First of all, people love us. We are so lucky to be living in a place full of members of the Church who take care of each other and serve. We have never felt so loved in a ward before. We will miss it.
On packing day, we didn't ask anybody to come. In fact, we had just mentioned in passing that we would be packing up that day, and people just came. Just drove by to see whether we were working, and joined in.
{Tory, Andrea and Matt Smith; Chad, Paul, Kenny, and Curtis Twitchell, and Brad}
This ward has taught me that people learn to love each other when they serve each other and accept service. I have never felt so much love and family-ness in a ward before. I can't emphasize that enough. I want to go on and on. I hope I can be the ward member that my friends have been here to me. Brad and I leave Church every Sunday and remark to each other, "We can't leave. We have too many friends here." So we want to come back. Desperately. But not before we share the love with other wards.
{Cory, Angela Brown, Andrea Smith}
{Chad Twitchell and Brad}
{Curtis Twitchell, Marissa and Riley Smith}
Anyway.
Second of all, I am so big. Grace says that when she's proud of herself, and so I am saying it now since I drove a 17-foot U-Haul from Carlsbad to Prosper without Brad and with two little kids. I must also say that I am very proud of Grace since the recently-potty-trained-girl only had to take one single potty break. Which was good. Since it's hard to squish into a stall while holding a nine-month old and helping a three-year-old onto the toilet (while constantly reminding her not[!] to touch the toilet. or the walls. or the "sanitary napkin" basket.).
Second of all, I am so big. Grace says that when she's proud of herself, and so I am saying it now since I drove a 17-foot U-Haul from Carlsbad to Prosper without Brad and with two little kids. I must also say that I am very proud of Grace since the recently-potty-trained-girl only had to take one single potty break. Which was good. Since it's hard to squish into a stall while holding a nine-month old and helping a three-year-old onto the toilet (while constantly reminding her not[!] to touch the toilet. or the walls. or the "sanitary napkin" basket.).
And I found myself relatively competent with a truck. Sort of. No accidents. Not any major ones, anyway. Although I did sort of brush one of those big steel bars they have at the gas station to prevent people from running into the pumps. Kind of embarrassing. And potentially (although thankfully not in the end) dangerous.
For anyone who's interested, we are not officially gone from Carlsbad yet. Brad still has some work to finish up there, and we still have a lot of work to do on our house before it's actually marketable (did I mention that we decided not to keep it?). This week, he is at scout camp on his last hurrah as ward Scoutmaster. And since I am not good at one week of kids by myself, we decided to move our stuff out of the house and spend the week with Papa and Grandma Betsy. We will go back to Carlsbad at the end of this week and... sleep on the floor. Yay!
{The front door of our house which sports a new front step. It happened to be poured the same day as moving day. Kind of awkward. But funny.}
Elise, you are SO big. I couldn't do that even withOUT the kids. I'm so proud of you.
ReplyDeleteWOW I am so impressed! I don't think I could have handled that! I would have been scared to death.
ReplyDeleteI so thoroughly enjoy reading your posts. I love your writing, as I always find myself smiling and get kind of sucked in a little--like when I'm reading a good book. I'm grateful for Elise posts :)
ReplyDeleteElise - that is amazing you drove the truck with the two kids. We split our kids up when we move. Danica gets so excited to sit in the front seat (of the moving truck). I can't imagine driving the truck - Dave always does that part - although I did get to try to drive it out of the mud. Dave didn't think I should be the one pushing. I am so glad you had lots of help moving. Glad we have blogs to keep in touch.
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