WE GOT OUR STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are so EXCITED, not just for the stuff, but mostly to see the light at the end of the this long nightmare tunnel. Minor damage on some things :(, already noted some things missing, and we just paid all the money they wanted so we could just get to the end of this. Pickup was supposed to be on 12/29. They picked it up on 1/6 and the latest they should have been here was Tuesday (2 weeks from pickup, never mind that the contract said 1/13) and they came yesterday, 1/23. AND it was a different moving company who had nothing to do with our previous troubles. (Once again they lied, because I had chosen this company because they said they do all the work themselves, they don't contract out, and their trucks had air-ride so things don't shift- this truck didn't). They violated a lot of things in our contract. We could have made them re-weigh everything and dispute some charges, but we didn't think the ongoing hassle and stress was worth the charges. They had very shoddy paperwork, and I am at a disadvantage because I was not present at pickup. We just paid their price which they said was a "deal". Now we are wondering if we should even go through the claims process. Hopefully nothing else is missing or damaged.
This has been a first hand lesson of what ongoing mental and emotional stress can do to you. It totally affects how your body feels, how you sleep, your energy, your tolerance for things, and how you treat others. It gives me so much more understanding for others who are in never-ending stress, specifically those in our family. WOW! We are so glad this is the end of a couple of stressful months and the beginning of a new adventure. We have got to go help our neighbors move out and then it is "Happy Unpacking" for us!
PS: If any of you are planning a long distance move, talk to us first. Maybe we can save you a few headaches.

Zootaloo, I have missed one...

I forgot to include that we got picked up for speeding in Texas at like 10 PM, but the blessing was that it ended up just being a warning. Luke didn't know that the night speed limit sign, below the day speed limit sign, is "mandatory" not "recommended." Thanks HF!

Happy Birthday... here are some life lessons!

Jan 16- It's my birthday! I have made it 24 years! (Thanks mom for "borning" me.) And I have the most wonderful husband in the world who suprised me with a certificate for my first professional massage ever and the cutest baby in the world. (I am biased. I know.) We don't know when our stuff will come from FL, but we are healthy and happy and enjoying life. I am grateful I get to stay home and be a mom and help Gracie learn and grow which she is definitely doing. Thanks Luke for being our bread winner. I am also so grateful to family and friends who have always been there for me and who always will be. I love you and feel so undeserving of all of my blessings. I owe everything to the Lord! Thank you Heavenly Father.

I will let you know when we get our stuff and all is resolved with the moving company. As for the saga, it will always continue. That is how life is but we have definitely learned some things:

- No matter how much you plan, things can always go wrong! (hard to admit since I am the queen of control :( but better off for giving in!)
- Heavenly Father is watching over you! (I already knew this one!) (Look at the red and blue pattern. It is always consistent: a red followed by a blue!)
- Things just get stuck!
- Everything takes longer than you think!
- $$ is not always the highest priority when making a decision!
- Moving is not easy!
- It can always get worse!
- There is nothing like HEAT!
- "Don't let it eat your lunch!" thanks Karl
- There is nothing like family and friends and good neighbors!
- Now I have empathy for people in the middle of a move, I will act accordingly...

The saga continues... Part 2

So here's the continuation of how it all went down and is still not finished:
(Yes that is right, we are still waiting for our stuff to come from Florida, the blasted moving company is jerking us around! The nice thing is we did have a bed and some belongings in Luke's parents' basement in UT that we moved down so we at least have something to sleep on. The other stuff that we got from Utah like - scrapbooks, camping stuff, and Christmas decor hasn't really been that helpful though. I miss our stuff- especially kitchen stuff. A quick side note- if you don't have a pan, don't try to cook pizza on cardboard cut from a packing box, even though store-bought pizzas come on cardboard; it will set your fire alarms off! he he)
PS challenges in red> blessings in blue

Dec 19- Luke's last day of work
Dec 20- Pack & clean whatever Hollie didn't get finished before
Dec 21- Church and goodbyes and jumpstart on loading. Luke wondered about safety of Uhaul
for a front wheel drive car. Too much weight in back makes front wheels come off the ground and you can't steer or brake??
U-haul rules: Can't go faster than 45 mph- which we didn't know prior to loading it, meaning our trip could take 6-8 long days of driving with Gracie alone in the back going that slow. Wheels really started turning!!! Decided to do it anyway. Slept on floor of empty house.
Dec 22- Load, clean, and paint!
7 PM- Everything is ready and we leave to drop off one last Christmas gift to neighbors. Not to mention it is one of the bitterest cold nights we have spent in FL. Luke pulled off the side of the road with trailer to wait for Hollie to run it up, not thinking about the weight of his load. TRAILER GETS STUCK!
8 PM- Trailer gets unstuck from friend of a friend who came with tow truck, but did not need
it. He just drove and turned it right while Luke pushed. Thanks Gabe and Gabe's "tow"er friend.
8:30 PM- Gracie crying (stressed I'm sure) and hungry. Other friends around corner welcome us in for hot chocolate and to feed Gracie. Thanks Brian Froemming.
9:30 PM- While rethinking our plan in Target parking lot (we had to buy a lock for the uhaul) with our caravan, an angel of a lady parked right next to us, comes out of target and told us that the Lord wanted her to give us some money. She was so kind. Luke took it and it was $100.00. (The price the u-haul would cost if we decided to just leave it packed and parked in our driveway while we went up to KY for Christmas. Coincidence? I think not!)
10 PM- Unloaded cars for easier travel and we were finally on our way! We stayed in Dothan AL at a hotel where we got triple AAA and senior citizen discounts, both of which we are not. Sorry Karl and Megan for not making it to Nashville that night!
Dec 23- Arrived in KY at 8 PM. Their kids had waited to see us since Thanksgiving when we had canceled on them. We weren't going to do that again.
Dec 24- Hung out, made gingerbread houses, did the nativity, and stayed up late waiting for Santa.
Dec 25- CHRISTMAS! Karl and Megan made sure Santa visited us too! Thanks. We had a lot of fun and love your family.
Dec 26- Decided to re-book the moving company who would pickup on Sun, Mon and we would try to hurry and sale our second car on Craig's List so we could drive together. Then we hung out and toured Karl's dental school. Cool! Luke said I could go to dental school if I wanted to be the bread winner afterwards. I just wanted to learn it, that's all! I got sick with some kind of stomach flu and threw-up and the whole bit that follows afterward, diarrhea etc.
Dec 27- Gracie started throwing up (first sickness) and diarrhea too. Started to leave back to Fl to unload the uhaul for the movers and rolled down the window to say goodbye and window got stuck. Karl and Luke jerry-rigged it to get it up! Wheew! Got 15 minutes away and had to drive back for Gracie's new Christmas toy which Rebecca apparently really liked :)! Then we got 30 minutes away and realized that the cell-phone was missing so had to turn back. Found it in the chair!
Dec 28- We got back to our home in FL and forgot that we had all the power, heat, and water shut off. Our neighbors Barb/Charlie and Chris/Melissa were so kind to lend us an airbed, some flashlights/lantern, heat our food in the microwave, watch Gracie while we unloaded, and gallons of water to flush our toilet. Thanks! People came from Craig's List to check out the car and bought it! A blessing to sale the car within 3 days!
Dec 29- Everything was loaded in our garage for the movers and they didn't show! Barb and Charlie agreed to be there for the moving company and we left for Las Vegas that night. Little did we know that the moving company would keep moving the pickup date back a day so that Barb was "on-call" everyday all day for over a week. I am so sorry Barb and thanks!
Dec 30- Met Lisa and Ben for a quick dinner and chat in Louisiana! It was fun to see you both!
11 PM- Gracie crying uncontrollably! Hotel clerk identified it as teething... thanks, I ran to Walmart at midnight for children's tylenol and teething stuff while Luke tried in vain to comfort Gracie. That was a hard night! Each day afterwards, she dealt a little with it in the car and diarrhea and feverish. It just so happened that the Walmart lady at the door was a pharmacy student and was able to help explain stuff for teething. Hailey, my sister-in-law helped too.
Dec 31- Driving to Las Vegas still, but then we were told our town-home would not be ready until Jan 4th. So we switched and decided to go up to UT to see Luke's parents for New Years and get the other half of our stuff we had left behind 1 1/2 years ago.
Jan 1- We were glad to see Rick and Lenna and Felicia and Von and the kids. Played games with them and had fun.
Jan 2- Got our stuff ready to go to Las Vegas on Rick's trailer.
Jan 3- Started to get on our way to Vegas and Luke rolled down the other window to tell Rick something and it got stuck. Tried lots of things and ended up waiting all day at the repair shop to get the window motor replaced just to roll it up! It was siezed up or something. Got it up (thanks Rick for $$) and got to Vegas that night. Meanwhile, Rick and Lenna got the same stomach flu that Gracie and I had, even though we had been better for 2 days. SOoooo Sorry!
Jan 4- Realtor lets us in our new home. The place was filthy and not ready for us to move in. They were cleaning it that day I guess and got mixed up on the days. We put our stuff in the garage and waited till that night. Thanks for moving us Lenna/Rick. Then we realize their is no gas, soooo-- no HEAT again! But this time Vegas is colder than FL> found a space heater in our stuff! So we shut ourselves up in one room and slept!
Jan 5- Luke's first day at his new job. Had to wash his hair in freezing cold water! Carpet cleaners came so we have a cold wet house that can't dry because of no heat. Clean carpets though! The moving company finally meets my friend Carrie at our house for pickup. A big mess goes on. They want to charge us highway robbery so Carrie doesn't sign the paperwork. Thanks Carrie.
Jan 6- Gracie and I went walking to find warm places to spend the day. Library, Smith's and Coffee shop within walking distance.
Jan 7- We have HEAT! Still don't know the status of our stuff. Moving company won't call me back! Moving company holds our stuff in storage unit in Florida for over a week and I can't get ahold of anyone to talk about it!
Jan 11- We think we will love our new ward! Tons of people at church said hi! It's a young ward. We will miss our branch though! Luke's uncle was sitting on the stand (who knew he was in the stake presidency and it was ward conference) and he helped us pick-some furniture deals we found craig's list. What a blessing. So now our house is not empty and we have something to sit on besides camp chairs. Thanks Uncle Jeff.
Jan 12-16- Luke finally gets some muscle put onto this moving company and they are talking (more like yelling) at him. We are not going to pay $1700 for our stuff when we were quoted $1050 and we know approximate Cubic feet and weight since we loaded it in a uhaul ourselves. They don't know who they are messing with. Luke is keeping his cool though and it is working... we think. We hope we will not have to get a lawyer involved but they have breached several things in the contract so far.
Side note: the stomach flu that Gracie and I had might have come from Karl and Megan who had 2 weeks before, maybe not, but we gave it to Rick and Lenna, and Mikaela and Von who were visiting them from Idaho. They visited Granny on the way home in Pocatello and she got it and then Aunt Renee got it who only visited her for a couple of hours. Talk about a potent flu. I am so sorry. I didn't know and hope it didn't go any farther.

It's been over a month... Moving Part 1

Wow! The last time I posted was over a month ago. Christmas definitely is a busier time, but then you try to move in there too and you can forget blogging. Sorry it is has been so long. I will try to fill you in on everything that has happened. It will be very long but very eventful and even sometimes funny. Glad that our misfortunes can bring you a laugh. Just kidding. I know all of you wish the best for us and even some of you have been there through many steps of the way to help us. So I will just start this off with saying a big thank you to all of you who have helped us either in person, or on the phone with emotional support and good advice etc. or with laughing about the current dilemma because that always helps to lighten our troubles too. And I must say thank you to Heavenly Father who has been watching over us through it all, as noted by many little blessings along the way, you will see. Other than that though, it really feels like the move from Hell. I know it could have been much much worse and for that I am very grateful to Heavenly Father again for keeping us safe from harm and allowing Luke and I to really pull together through it all and not blame each other for stuff or break apart through all the stress. Lenna, my mother-in-law, said that new jobs, building a house, and moving are the 3 major events that can really cause stress on a marriage. And let's see, we are doing two of those right now: new job and moving across country with a baby. Aaaaah! Last thank you goes to Luke who has been a great husband through it all and very patient with all things considered. I love you! So here goes the start of the story of our move from FL to Las Vegas, NV. Are you ready?

So this is how we moved to Florida 1.5 years ago: We just loaded up whatever we could fit in our two Camry's and drove out to PCBeach, not knowing what the place was like or where we would live, etc...




But now with a baby that comes with a lot more stuff, and a start date for Luke's new job on Jan 5, and moving to a bigger, shadier city of Las Vegas, we felt we had to have a little bit better idea where we were going to live and how we were going to get there over the holidays. We really did our homework. Luke researched where to live and I researched every possible way to move. Luke, with the help of a sister of a friend (Patricia and Anyolina) in Vegas, picked out a place to live. I went through all the moving options: ABF (you pack/they drive), Uhaul, Budget, and full service moving companies. It turned out to my surprise that a full service moving company was cheaper than all of them. So we booked our move with Infinity Van Lines moving co. And we planned to drive our 2 separate cars and hope Gracie would do well by herself in the back.


But then a couple of weeks later, I came across the price of renting a little 5x8 ft U-haul trailer for 9 days for $202. WOW! That was a steal. So we played with the idea of trading our car for a cheap truck or SUV to pull it but didn't like the idea of driving across country with an unknown car. So then we decided to pay the money to get a hitch put on my Camry that has a V6 engine. They said it could pull the trailer easily. So we got the hitch put on for more than the trailer would cost and decided to move ourselves in 2 cars still. Then we sold our furniture so we could make it all fit! We planned to have Christmas with my brother Karl and his wife Megan and their kids in Kentucky. Following that we would drive to Utah for New Years to be with Luke's family and then down to Vegas before starting work on the 5th of January.

So we packed up the Uhaul and cleaned up our house to get it ready to rent and headed on our way out of town to Kentucky at about 7 PM, a couple of days before Christmas. We were going to meet Karl and Megan in Nashville for 1 night and play around and then go up to their house the next day.
Well things did not go as planned...

To be continued!