Homeless

Due to the timing of the sale of our home in Bountiful, Utah and the purchase of our home in Pullman, WA, for a brief few days, our family has been homeless. 6 days in hotels has been a party. 2 days in Bountiful, giving us time to load the trucks. Yes, that truck was plural: we ended up filling up two Uhauls. That also gave us time to clean up the place for the new owners, which are bound to be fabulous. 2 Days in a Boise hotel... nothing says happy 20th anniversary like Boise! We talked about hitting Paris for the big 2.0., but we hit Zoo Boise with the kids, which was also totally lovely. Paris can wait a little longer. This morning finds us in the last of our 3 hotels, and in a few hours, we will move into our new house in Pullman.  In short, it's absolutely beautiful here. The air is clear, the weather is crisp and cool, and the people have all been exceptionally friendly. That being said, after over a decade of living in Bountiful, it's been hard to even picture another location that would ever feel like home. The reasons for my love for our Utah North Canyon Neighborhood and congregation would fill a book. Also, as any parent knows, making a place feel like home is no small task, and since I'm the stay-at-home parent, the task falls pretty heavily on my shoulders. In my darkest hour a few days before we moved, I found myself alone in my car, tissues in abundance, bawling. Tears streaming down my face, pouring out my heart to God all of my frustrations about this move: helping sad and angry kids adjust to a new place, getting to know new neighbors (and hoping they like us and vice versa), meeting a new congregation, navigating a new grocery store, leaving behind my cooking group, no longer doing television demos for Studio 5, etc.) I let every thought and fear and worry and emotion float up to God for over an hour. I had no requests for God, no plan, I just wanted to empty the contents of my aching of soul. I sat in silence for a minute, and then finally turned on the radio... and I found myself in the second verse of the song "Home" by Philip Phillips.

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you’re not alone
'Cause I’m going to make this place your home

It was a direct answer from God. It was exactly what I needed to hear, exactly when I needed to hear it. God is good. Pullman, here we come. Thanks to everyone who has helped with our move. Know that your servise and love have carried our family through this transition.

Matching Moving Memorabilia

Because we are moving to another state, and we had loads of things to get done all week (packing, cleaning, contacting utilities, finding lost library books, etc) I decided that a better use of my time would be to make family t-shirts.  I'm not sure if this is a Holman thing (my maiden family name) or just a woman born in the 70's thing, or a Mormon thing, or a Lindsey thing, but I simply love matching family t-shirts.  I think the idea of having all of us in the same shirt, even though our oldest won't be joining us on our move, is somehow comforting. For years I've thought how fab it would be to have a shirt with all of our names on it, linked together through a shared letter, but everyone gets their own color; everything about it screamed winner, winner chicken dinner.  Yes, being June, it is Pride month and rainbow flags are often flown in support of our LGBT brothers and sisters, but that's just a happy coincidence for the Smith Family 2018 T-Shirts since I think this design has been in my heart for at least a decade. Once I let Ryan in on my plan, he questioned the timing, the method, the priority status and the success of my t-shirts. "Don't you want to help me realize my vision?"* I queried... In the end, the house still got packed up, the utilities still got called, and I even found one of the missing library books. But more importantly, we all have matching moving memorabilia. Clearly, my mother priorities are in the right place.

In all our glory! I like that Owen's name is red and he's wearing red.

Unintentionally perfect.

I accidentally bought Ryan a shirt that was a little snug. Look at those muscles!

The boys. I think it is so fun to see My oldest son next to my youngest son.

6 boys in my family.

And just 2 girls. And one of us is crazy. Guess which one isn't!

I didn't want to printer iron on bc they don't look that great after being washed. And I didn't want to do iron on letters bc it's expensive and I couldn't get the variety of colors I wanted. A friend printed out a pattern which helped me figure out my plan of attack. I eventually decided on mixing my own fabric paint, making a grid, and using individual stencil letters to whip up 8 t-shirts with 9 words. It took forever, but I am very happy with the results. (and by "happy" I mean it was a solid 5 hours where I wasn't crying about leaving my friends and neighborhood and schools and grocery stores and congregation in Utah.)

*10 points if you can name the movie.

Why on Earth We're Moving to Pullman WA

My handsome husband (Ryan) is an Architecture Professor. He's bright and talented and like many careers, the path up the ladder can necessitate a change in location.  He's been the Associate Dean of the Architecture department at the University of Utah for 3+ years, and has been there for 14. He's been invited to apply/headhunted at some great places over the last decade. We've made a few trips to explore job offers, but nothing has felt right, the timing has been off, we were in the middle of bigger fish to fry in UT. Noteworthy is that jobs in academia often take 6+ months from the initial "putting together and sending in your CV" to the "you're hired." So, about forever ago Washington State University contacted Ryan and asked him to apply. In looking over the job description, he said that it precisely matched his interests, his academic desires, and seemed like an excellent fit. Several months later, he went through a series of interviews, and he was just as impressed with them as they were with him, and he got the job. The last step in making it a done deal was flying Ryan and me out so that "we" (really "me" bc he'd already been there) could fall in love with the place.

We were there for 4 days. Day 1 in spite of great effort to keep an open mind (I'm not even kidding here) I went to bed in a panic that I was going to have to play bad cop, and talk my spouse off the "moving to the random small town in the middle of no-where with nothing to do and see" ledge. Small towns don't all look like Northern Exposure; some of them have dilapidated buildings, telephone wires that are never going to be buried, and movie theatres that make the Kaysville Dollar theatre look high class. Yikes. But to WSU's credit, they worked hard to impress us. They put together a schedule of people to meet (who were just so lovely and kind), restaurants to hit (which were local, unique and fabulous), and most importantly they got us an appointment with the principal of the (only) high school in Pullman. It was even on a Saturday, during Spring Break. The school is brand spanking new (50+million dollar build) and the facilities were incredible. We got to hash out educational concerns and goals during our 2-hour tour. When we wrapped up the meeting and hopped into our car, Ryan and I had tears in our eyes. We both agreed that this was going to be a great fit for our kids. I think he was misty-eyed bc he was so happy, and I was bawling devasted, sad, don't want to come and live here but feel like we should tears. It was an ugly cry.  Later that afternoon we were taken on a pre-arranged tour with a realtor, giving us the chance to get our bearings. We mentioned a desire to build our own home and so part of the tour included driving by some of the potential lots...  

It's time for a flashback: Several months prior I woke from a very vivid dream. Typically my dreams are unremarkable or shifty, but this one was clear and vivid. I told Ryan about it: In my dream, I was standing in what I knew to be my kitchen. It had white tile for the backsplash and a farmhouse dining table with different colored chairs. And I was looking out over rolling green hills. "I don't even know where it looks like this", I told him. "East Coast?" And then I told him it looked all rural, and we both laughed and laughed. Our plan is to eventually retire in a downtown condo and we are hoping that if an apocalyptic catastrophe hits, that we'll be the first to go (we promise we'll help out as angels on the other side.) I tucked this little dream away somewhere in a dusty corner of my mind and didn't give it a second thought, until...

The realtor takes us around, shows us the town, we part ways and Ryan and I drive back out to the place he cruised by. We drove up the hill to the area he said had some nice lots. I hopped out of the car and took a look. The view was literally a snapshot of my dream, rolling hills and all. This dream I'm positive that God knew I would need a few solid tender mercies if I was ever to agree to leave Bountiful*, and my prayer to know what we should do was answered. God is good. Our trip to check out Pullman WA ended with the decision that it was time for the Smiths to move.

* Many of you either grew up in small towns or frequently visit small towns, or have dreams to move to a small town. No offense intended. I too hope to be a defender of the splendor of small towns in just a few months.