First World Problems. That’s what I keep reminding myself when I’m tempted to whine and complain about this wild ride my family has been on living in limbo while our house is being finished. It doesn’t help that I haven’t been feeling well with allergies and teeth pain. I’m hoping for a reprieve on many, many levels.

The frustrating

The commute. So much driving. I’m in the car a minimum of four hours per day. Jamie had a business trip in AZ for five days and I miraculously survived (though I’ve averaged one meltdown per week; usually a nap in the back of the car assuages nervous breakdowns).

I miss Colorado. I spent more than a decade building friendships and an awesome online and offline community. I’ve been blessed with an amazing team of writers who are handling all the on-the-ground coverage while I manage everything else (advertising, editorial calendar, etc.). But here’s the problem: I love all those trips, VIP pre-screenings, restaurant openings, etc. It’s tough not to feel depressed after repeatedly turning down invites; that’s why I started blogging in the first place.

Lack of direction. I have no doubts we were supposed to move to Utah but until we can get settled in our house and I have some time, my hands are tied with pursuing new career paths. I put out some feelers for freelance magazine writing with my former editors and already heard back, only to realize I have zero time to travel and pursue these opportunities. Patience, little grasshopper. I’d really like to get back into Utah’s travel and tourism industry but have no idea what that will look like.

The “coming along”

Friendships are slowly forming.

Hadley is probably adjusting better than any of us and has joined the Science Club, has a group of friends at school and has bonded with the girls in our ward.

Bode was really attached to our life in Colorado and despite usually being able to make friends immediately, he has been slower to form meaningful connections. He is extremely frustrated by this but I have no worries once we’re finally in our house, he’ll make a lot of friends in our neighborhood.

Jamie. Lives in the basement working all day. So, not much has changed from his days in Colorado.

Me.  I’ve met some really great ladies and we’ve been on some adventures together. Have passed out in the backseat of the car more times than I’d care to admit. #Survivalmode

The awesome

As bi-polar as I feel about being here (“I love this place!” “What the crap” are we doing here?) the good far outweigh the bad.

I’m driving back and forth to the Heber Valley several times a day but we’ve been privileged to watch fall unfold in all its crimson magnificence. Truly, the 30-minute drive from Park City to Heber is gorgeous x 100. The kids and I listen to Audible or the scriptures, talk about nothing or everything and marvel at the mountain majesty that surrounds us.

Our luxury 3-story townhome. On Wednesdays, I stroll down to the farmer’s market at Canyons Village to eat peach cobbler ice cream, pluots, peaches and corn on the cob.

New adventures. Though I’m itching to explore the Heber Valley, I can’t pass up the opportunity to tackle Park City while we’re living here. I have had a grand time hiking and biking in my spare time, often with new friends.

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We are supposed to be closing on our house next week but a lot of things need to happen before then. A deck. Cabinets. Carpet. Driveway. Fingers are crossed it will all go down according to schedule. This time in Park City has been a lot like new motherhood: the days are loooong but the weeks are short.

Here’s to starting a new adventure!

Our last two weeks in Colorado were a blur full of packing, stress and lots of sad good-byes.

We have dearly loved Skyline Estates. There was nothing quite like building our homes together for the first time, being pregnant together and raising our kids in the same space. Most of the kids have gravitated to other friends at school and church but they’ll always be bonded for life. Our neighbors threw a going-away party for us and Joe and Sherry, who moved a week after us. Some of the original families included the Kings, Schultzs, Morgans, Trinders, Ames, Franklins, Grandma Jean, Ron and Joyce, and the Haymonds.

Most of these kids in this picture were born after we moved in on tax day–April 15, 2004. Hadley was born one month later so she was always our benchmark for how long we lived there. Such an amazing group!

Tina and I met in a hiking group for new moms and she was my first dear friend in Colorado. We capped our friendship by hiking iconic Red Rocks while reminiscing our countless hikes, when I dragged her every Saturday to the Red Rocks Fitness Challenge and she dragged me on the Mind Eraser. And she was the first one to make me cry saying our good-byes.

We were thrilled to have one last hurrah for the Morgan’s backyard movie nights and it was a very befitting send-off to feature Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Mostly because we really love candy.

Andy’s blurry photobomb

One of our favorite summer traditions is helping with our stake’s community-wide service project. We were busy packing our garage but that didn’t stop us from going to the BBQ that night. Because we’re moochers like that.

Hadley was thrilled to go to the LDS Denver Temple for one last time with her besties. Truly, an amazingly supportive, GOOD, drama-free group of girls.

When Bode and I pulled up to our beloved home one night, we found Fat Kitty sitting in his window–something he has never done. It’s like he was saying his own farewells.

Funny how he almost looks fatter by moonlight.

Bode enjoyed playing Pokemon our final couple of weeks of summer. I didn’t complain–it was a fabulous way to explore our favorite haunts in Arvada. One evening took us to the top of what was once our neighborhood water tower. Though it’s no longer there, I have so many fond memories of climbing atop the hill when the kids were little and playing hide ‘n go seek as we marveled at the view.

It’s one of the many things we’ll never forget about our wonderful life in Arvada.

Last summer, my friend Lisa was living a content existence in a cozy house with her beautiful family when her husband came home  and announced they should move into a ramshackle house (with an equally rundown pool) a few miles away. He saw the potential; she didn’t but our ward was awesome with helping them fix it up. I spent an afternoon doing a crappy paint job in her closet and as we helped them move I thought “I’m so glad we’re not going anywhere for a very long time.”

Fast-forward one year later and they threw us a going-away pool party in their backyard. Who would have thought?

I truly love each one of these families–the Larsons, Laras, Carrolls, Maugers and Haymonds. Their kids have grown up with mine, I thought they’d be in Young Men/Young Women together and eventually marry each other. It’s tough to pull myself away from this tight, comfortable cocoon where we feel understood, accepted and loved.

Cincinnati Chili Send-off

Eva, Lisa, Alexis and Jenn

Women folk

I’m not sure how our battle with “The Cheese Touch” started with the Carrolls but it has been going on for years. If you’re not familiar with the Diary of a Wimpy Kid’s dreaded cheese, go here for the background. We’ve been sneaking the cheese to the Carrolls (and vice versa) for years, the most creative being the time Eva covertly inserted it into Rice Krispie treats she gifted us, the worst when I dropped the cheese in their mailbox with our Christmas card and they totally busted me when they happened to be looking out their window.

So, it was only appropriate that for their going away present they gifted us with the cheese touch, framed and signed for us to have forever and ever.

I’m still debating if that is actually a good thing but we’ll take it.

We survived Phase I of this crazy move of ours. Barely! When the kids and I arrived home from Canada, we had two weeks to pack up the house. This doesn’t sound like much time but I had been slowly chipping away at it for months, starting with a month-long purge in January. The real stress began about five days prior when we were finally able to pack up all those last-minute items like the kitchen and clothing/bedrooms.  I helped my friend Lisa move and paint her closet last year and she returned the favor by helping me pack up the kitchen. The irony? I remember thinking when I helped her that I was so glad I was never going to move.

Jamie’s sister Lisa helped with the other half of the kitchen. Julie, a sweet lady from our ward, runs a storage unit and loaded us up with packing supplies. Eva was a godsend and arrived with her kids several hours before we were to load everything in the POD and helped us shrink-wrap all the furniture and bubble-wrap our artwork. Around 6 p.m. our slew of helpers arrived: Uncle Chris, the Larsons, Haymonds, Phillips, Huntleys, Schmidts, Agnews, Uncle Chris, Jenzchs and I’m sure I’m forgetting others. Bode’s bestie Nicky’s mom Julie brought over a going-away cake, we ordered 10 pizzas and the loading frenzy began!

The challenge with this move is our house won’t be finished until late-September and we’ll be in a rental in Park City until then. So, we had to divide our belongings up into two categories: staying and going. We thought since we had sold most of our furniture on our main level (two sets of couches and two dining room sets), we would be able to fit everything into two PODS.

How wrong we were.

Two hours later, we still had a load of C-R-A-P sitting in our garage and in our family room. There was no way to get it all in so we had to drop another $1,500 to rent another POD, which wouldn’t arrive until sometime the next day. Eva thankfully took the kids for a sleepover and it seemed like a Herculean task to load up the remainder of our items; I felt certain we would need to push our move back another day. All we wanted was to lie in our fluffy bed and watch the Olympics and all we got was our bedroom floor. We had all the windows open downstairs as we ran our attic fan and I observed to Jamie, “we should probably lock up the house,” to which he responded “or what? Someone will come in and steal everything? Let them!”

Yup.

Our bed for the night

The next morning, I left to help with the media day open house at the Fort Collins Temple. Much more on that later but that few hours brought the peace and clarity I needed. I arrived home at noon and the third POD arrived shortly thereafter. Jamie’s sister returned to help us organize everything so it didn’t seem so overwhelming and Eva’s family, Darrin and Ariel (Lisa’s husband) came later that afternoon to help us load the third POD. Truly, we couldn’t have done it without them. I grabbed Panera Bread for dinner and it was depressing as we sat on our floor soaking in our final moments together. They have been among our closest friends in Colorado and they saw us through to the bittersweet end.

With everything loaded, we survived the flood of boxes that still remained. Remember my obsession with collecting them from our neighborhood? I literally had over 100 boxes left over and that was after giving many, many away. It was lightly raining as we loaded them and our carpet scraps in our trailer. Julie had given us permission to load them into the dumpster at her storage facility and we had a good chuckle when she emerged in her robe to find the kids jumping on them in the dumpster while it rained. Talk about a final Colorado adventure!

We spent our final night in our wonderful home. I probably would have been more emotional had I not been tapped out physically but we still had several hours of loading our cars and trailer, as well as cleaning the house ahead of us. Thanks to another friend Lisa and her daughter Alex (Hadley’s bestie), we were able to finish everything before noon.

My heart went out to Hadley as sweet Alex presented her with a going-away present. They’ve literally been friends since birth and Alex knows our house (and pantry) as well as her own. The good news is Alex has three siblings at nearby BYU so she’ll be coming to Utah a lot. In fact, her brother Mitch is getting married this week so Alex is spending the night with us in Park City.

As I walked through the empty house for the final time, that is when the outpouring of emotion came. This is where we became a family. This is where I became a mother. This is where we brought our children home from the hospital. This is where they spent their entire childhood. This is where, when I walked in the door as a young newlywed, I marveled at the wonder of it all and thought, “I will never be unhappy here.” And, despite all the storms that have been thrown our way during the 12 years we lived there, joy has always prevailed.

Family Room

As we closed the doors for the final time, we huddled in prayer in the garage. I was a sobbing mess and Jamie gave a beautiful prayer of gratitude for the beautiful life we lived there. Before we pulled out, I posted the following on Facebook:

5337 Parfet Street was where we became a family and honestly where I thought we’d live until we died. Thank you to all the wonders who worked around the clock to help us with this disastrous move; you are what we’ll miss the most about glorious Colorado. Now, excuse me while I cry the entire drive to Utah.

I did cry most of the way but when we stopped for lunch in Wyoming, I read the wonderful comments so many dear friends had left me. One, in particular, came at the exact moment I needed comfort. When Jamie and I were newly married, I taught the Old Testament in early-morning seminary to 16-year-olds. One of my students, Sariah, was super attentive and mature beyond her years and shared something I had said 13 years ago that she’d never forgotten.

 I remember you telling our class about this house in seminary before you bought it. You wanted the other model house with the loft, but you both prayed about it and knew you should take this one. I remember you saying you were trying to pretend the other was the answer: “But Jesus wants the loft!!” I remember you sharing your testimony about choosing what God wants instead of just what you want. I’ll always think of that when I think of you and houses. Much luck and love in your new one!!

Here’s to hoping….