Texas

We are finally in Texas!! We spent our last weekend in Idaho doing a lot of packing. We had an ABF trailer dropped off at our house so we could load all our stuff and ship it to our new apartment in Texas. With a lot of help from family, we were able to load everything we own into our trailer. It is a little nerve wracking putting everything you own in a trailer, let someone take it and hope it all ends up where it's supposed to without any harm.

We decided to take a more southern route through Utah, New Mexico, and western Texas in hopes of avoiding bad roads in Wyoming and Colorado. Our first stop was in Salt Lake City where we stayed with my brother. The next morning we set off on a long drive to Farmington, New Mexico, which was about 6 1/2 hours from Salt Lake City. We wanted to keep our drives somewhat short for Mason's sake. I didn't want him in a car seat for too long on our drive. This part of the drive was Malone and my favorite because we got to go through Moab and see the a little bit of the cool rock formations in the Arches National Park. We eventually stopped in NM for the night. Not a fan of Farmington, at least the parts that we saw. Looked a little sketchy. The next morning we drove to Amarillo, TX. The drive through New Mexico was the worst! It was so boring and ugly. I have never seen that much sage brush in my life. And all the pretty rocky mountains turned into flat nothingness. Ugly. This was one of the longer drives, I think it was 7 hours or so. We did pass through Albuquerque, which was okay. Just a big ol city in the desert. I am so glad Malone didn't get a job in New Mexico! We reached Amarillo safe and sound. The next morning we grabbed breakfast at Denny's and headed out once more. This time to Lewisville, Texas our final destination! This was about a 5-6 hour drive from Amarillo. Texas is also quite flat like NM, and there is a lot of sagebrush in between cities.

But we reached Lewisville, and there were lots of trees! Even though everything is dead here right now during winter months, I think it'll be way pretty when it warms up. Warms up?! Yes it is like 30-40 degrees here most days. It's been quite cold and windy and rainy/snow mix here. A lot colder than I expected! There has been this arctic chill throughout the country right now. Way cold everywhere. We even had a little smidge of snow the other day, which of course was a big deal because this place isn't built for snow. The roads got extremely slick, people drive crazy and crash. Kind of reminds me of Rexburg, only the locals have or sense there. It's supposed to warm up again next week, thankfully. Anyway, we got here to our apartment that last day of driving and got checked in so we could move in the next day. We stayed in a hotel again that night because our trailer hadn't showed up with our stuff yet. The next morning the trailer showed up with our stuff! Yay! And very minimal damage as well, which was great. Malone started moving some stuff out of the trailer himself. I was in the apartment with Mason, since I didn't feel comfortable leaving him in the apartment by himself while we were hauling things in. Malone has a friend from school, named Duncan, that works at the same company as him. So Malone called him up to see if he could come help us move, but he couldn't come that day. But I guess Duncan mentioned we needed help to a buddy of his named Mike who works at the same company. And Mike called Malone and offered to help. So he came by and helped us move a few things for a couple hours that evening. Around dinner time he invited us over for dinner at his apartment. So Malone and I went, and we made some new friends! They were so nice! We stayed in a hotel again that night and came back the next morning to move more stuff. Mike showed up and brought his brother with him to help us move. And then a neighbor kid about 15 yrs old offered to help us out, which was so nice of him. We got everything moved in and it's taken us a while to get everything settled in, trying to find a place to put everything. Our apartment is a 2 bed 2 bath. Masons room serves as our storage room at the moment. We have a lot of stuff we are still trying to find a place for. It's tough going from a house to an apartment!

Moab, UT

New Mexico

Texas

Altivo enjoying our new apartment!

Got a little skiff of snow the other day

So, our first impressions of Texas. I have to say, I've been impressed! The people here have been nothing but kind. We went to church our first Sunday and the ward members were very friendly and inviting. So many came up to us wanting to meet us. We had a few members stop by our apartment to welcome us as well, a few faces I was able to recognize when we went to church our first day. Even out and about in town, the people have been really friendly. It has been easy to fit in here so far. Our bishop says people are friendly here because no one is actually from here. So many people move here from other places for work etc. Makes sense I guess. The weather here, like I said, has been cold, 40's mostly. But looking at the forecast it will warm up to the 60's and 70's this weekend and next week. We sampled a little southern BBQ as well and that's been delish! So I am looking forward to trying new food around here as well. So far so good here in Texas. We are enjoying our new life!

Mason fitting in with his cute cowboy outfit