Moving

I've done the math.

The summer after I turned 18 my entire family put my stuff in my little purple Subaru and Mom and Dad's Ford Windstar and we all drove across the Nevada desert to Los Angeles for my freshman year of college. They helped me get my dorm room situated. Dad even put my bed on a loft - he built it - and my dorm room smelled like saw dust for my first semester. I loved that. Then they left. That was my first move.

My freshman year at APU was wonderful, except the the dirty, fast paced, materialistic Southern California culture. That was tough to deal with my first year on my own. But I loved studying music at APU. I love my friends, my classes, my teachers... But I didn't go back. I had left my things in a storage container out there and Dad and Janelle actually drove back to California to pick up my things while I was working that summer. Can you believe that? I'm still not sure how that all happened. Then I moved an hour south of my home town to Colorado Springs for the remainder of my college years. That was my second move.

And each summer in Colorado Springs I moved my things to a new living situation. Sophomore year I lived alone in an apartment to myself. Junior year I lived in a beautiful big house (we called it "the castle") with some great friends (third move). Senior year I lived in an apartment with my husband (fourth move).

Then we moved to Kenya. We put our stuff in "storage" (my old bedroom at Mom and Dad's house - VERY generous of them!) that year up in Littleton (fifth move).

The next summer we moved back to Colorado Springs into the same apartment building that we had lived in as newly weds. We only had a 9 month lease (sixth move).

Then we moved to Illinois for grad school (seventh move). We got to stay at Trinity for two years. Which was amazing. It was my first summer that I hadn't packed up all of my belongings to relocate. I was antsy and confused. Ha!

Last summer we came out to Utah for Landon's PhD (eighth move - which we did in two stages - putting our stuff in storage for 2 months).

And now that summer has rolled around again, we are relocating 30 minutes south in Salt Lake City (ninth move). I am relieved that we are doing a local move. It has been a very long while since I have been able leave my clothes on the hangers, put our perishables into a cooler instead of the trash can, and toss them into the back of the car and unpack the same day.

I would love to claim our new little house for the next four years through the remainder of Landon's PhD. But I fear we may outgrow it if procreation is ever on the agenda.

By the way - this is my 500th post on this blog!!!! yay!!! it only took me 3 years to to get here. Thank you for reading, friends! Wow - I am amazed that you have the desire and ability to endure me for 500 blog posts. cheers!