So, to prove we are alive and well, here's a picture of Craig and me. I took this while still in Montana, but thought it was cute (and I can't find the camera right now--give me some time, I've just unpacked and can't remember where I put everything). I do need to find it, very badly, since we are going to the zoo tomorrow and don't want to miss recording Craig's first trip to the zoo.
Our internet got set up yesterday. I scheduled it a day or so after my last post but was told that the first available date was yesterday! There's been so much to do, it's nice and much simpler to have the internet back. Looking for a job these days is virtually impossible without it. Thanks to my dad, Robert was able to get some leads off of Craig's List last week and had some really great interviews that we should be hearing back from any day now. (My dad helped by checking out the new job listings every night for us.)
We're unpacked, expect for pictures and decorations, and we have even been able to paint the living room and dining room, so that looks great. We're going to slowly move on to the rest of the place, but that was our goal for the time being. The landlord is giving us a break on the rent for doing the work. We really like our place. We really lucked out for not having seen it before signing the lease. And it's great price and we a have a great landlord. There were a few things wrong with it (minor) like it really needed some fresh paint. The most serious thing was the water faucet in the master bath. When we got here late Wed. night (the 10th) there was no knob on the faucet and some weird jerry-rigged contraption controlled the water. We turned it on, but then couldn't get it to turn off. It slowly drizzled all night (and turning the valve off under the sink didn't work either), so we set our air mattress up in the spare room. In the morning, the bathroom floor was almost entirely covered in a thin layer of water. We called John (our landlord) and we found a new faucet, not yet installed, under the sink. Robert offered to install it since John had scheduled someone to do it but he wasn't coming till the next week. He figured out how to turn the water main off to the whole townhouse (it requries a special $15 tool that we bought and are billing John for :)) and changed it out. Now it's perfect, and there doesn't seem to be any water damage (yet). Other than that, it's everything and more we that we expected. The pool is practically right out our front door, beyond the lawn, and we've taken Craig swimming twice. He loves it. We have really been loving the conveniences of living in a "city", even though it's far less traffic than when we lived in Beaverton on the outskirts of Portland, and Mesa is really more suburban than city, to me. And we're about 10 minutes from the temple. Seriously. It's awesome. (Despite the fact that I realized my recommend expired in February--that's what happens when you move to a place three hours from the temple then have a baby). But once it's renewed, off we go!
The drive down went as well as could be expected. Moving is always a pain, as is traveling 20 hours with a one year old and a freaked-out cat. We left Tuesday morning early (about 6:30, I think). Craig did well...he just required frequent snacks, a new toy to throw on the floor every 5 to 10 minutes, and a 20 minute snooze every couple of hours. The cat, however, struggled for the first few hours. After bellowing and crying from her cat carrier in the back of the Jeep then getting so anxious she pooped herself (have you ever cleaned poop off a cat's paws with baby wipes in the parking lot of a gas station?) we finally let her loose in the car. She settled into a cozy spot on the floor behind my seat and there she stayed, content, the rest of the trip. She never ate much (which means she never used her litter box much :)) and was quiet.
We stopped in Rexburg to have lunch with some friends. That was fun, and such a flashback. Things are changing so quickly there. We went to good ol' Craigos to eat. Yeah...
snort...right. The dumpy little building two blocks from my old apartment with the dim lighting, worn out college-dorm-couches, and suspicious bathrooms down a dark hallway has become a striking establishment, walking distance from WalMart, with a fabulous salad bar-pizza-pasta-dessert buffet! I'm telling ya, if you get to Rexburg, and if you ever hung out at Craigos before, you need to check this out. You'll be stunned.
Okay, enough retrospective, except I do want to say how incredible the Rexburg temple is. Moving on...the rest of the trip was uneventful, aside from the occassional cranky toddler and fighting the dreaded road hypnosis. Robert and I had to drive separately since he drove the moving truck. We would just talk on the walkie talkies until they were close to running out of battery power or if Craig feel asleep. After that Robert would suck on sunflower seeds while I prefer corn nuts. We stayed in Nephi, UT in a disappointing Best Western. The next day we watched the temperature climb as we got into Arizona and then Phoenix at about 6:30pm. By the time we got to our place in East Mesa, it was closer to 7:30 or 8:00. We painted on Thursday and unloaded the truck (much thanks to our friends from Montana-turned-Arizonians, the Ludlows, for their help) and on Friday went out and bought a bed. (It's awesome--king size, soft, comfy, and for the first time in months my hips don't hurt every night.)
I think that's pretty much the story. I'll post about our zoo trip later and once I find the camera, I think there are some pictures on there I need to post, too. Until later!
I'm not sure what we're looking at here--I think it was the jaguar. That's Robert's blue-shirted back on the other side of me and Phillip (Ludlow) in the background.
I look like I'm missing some teeth in this one--trust me, they're all there. This was in the monkey village. You actually go into the monkey enclosure here and they just jump all around you, swinging from ropes and leaping into the trees. They actually have zoo workers there with squirt bottles of water to squirt the monkeys if they get too close. I guess they've snatched people's hat and stuff before. Craig had a hard time seeing them since they moved so fast and camaflouged themselve so well, but he seems to be happy in this picture.
