Our 1st Few Weeks in Utah

I've done a lot of week-in-review posts in the past few months but today will be a bit different. Today is almost a whole month-in-review, starting with moving day, and an overview of the rest of the month of May.

This will be a long one but I wanted to get it all documented and have a place to look back on it all.

Monday, May 7th ~ Moving Day!!

I was SO EXCITED for moving day! With everything that had been happening in our life, it felt like one thing continued to go wrong after another and I was really hoping that moving day would be the start of something different but it didn't start that way! Ken & I woke up early and went over to the townhouse to meet someone for a walk-through. We waited for them to show up for about an hour. It turned out that they slept in!!

So we had to leave (without the walk through or a key) so that Ken could meet some movers we hired to help us unload the UPack truck in Salt Lake City and load our things into their truck, and get our things to our house. I went back to my sister's house where I managed to get in touch with someone who could bring the key to me (since I didn't have a car).

The movers helped get all of our boxes into the garage (A garage!! This is the first time in almost 15 years of marriage that we've had a garage & we're excited about it!).  They also moved our bedroom furniture up to the 3rd floor (that made hiring movers totally worth it!).

Later that afternoon my sister-in-law and her older kids came and helped us move boxes from the garage to the right floor of the house where they each belonged. We also had some friends (who used to live in our town in Canada, but had since ended up in Utah) come help us, and Tami's husband also joined us. I'm so grateful to everyone who helped us, and helped Ken get our bed set up, etc.!

We all had some pizza & pop (or soda as they call it here) and visited a little. Then our girls slept over at Ken's sister's house and we stayed the night in our new place and started the unpacking process.

That night we found out that we didn't have any hot water in our bathroom, so we couldn't use our shower because it was ice cold!  There is another shower downstairs, connected to the girls' room though, so we used that instead.

Tuesday, May 8th 

On Tuesday we did a walk-through and reported our cold water problem. We also found out that our hanger rods were hung too close to the shelf & wall of the closet for hangers to fit on them! So, we reported those issues and began the wait to have them fixed.

The rest of the month was a blur of unpacking, trying to get settled in the USA as Canadians, and attempting to throw in fun outings with the girls.  Here are some highlights:

May 11th

Highlight: We went to a nickel arcade with the girls (they love this place- we've been there before on visits to Utah) and then attended a play that Tami's kids (Ken's sister) were in.

May 12th

We decided to wait until Memorial Day sales started, to buy a washer & dryer. Our hope was that we could have a credit card set up so that we could get rewards for a large purchase as well. My sister let us use her washer & dryer in the meantime which also gave us the opportunity to get the cousins together! :)  Here's a photo of the cousins dancing together while I did laundry.

May 13th

Mother's Day!
Somehow my family managed to pull together some things for mother's day for me! The girls bought me some dishes that I saw in the store & really liked. They also picked out a pot of flowers and made my favourite breakfast. We have church at 1pm, so the slow morning was also like a gift!!

That evening we had dinner at Tami's house.

May 14th

Ken & I spent the day in Salt Lake City, running errands, while our kids played with Tami's kids at her house. We stopped for lunch at Cheesecake Factory as a belated Mother's Day treat & it was wonderful!

May 16th

We checked out a mall & bought some clothes for Talia & Ken who really needed them.
Talia got to talk to her friend from school in Canada and she was SO happy!

May 17th

Our first tumbleweed sighting- haha!

We also went to Costco with Tami and bought a new garbage can! (or trash can, as everyone here calls them)

We also attempted to get a Costco membership & credit card but we are finding it very difficult to get a credit card or sign up for things like cell phone plans because we don't have any credit history in the USA!

May 18th

Hilary's kids came over & had a cheese ball picnic on our driveway.

May 19th

Ken & I went to IKEA and bought a desk! We tried to buy some shelves so we could unpack our office but they were out of stock until late June, so we wait!

May 20th

Instead of regular church, we attended the Jordan River temple re-dedication.
We had dinner at Tami's house after church. Here are some of the cousins playing a game:

May 21-25th

• Talia went to a youth activity and got to know some of the youth from church.
• Ken started work.
• The girls did lots of reading (we discovered our local library).
• I read a book to the girls- "The Girl Who Drank the Moon"- we highly recommend it!
• We went to our park alone & with Hilary (my sister) & her kids.
• We helped Brooklyn (a cousin) with her taste-test homework.

• We tried Sodalicious. There are several little treat places like this in Utah where you can get all kinds of different flavours of pop (soda) as well as fancy cookies. 

May 26th

We met a new family that moved into our neighbourhood and had them over for dinner then went to the park with them. They have 3 girls in their family so we seem to be a good match for each other!

May 27th

My aunt from California was visiting my cousin in Utah so they came for a visit! It was SO NICE to see them!

May 28th

It was Memorial Day and we just hung out at home. Ken's feet have been really causing him problems. He got a pair of crutches from someone to try and rest them over the long weekend but they were so old that the handles literally crumbled! So, he tried to sit as much as possible (and actually crawled around the house when necessary).

I took the girls to IKEA to replace a part that was damaged for the desk we bought & Ken sat on the floor, resting his feet, and putting the desk together!

May 30th

We went to a splash park with Tami & those cousins. While we were there it started to rain and a random dog joined us under our umbrella! :)

A Summary

By the end of May, I felt like I had been on some kind of crazy & fairly unpleasant roller coaster. I was really hoping that things would start to feel more settled in our life by then, but we had a lot of trouble with setting things up (because we're Canadian) and little things seemed to keep going wrong. That cold water problem in our bathroom? It took 3 weeks to finally get fixed. The hanger rods? No one ever came to fix them, so we finally asked for permission to do it ourselves. The credit card? Still hasn't happened & we're half way through June.

There were a lot of things to be happy and hopeful about, but those discouraging moments continued to knock us down as we continued to work on our patience! Putting this post together really helped me to remember all of the good things that happened- we managed to fit a lot of fun into that crazy month!

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