Arrival in Utah

We got going on a Sunday morning, planning on a pretty short leg to Ben and Allison's house in Indiana.  Very sadly, I was following along behind Brett and watched a tire blow on our majorly overloaded trailer.  So I called him and told him to pull over.  (And the whole rest of the trip I almost had a panic attack every time he went over a patch of dust and I thought it might be another tire blowing.)

Brett's little jack wasn't strong enough to jack up the trailer, so we went to a (blessedly) nearby Tractor Supply store and bought a beefier jack.  Then bought a couple new tires.  Then Brett fixed it.  We ate corn on the cob and salad and tried to remain calm.

What was supposed to be a short 6-hour drive turned into ALL day.  But we finally made it to the holy ground of Ben and Allison's.  They let us go to sleep and in the morning Ben (blessed man that he is) skipped work for a while and helped Brett do everything they needed to do to try to make sure we'd have no further troubles.  I love him.

Seeing them together always makes me happy.  Sad to be not that close to them anymore.  :(  (not that we made it a point to see them very much the whole 5 years we lived in Pittsburgh, but still.)

 

Meanwhile Talmage played on the 4-wheeler.

Ben taking his cows to the other pasture.

Goodbye to our wonderful fun friends and great Samaritans!!

Reminded me of the first time I ever met them and loved them, when they moved to our house in Indiana and rented it from us for a while, and we moved out.  We even stayed in their apartment in Nebraska (Iowa? Some state...) on our way to Utah once when they were gone, which was kind of funny.  We look a little younger in the below pictures. Time flies, man.

The rest of the trip went pretty well I think, just sooooo slow.  Brett couldn't/wouldn't drive over 55 basically.  We got a hotel the second night, and thought we'd make it all the way to our house before night the following day, but we didn't.  It was super late and we were suuuuuper tired (so tired. so stressed.) so we ended up calling Kami and Leo (a feat in and of itself  since there's no cell service for our provider in Evanston... had to call from a gas station) late late at night, like almost midnight, and begged for a place to sleep.  And they said of course, because they're also super duper nice.  And I have never felt so grateful to lay my head down and go to sleep, it almost made me weep.

Hoooray!!!  We made it!

Our new home.

Navy's hair after four days of being in the car.

Lovely, lovely, family who came to help unload.  And Jethro was here!

 

Ethan showing off his buffness by lifting a solid steel INCREDIBLY heavy metal beam by himself.   (I won't go into the argument about why we're carting heavy steel beams across the country... but it's good metal... and my dad was like, yeah-a good idea to save money until you're paying for a new truck because yours died on the side of the highway...)

Dear Megan got us pizza for lunch and left a meal for us in the fridge.  I could cry for the goodness of these little acts of service.

She also helped me start to unpack some stuff, because that part is so overwhelming to me.

Then dinner at Grandpa and Grandma's, who are only TWENTY MINUTES away from our house, people!!!  !!!!!  It was a full house with Kourtney and Ethan, Amy's kids, and Sterling and Lindsay's  family.

Whew.  We made it.  I actually feel a sense of relief all over again, just writing this all out.  Makes me not want to move again for at least 10 years. The other moral is, what would we do without kind, generous, loving people to make your hard journey of life easier and help you keep going when you think you're just done??  I love people!