leave the truck and trailer on the side of the road all night long and we only had a lock for the truck door. My mom got me and the boys settled and then went back to get Rylynn and Beckett from the truck. Meanwhile Garrett got ahold of Budget and they said they would be there sometime in the next couple of hours. By this point it was already past 10pm.
My mom went and got the other kids and we all went to sleep. Garrett told us he would call or text when they got there and then my Mom was going to go back out there and pick him up. Finally the guy showed up around midnight and was able to put a temporary hose on the truck which made it possible to drive the truck into Butte where it would be able to get fixed the next day. Since Garrett had to drive it all the way to Butte which was about 15 miles away he texted us to let us know that he was just going to sleep in the truck. Of course the repair man wouldn't let him sleep in the truck in their garage yard so he dropped him off at a hotel which meant we had to pay for a third hotel for the night! Garrett checked in around 2:30am and the front desk person told him that if he waited until 3am he would be able to have the room all the next day and night so he wouldn't have to check out at 10am. So he had to wait up in the lobby for a half an hour before he could even check into his room.
The next morning we got up and smooshed all the kids into our packed van and drove up to Butte to get Garrett. The repair guy said he would give Garrett a call when it was ready but he said they were waiting on a part from Missoula and that it would be arriving sometime during the afternoon.
Since we had plenty of time to kill, we went out to breakfast at IHOP and then took the kids to run around at a local park. While the kids were playing, Garrett got a call from his Dad. He had been trying to get ahold of him all week to finalize details but hadn't ever been able to get ahold of him so this was an important call. I was feeding the baby in the van so when I saw Garrett get off the phone and hang his head as he walked toward me I didn't have a good feeling. He came over to tell me that his Dad had talked to the investing partners and that they were uncomfortable hiring a new employee since the city had just appealed again. So we were stuck in Montana with a broken down moving truck with all of our earthly possessions and a brand new baby and no job.
Honestly it was kind of a relief. I know that sounds insane but we had been praying so hard for some guidance and direction and we honestly felt like the truck breaking down was an intervention to help us redirect our path. We instantly felt like we should go to St. George and stay in my parent's house and secretly that was what we had tried to make work for months. We knew that if there was any way for us to stay at their house while they were on their mission and pay off debt, that would be the best thing for our family. Luckily at that point, we were left with no other option so it made the decision really easy. So with that decision made, we called my dad and asked him to start looking for a storage unit in St. George for us and we headed back to the hotel to wait for our truck. The adults were all completely exhausted so basically we turned on a show for the kids and zonked out (picture above). I know, we are really responsible:)
Just before 5pm Garrett still had not heard from the repair place so he called them and the guy said the truck was ready to go. So we all packed up quickly since the place was closing at 5 and ran over to get the truck. Luckily, nothing had come up about the trailer so we didn't have to pay anything for the repairs. We had to rearrange some things to make everyone fit again so Garrett had to open the trailer to shift things around. Once everyone was settled again we started out on our way. I was driving behind Garrett and the plan was to go to the next exit and then grab some food at Arby's and be on our way. So I started turning to get on the ramp and in my rearview mirror I saw that Garrett just passed the ramp and kept going. I was so annoyed and wondered what he was doing. So I called him on the phone and he then proceeded to tell me that someone had pulled up next to him to tell him that his trailer was open in the back and stuff was falling out all over the street!!!!
This nice woman told him to pull over up ahead and that she would go back and get his stuff and bring it to him. Well a few minutes later she came back and said that when she got back there all the stuff was already gone!!! He was telling me this on the phone when suddenly a truck pulled up with all our stuff in the back. It turned out that some other person had seen what had happened and pulled over and picked it up and then got on the freeway to see if they could find Garrett thinking that he had just continued onto the freeway. Then he circled back and somehow miraculously found him. My mom's suitcase had fallen out along with Garrett's, my crystal goblets, and our vacuum cleaner and a few other random things. They person said there were some socks and other little things that he wasn't able to get but that none of it had gotten run over. Garrett had been driving pretty slowly so nothing looked like it was damaged but I didn't have high hopes for my goblets. So he repacked up the trailer and made sure it was all locked up and closed and met us at Arby's. We made it to Pocatello that night with no more problems and checked into yet another hotel for the night.
The rest of the pics on this post are random and from right before we moved because really who is going to complain about more pics of a new beautiful baby?:) Oh and those are grapes in Beckett's mouth. He is so crazy and my mom took this picture because she thought he looked so funny.
Day 3 of the terrible trip started out normally. We made it into Utah that morning and planned to be down in Provo around 1 or 2pm so we could see my brother and his family and my sister Abby and her husband before we headed on down to St. George that night. Everything was fine until we got to Layton and another lady pulled up next to Garrett on the freeway and yelled to him that his back tire on the trailer was smoking. So he called us and told us to pull off so we could check it out. We pulled into a parking lot and could tell that there was something wrong with the axle on the trailer and that the tire circle thing was grinding against the axle and causing it to smoke. It was really hot so we couldn't touch it. Garrett looked up a U-haul place on his phone and luckily it was really close to where we were.
We parked on the side of the road (because the giant truck wouldn't fit in the U-haul parking lot) while Garrett ran in to talk to the people. While he was walking in I started telling my mom about Elder Holland's talk, "An High Priest of Good Things to Come" and about the story of the shoulder slumped young man in the story and how Elder Holland says, "Don't you give up, don't quit!" I told her that seeing my husband with so many burdens on his shoulders walking into that store reminded me of that talk. It made me cry just watching him walk in there.
He came out to tell us that the guy had been pretty rude and had seen the truck parked out front and made a huge deal about the fact that he had hooked up a U-haul to a Budget truck and how that wasn't allowed and places had been shut down for doing that before. Lame! Then he told him that the actual repair place was back down the road where we had just come from and that he had to take it back there to get fixed. So I put my car in gear to begin driving back to the repair place and all of a sudden my mom yells, "we have a flat tire!" I could tell instantly that she was right but I didn't want to believe it. I just kept saying, "no we don't, no we don't!!!" But I knew we had to stop. Meanwhile Garrett hadn't even been able to turn around yet. I got out of the car and looked at the tires and sure enough my front left tire rim was on the ground. My tire was completely blown. At this point I called Garrett and told him and I was just laughing because I couldn't believe how insane our lives were. Seriously! We were parked on the side of the road for 10 minutes and somehow during that time my tire had just exploded without me knowing?!!! So I told Garrett to just take the trailer and get that figured out and that we would just wait for him and that we would talk about the car tire later.
Our van was completely stacked to the roof in the back and the two pilot seats had Dallas and Rylynn in them. So we just sat there with our hazards on and really just planned on waiting there for as long as it took Garrett to figure out the trailer. However, it started taking a long time and Rylynn started to get impatient. Then suddenly out of nowhere, a man pulled right up to our car and jumped out and asked if he could help us. I told him the situation and he said he would be happy to just change our tire for us and help us get to Garrett. The best part was that he had his daughter who had just turned 8 with him. Rylynn was so excited and hopped right out of the car and started talking with this girl and they instantly became best friends. That's kind of one of Rylynn's talents. The cutest part was that she asked the girl how old she was and the girl said, "I'm eight, I just got baptized!" Rylynn freaked out and said excitedly, "you're a member of the church?!" She was not used to meeting perfect strangers who were members of the church. Clearly, she had not grown up in UT:)
Meanwhile, I was trying to find the spare and thought it was in the back so I had literally unloaded our stuff all along the side of the road and then I realized that in fact the spare was in the front of the van!! This awesome guy helped me put all our stuff back and then get the spare out of the floor in the front. Then he changed our tire and looked up a tire shop on his phone and put our broken tire in his truck and told us to follow him. He was so sweet and it was a total answer to prayers that he showed up when he did and with an eight year old little daughter for Rylynn to play with.
I called Garrett to tell him and he said the trailer was pretty close to being done so we just headed to the tire shop and he met us there. The guy took the tire into the store and asked them to fix it asap so we could get on the road and the people said they could. Then I thanked him a million times and he was on his way. The tire people discovered a 2 inch slice in the side of my tire which I still have no clue how on earth that could have happened so they said I needed to buy a new tire. I told them our story and that my kids were dying to get to their cousins house and he promised me he would do it in ten minutes. He was awesome and we literally drove away ten minutes later with a new tire.
Garrett told us that the guy at the U-haul place was awesome and that the grumpy guy at the first place had called him to complain about our trailer being hooked up to our Budget truck and to watch out for us and the guy said,"I don't care what he's hauling, I'm going to help him out and get him on his way!" Another answer to prayers so we wouldn't get in trouble and charged for breaking the trailer. Unfortunately the trailer had fallen of it's bearings so it had to be completely swapped out so this nice man and his son helped Garrett unload the entire trailer and reload it all into a new one. Then as he was getting ready to take off Garrett had to explain to the guy about how he had jimmy-rigged the wires to work. The guy made it so we didn't even have to change the wires and then he went into his store and brought out a new connector and gave it to Garrett so that when he returned the trailer he could attache the new wire so he wouldn't get in any trouble. Seriously, he was such a nice man!
After our huge detours it was after 3pm and we were still only in Layton! We called to let Jordan and Abby know that we would be to Provo around 4pm. The rest of the trip down was thankfully uneventful and when we arrived at Jordan's my kids jumped out and were so excited to see their cousins. We, meaning the adults, were all at our wits ends so we decided that we would just stay the night and drive down to Saint George the next day. It was a great relief to just sit on a couch and be with people I loved and eat food and not have to pay for any of it.
So after staying the night and playing with cousin all morning we got back in the car and started out for St. George. The scariest part for me was that we had left my Mom in Provo so she could go up to our cabin with Abby so I was on my own with my baby in the car. He had kind of a rough day and I had to pull over a few times and feed him and make sure he was happy but all in all it was pretty uneventful. We had to get down to St. George in time for the elders quorum in my parent's ward to help unload our truck into the storage unit. So we basically pulled into town and then Garrett had to immediately go and unpack all of our junk for hours. The kids immediately jumped in the pool and I got to sit on the swing (picture below) with my new baby and watch my kids swim. It was one of the most stressful things we have done in our lives but when we got there and settled in we really felt like it was where we were supposed to be.
We didn't have a job or know how we were going to get one but we were left with a lot of hope and a feeling of peace. And sometimes that's all you can ask for. The funny thing is that along the drive I kept thinking why is this so stinking hard and my family and friends were thinking we were cursed or something. In fact when our tire blew Rylynn said in a frustrated voice from the back seat, "this is just like JOB!" But even though our lives have been really hard and we've had a lot of trials this year, we have also seen a lot of miracles along the way. I know the Lord has never abandoned us and that all of these things have been and will be for our good.
9 comments:
Oh, my friend how I miss you! I just sat and read this post and laughed and cried. Seriously, when I got to the point about you watching Garrett go into the store with all of the burdens on his shoulders, and then again when the guy pulled up to help you with your tire, I had tears rolling down my cheeks! I read it out loud to Todd and his comment was that it sounds like something out of a National Lampoons movie! I know that I've teased you that all of these trials were a sign that you weren't supposed to leave Spokane, but in all honesty I think Satan works against us his hardest when we're doing what's right. I love you and your family and know that everything is going to be wonderful for you at the end of all of this. And that someday you're going to receive inspiration that you're supposed to move back here. Hopefully with a less eventful move! :)
I'd only heard a third of this!! It's unbelievably horrible luck! I'm glad you're through it. So sorry!
holy cow!!! that is crazy. glad you made it to st. george! i can't believe all that happened to you. i think i would have just given up and decided to live in whatever city we were broken down in :)
I cried the whole time I was reading this, Rachel. I know I'm overly emotional right now, but I just can't imagine how one family could endure that trip. You are an amazing woman.
Every time I got a text from you I would say to Aric "you are not going to believe this..." and tell him what had happened. Even though our trials are very different they take us to the same place and having you to talk to has been a great blessing. I love you guys and can't wait to be reunited next month...love the pictures by the way!
Oh my WORD!!!!!! This is the craziest and worst moving story EVER!! We went through something similar (the new baby, no job, no money, no plan part) when our second was born and the Lord definitely made more of our life than we could have on our own. You guys have had your share of trials, so hopefully you'll be good now for a looooong time! Your baby is beautiful! I hope things get better for you. xoxoxox
Seriously, I don't even know what to say! That's awful, Rach! I'm glad you're there safely now. I hope you'll be in town for Thanksgiving? We're going to Grandmas and I'd love to see you and meet your sweet baby.
Oh my gosh, Rachel. That's the most insane moving story ever. I feel so bad that you had to go through so much craziness, especially right after having a baby. But it was also cool to see all the blessings along the way. Poor Garrett! I bet he was beyond exhausted at the end of it. We moved 10 days after I had Halle, and I thought that was a nightmare, but your story definitely tops it. I hope things are going well for you now in St. George. At least you're nice and warm. :)
I am so glad you documented this entire story.. it is insane! I got teary eyed reading through it but you guys always move forward with faith and it works out for the best!
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