journal 3

We moved! After 6 years away we can call Utah (specifically Salt Lake County) home again. What a wild ride.

I was thinking about some other bloggers who've recently moved or are planning to in the near future, and started wondering what made them decide to do it? Of course, it's none of my business, I just get curious. I don't know why other families move to different places or why they end up living in the same city or house forever. But! I do have the inside scoop on my family and our various moves over the last decade.

(Dood, I've had my own little family for over a decade! Weird!)

Honestly, leaving Flagstaff to come back to Salt Lake was HARD. Not that life in Flag was a cake walk, because it wasn't, let me tell you. Flagstaff is a really hard place to live, it's expensive, it's full of things that make my allergies feel like I'm dying, it's isolated - so isolated. Also, our house was basically made of popsicle sticks and falling apart, Mr. Boss's job wasn't a good long-term choice for us financially, not to mention all the rotten car luck we had and blah-blah-blah... Plus, the nearest Costco was 2 hours away. (#priorities)

BUT! There was also so much good! First off, the people there are freaking ah-mazing. The community there, seriously. (💕) Some of the best, most selfless people I've ever met live in Flag. There is so much I could say about all of the wonderful people who live there, but it would make this already long post even longer. And I'd probably start to cry, so.

Other good things about Flag: it was completely gorgeous (esp. when it wasn't trying to kill me... #allergiessuck). We were surrounded by nature, and our view of the stars at night was unreal. I mean, I'd never seen the little dipper until we lived there, I'd never been able to spot it before, not even when I'd gone camping. Plus, I could watch meteor showers and get pictures of them without having to step one foot out my door. And, even though it wasn't really a great long-term fit, Mr. Boss really, really loved his job. And he loved that elk would walk through and poop right in our back "yard". Not because they were pooping, but because they were so close. And then there was that time we saw a coyote grab a prairie dog right from its burrow, Wild America style.

To be honest, I spent a lot of our time there complaining. I did try to appreciate it, but in the moment it wasn't really an easy thing to do. I'm ashamed to say I spent most of our time there wishing and praying to leave. Not that I wanted to leave all the great things behind, I only wanted to get away from the sucky parts. It was so conflicting, I wanted to get away and stay there forever.

Pit stop in Hatch, Utah.

So, yes. I prayed, a lot, that we could leave. But it didn't happen, didn't happen, didn't happen, and then it did. Suddenly I found myself feeling like "WAIT, I'm not done yet!" But it was too late. Then more conflicting feelings, because, GUYS, I was stoked! But also devastated. I kept asking, "can't I just pack my people into these boxes and take them with?? PLEAAASE??" I wanted to leave but also didn't.

I've dreamed of coming back to Salt Lake a lot over the past 6 years, but I've also been kind of afraid of it. Living outside of Utah was hard, different, weird, amazing, eye-opening, enlightening, life changing, incredible... What if I'm too different to live in Utah again, what if living away changed me too much and I don't fit anymore? Maybe it's silly to think that way, but there ya go.

I am mad at myself that it took us moving for me to realize how much I'd taken the amazing experience of living in Flagstaff for granted. It makes me want to go back and smack myself and tell myself to enjoy the heck out of our time there because it would be so short. But my time machine is broken. I guess all I can do going forward is try my hardest to make the most of our new home, neighborhood, ward, and state. (I mean, I grew up around here, so it's not really new to me but, hopefully, you catch my drift, and by you I mean me. You listening, Cris?!) 

So, here we go. Goodbye, Flagstaff. Thank you for the beauty, for the amazing people, for the memories we will treasure forever. (Just not the memories of how bad my allergies got. 😉)

And hello, again, Salt Lake, with your majestic mountains full of history and memories. It's good to be back.

a million things.

For starters, we moved to Arizona. Over two months ago! Surprise!

But! Before we left Colorado, we had a bunch of last hoorah-type adventures. I'm hoping to tell you about them sometime. 

And then! We've had a pretty wild time since we've been in AZ, so there's that stuff to talk about. 

Also! That cutie pie cuddling up to me will be one next month! And I've hardly even talked about him on here. What?!

Most of all? Hi! I'm still here, just about drowning under my million things, but I thought it was about time I popped in for a quick hello.

Okay, bye.

the end.

I keep trying to figure out how to word this post, keep feeling like I need to give some long-winded, poignant explanation, but the truth is: I don't have to explain myself. I don't have to write this post at all.
But, I want to make it known that I will not be posting any more. I'm quitting the blog. My reasons are few and many and all my own.
I don't know if I'm done forever or just for a while, I just know that, for right now, I need to be done.
Thanks for reading,
Crissy

missing

Catching up, this was Sunday's challenge: what do you miss?

I miss the last house we lived in before moving to Colorado. I miss the wide open living room and kitchen, I miss the yard and how well our landlord kept it looking.I miss the great big tree in the front yard, even though it made us a bit nervous any time it got very stormy. I miss the great big peony bushes that our next-door neighbor kept along the border of our two yards.

I miss walking around that neighborhood, and the veiw of the mountains from our street. I miss how quiet and peaceful that neighborhood was.
I miss my family. I miss being able to hang out with my sisters. I miss living within walking distance to my moms (We're going back about 6 years there.) I miss the neighborhood I grew up in, even though I didn't appreciate it as much at the time – always wishing for something better when I already had something pretty great. I miss the building I grew up going to church in, I miss the stain glass window at the back of the chapel.

I miss my high school art class, I miss having access to so many materials and time where I could just listen to music and make beautiful messes.

I miss California, and hope to go back for a visit soon.

I miss all of those things, and sometimes that feeling of missing hurts. But all I have to do is look around myself now, at my messy living room and giggling children, at my less-than-ideal neighborhood and the great view of the sunset that I get from my front porch... As I look around at each imperfectly perfect part of my life right now, I'm able to forget the pain of missing a little bit. And I know that, even with the imperfections of this time in my life, in a year or two down the road, when things have changed as they do with time, I will find that I miss this. And that is why I take a million + 1 pictures every day.

farewell.

It happened last night. I had just finished cleaning the dishes and was working on dinner. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but suddenly our pitcher was toppling over and decided to take these two special glasses with it. The plastic pitcher survived, the glasses...well, you can see how they fared:We had them for 5 years, 5 months and 5 days (I know because we got them on our wedding day.) Truthfully, I'm surprised they lasted so long, especially given my track record with every other glass we've owned. (Just call me butterfingers.) Now all I have to remember them by is a cut on my ring finger (how fitting?) which I received as I tried to catch them. Silly me.

walking away

And just like that, I deactivated my Facebook account. It's a trial thing...we'll see how I feel about it in a month.
Maybe, with that distraction gone, I'll become more productive in my daily life! Maybe I'll even blog more! (Sorry I have neglected you..)

Now? It's bed time.
Goodnight!

Utah to Colorado: the drive

Memorial day was a long day for us. It is not easy to be stuck in a car, especially when you are little. Happily, the children slept for a good chunk of the drive.
And now, without further ado, a condensed re-cap of our drive from Utah to Colorado:
1. On our way!
2. They are tired, maybe a little confused, but also excited!
3. Last look at the valley and...
4. Into the canyon we go.5. Cold...
6. Snowy...
7. Awesome rock formations...
8. And they fell asleep. (Yay!)He sleeps funny.9. Peek-a-boo!
10. Train.
11. Still stormy...
12. Finally a break, and some blue sky!Hot chocolate, because I was freezing.13. "Wy-boring" as Mr. Boss refers to it.
14. Some historical marker..
15. Continental Divide Road.
(This is where I started my turn driving,
which meant I didn't get a picture when we crossed the actual divide.)
16. Leaving Laramie.
(We stopped for lunch and leg stretching in Laramie,
but I'm awesome and didn't get any pictures of that! Whoops...)17. Road trips are...fun...?
18. Cool rock formations.
19. Tree growing out of a rock.
20. Buford, WY, pop. 1 (no joke.)Abe Lincoln's head...?21. We saw so many windmills.
22. Getting closer...
23. Cool, grumpy clouds.
24. The storm we missed (thank goodness!)25. Sorry I gave this picture twice...but I'm too tired to fix it.
26. The Rockies!
27. Denver: 83 miles
28. Beautiful.29. Passed out again.
30. But not this guy.
(He started to get pretty grumpy around this point.
Being in a car all day is not easy for a small and very active baby.)
31. Denver: 47 miles
32. Another shot of the Rockies.33. Blue Skies..
34. Hey! Is that the city?!
35. It is the city!
36. Hello, Denver!Giant seahorse bush..37. Downtown!
38. Hey, C, we're in Colorado!
(He had just woken up, and was quite happy to have made it.)
39. Amusement park in the city.
40. And Bronco Stadium.
So, I thought the Boss was being silly when he found a way to move our things and still drive out in the van with the family (thus limiting the driving I did.) But it turns out that I'm really glad he was there with me. I only drove a for a short time and it was scary! Wyoming is so windy, and I was pretty much white knuckled until I stopped the car at a park in Laramie.

It took us about 10 hours to get here, but we made it safe and sound. I have been busy, busy trying to get things put away, but I figured it was about time to start catching up on my posting, and to share some of the adventures we've had since we got here, so look forward to those!

little boy blue

He's in the great, big, empty room. Fast asleep.

colorado bound

This is for anyone who hasn't heard, or anyone who has heard, but wants more details.

First, a little back story, I think...

Back in August, Mr. Boss lost his job. He'd been there for about 3 years, and suddenly he wasn't. It was a frustrating time. He went about a month where he was searching for work. Finally he got a part time job at a car dealership and, a couple of weeks later, he found a second part time job at a little fast-food-ish restaurant specializing in chicken wings.I have had a hard time as he's been working these two jobs, because he has been gone so much. On the days that he worked both jobs, he would leave by quarter to 7, come home between 2:15-2:30, then leave at quarter to 4, returning home between 10:15-10:45ish. It has been difficult, but we have been making it.Of course, this isn't something that we wanted to be doing long-term. Mr. Boss has been looking for a full-time job, but the job market is pretty ridiculous. He felt that he needed to do something to better our situation. He needed to find some marketable skill, because being a hard worker isn't always enough. Oh, and it had to be something he would enjoy. (Read: working with his hands, bonus if it's something artistic.)This is when we began to seriously consider an option that some of his brothers have talked about, but none have been in the position to do... There is a school in Colorado that teaches a skill that Mr. Boss is interested in learning, and that opens the door for a few career options. The skill he will be learning? Gunsmithing.
Z is excited! So, after seriously considering this option and praying (and praying and praying) about it, we decided to go for it. Mr. Boss applied to and was accepted at the school. Which means we are relocating our family to Colorado! The catch? He doesn't actually start school until next year. But we've decided to move out there now, a year early, so that we have a chance to get settled and acclimated. Neither of us have ever lived in another state, so this is exciting and nerve-wracking, and kind-of, very scary.
I love Z's face in this one! At this point, most of our house is packed up in boxes. I had some wonderful friends from high school who came by yesterday, and another group of friends from church who came by today, to help me pack and clean. So, huge thanks to those ladies! (...If any of them are reading this...)
Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you!!! Can I just say, it is so, so, so very difficult to find a place in another state when you don't have the luxury of driving out and looking for one. For about 3 months I have been sifting through ads on craigslist, but we were having zero luck. It is not easy to have so many failures when you feel so very strongly that you are supposed to do something. But we didn't give up. I looked at new postings everyday, and I can't even tell you how many places we called on. At least two of them seemed fishy after getting a hold of the contact in the ad. It was discouraging, to say the least.Then the idea came to me, to look up a bishop in the area we were hoping to live in, give him a call, and ask if he knew of anything in his area or anybody who could help us find something. The first bishop I contacted gave some helpful information, but it didn't get us anything. I waited a bit to contact another. The second bishop gave us a few names and numbers, he even had a guy call us! The conversation that followed seemed to be very promising, but ended out being another dead end.A few days later, I tried the other two numbers we'd gotten. The first one went to a machine, so I tried the second. A woman picked up the other line, Brittney had a bright, bubbly, friendly voice, which made everything she said that much more painful to hear. She told me everything I didn't want to hear. "Denver is a hard place to rent right now, places are being scooped up as soon as they're made available." "You're going to be hard pressed to find what you're looking for, in your price range, in a decent area." "The best thing for you to do is to come out here, drive around for a day or two, and see if you can find something that way." And on, and on, and on. And then, to top it off, she told me (a native Utahn) that she hated Utah, because everyone here is fake and plastic, and out in Denver everyone is "real". Oh boy. I won't lie, I looked forward to never speaking with her again.And then, one day at the store, my phone rang. It was Brittney. I answered, and she told me something that changed our lives. She said she'd just been talking with a lady who was renting a place, it was what we wanted, for the price we wanted, and it's right across the street from a park. She gave me the woman's name and number, and suggested we call immediately. Then she apologized. "When she told me what she was renting it for, I was shocked! I told her she should be getting at least $500 more for it, so you should hurry and call, and hopefully she hasn't just raised the rent!" Wow, thanks, Brittney. I called Mr. Boss as soon as I was done speaking with Brittney, and told him about our conversation. I gave him the number, and he called, but got the voice mail. We figured that was it.

The following Monday, Mr. Boss decided to call a few places I had told him about. I reminded him to call the woman that Brittney told us about again. He did. This time? He got through. The funny thing? This woman claimed she had no idea who Brittney was! Weird!Anyway, it sounded good, so she sent us an application. We filled it out and faxed it back the same day. All of the sudden we hear she has called our current landlord, and he gave us his highest regards! We passed the background check, and sent the $35 to pay for that. And, a couple of days ago, we sent our deposit. The place is ours, ready for us, whenever we can get out there!

It's been so interesting, after all of the frustration and discouragement we've been feeling, after getting to a point where we'd pretty much accepted that we wouldn't get out there exactly when we wanted, that this all came about. I searched and searched for what felt like an endless 3 months. As we approached mid-May I realized, there is no way we are going to get out there by June 1, like we'd hoped. And then bam! it all comes together, and we really will be out there by June 1!
It absolutely reaffirms my belief that we are supposed to go to Colorado, even though it is one of the hardest things I will likely ever do. There is a reason for us to be there, so we are going, with a hope for bigger and better things.
Wish us luck!

spring cleaning.

I have discovered...

that April snow doesn't bother me so much...

because I know, in the end...

spring will prevail!

April 3, 2011
I realized something today. I realized that I haven't posted on my photo blog in nearly 2 months, and that isn't even counting the entire moth of January that I missed when I took my month-long break from internet (which was not as hard as you'd think, by the way.)
I've even stopped trying to take pictures everyday. I began to forget a day here and a day there, bit by bit it became less important. I just don't have time to update multiple blogs. So, I'm cutting the apron strings. Happy Day Images is no more. If I do take a pretty picture that desperatley needs to be shared, I will post it here, under the tag "happy day".
I've got the spring-cleaning itch. I'm closing a blog, I donated a ton of stuff to DI yesterday (including my Christmas tree that I've had for 5 years! That is a big deal people!) I want to empty my home, declutter like I've never done before. (Seriously, I have a ton of junk, it's kind of, really sad.) I need this place empty, clean, manageable. Especially since I have to pack it all up...but that's something I'll save for another post.

**Do you have an easy time, or is it difficult for you (like me), to throw things out? Do you have any tips for someone, prone to hoarding, who desires to become more of a minimalist?