Mississippi

I guess this is the next chapter in our lives. Sigh. Isaac is in tall cotton (quite the figure of speech from here in the South) with all the newness and adventure, and I have a constant knot that oscillates between  my stomach and throat. I just wish he'd understand, he just wishes I'd jump in on all of the "fun" Oh well I guess we'll learn together.
I should be doing something to make progress on the apt hunt but both my boys are asleep and the blog is a bit of stress relief for me so here we go...
The sign says they'll miss us, but really we'll miss them. I cried when I walked out the door to church and saw it.

I try to keep the blog positive, or at least mostly positive, but most of the positive things this week were in that tender mercy or the Lord category. I've recorded a little more in my journal journal but sufficed for here on the blog, Heavenly Father is mindful of all of us and I am grateful. Sunday was hard hard so many hugs and tears, as much as we've loved the Ivins 2nd ward, they've loved us back even more. I HATE Goodbyes~have I mentioned that? I don't think there's anything "Good" about them, and well, mostly I'm just hopeful that we'll get to go back.
Where to begin..
Saturday we loaded.

While we took our car, our bulky couch that I'm not attached to at all but Isaac was under the impression that I was, and a random collection of what we could fit or stuff in the car, or whatever, even the sea hawk even made it on at the last minute (don't ask me why) we also left a lot behind...a lot as in pretty much all our furniture, head board, night stands, book case, desk, Cannon's furniture. My brother is so nice, we've taken over a whole corner of his garage (thankfully he has it and its huge) and my parents attic...there's a lot of junk there too. Plus the whole load we took to Huntington a couple weeks ago. The great news is we have to go back to get our stuff :) Then we camped in our own house Sat. and Sunday  nights. There was a lot of stress and tension on Saturday, and a big question as to whether it would be wise (and safe) for Cannon and I to go with Isaac or if we should just fly out and meet him. Isaac was good with either but of course would have preferred for us to go as a family. Sunday morning my dad called and they had taken my Grama to the hospital. Her health is not good right now so when I heard that I decided to stay.
Monday morning he was gone before 7:00.

I didn't hear a lot but I know he had some trouble. 7 hours later he was still in Page, Az when I got that first call I was so relieved weren't with him (its should be about a 3 hour drive). It was slow going but all he'd say was that it was going "okay" and he didn't have a car charger for his phone so he'd turn it off to conserve battery so I didn't hear from him much. He did finally by a charger. He seems slightly offended when I say he pulled our cruddy car on our cruddy trailer with our cruddy truck. I just thought it was the truth. It worked though and I wasn't with him so whatever right? (I still haven't seen our stuff to see if it really survived though) For us Monday turned out to be a big bonus day. I pretty much felt like my life had been extended. Tuesday I caught a temple session with a few extra phone calls to be able to get in since my recommend was on its way to Mississippi. We just played and cherished the extra hours and minutes and put off finishing cleaning our house because then I had a reason to go back and it was still home. Wednesday we hit the splash pad I could have cartwheeled clear over to the little shade tree I was so excited. Isaac made it to Jackson on Wednesday so I got online to buy a plane ticket for Friday. Somehow I ended up buying one at 10:00 at night for Thursday morning, the next morning. HOLY HEART BREAK and disaster. The two best neighbors in the universe (Kristin and Kalyn) came and helped me finish cleaning my house out while I cried (and cussed) a lot and in a wirlwind I we were gone. So so sad to say goodbye. I'm going to cry again typing it so moving on...Despite a 3 hour layover in Salt Lake and 4+ hour delay in Atlanta (UG, I could do without that city again) we made it, and here we are.  Cannon was happy to see his dad and play with some of Ayla's toys. It was such a long miserable day. I tried to get a picture with the plane in the background but they didn't work. Here we are sitting on the floor in Atlanta, of course there weren't any chairs left...

 

 

Some of the other pics from the week, just cuz I can't get enough:

GRAMPA's DOGs. They had to be #1. I'm sure Samps got enough extra treats to make up for Cannon riding him.

 

 

 And we played with Aunt Laur and rode Uncle Will's bike (blurry phone pic)

Driving the cool cart at Home Depot.

 

And a picture of Isaac's tree he got for his first fathers day so I'll have record of it...I mentioned it at one point and the sentimental value hoping it would mean we couldn't leave. Of course I got the response "Should we dig it up and take it with us?" I'll settle for the picture for now. 

So Mississippi it is, at least for now. The mountain-less Forrest here is EVERYWHERE and super THICK. Isaac said something about learning about the civil war in school and remembering hearing that armies would get ambushed on the road. He thought it was so stupid that they would even be on the road but after seeing what its like here it made more sense, they would have HAD to be on the road. It was kind of a cool thought that I wouldn't have had on my own. 

This is just right out side Blake and Annie's apt but it shows how thick it is.

As things happen I think "I've got to remember that for the blog" but after thinking that at least 7 times today I have no idea what any of them were. Its muggy here but not hot. So far, the people are all very nice, I guess that southern hospitality thing is legit. After 1 day I'm pretty sure I could pull off the southern accent thing if I wanted...oh brother...I get telling Isaac what somebody said though and I can totally say it like they say it! Now how am I going to avoid talking like that if we're really here for 4 years?! Oh well. (or should I say Oh "Whale" with long extended a sound. HAHA)

Ok I guess this is it until I remember more of those things I wasn't going to forget.