What I Had Planned

I had planned to do a really nice farewell post for our home in Montana. I thought of the playground we helped build and that has pickets with my kids' names on them. I thought of the pool where we spent so much of our summers, the library newly remodeled that my kids love to visit. There was the burger joint, Crazy Woman Trading Company, and of course, our house. I wanted to go around town and take pictures of the places that we love, post them with sweet thoughts.

BUT, it was seven degrees and the wind was blowing forty miles an hour. There was no way I was going to step outside to take a single picture. The morning we left Nathan had to go outside to tie down the four-wheelers on the trailer. The wind had picked up even more. They were expecting gusts of seventy miles an hour in Livingston. He came back inside (very irritated) and said that maybe it was a sign we should just stay. I laughed. Maybe it was a sign we should get the heck out of Montana and never look back.

Coming through Livingston, I signaled Nathan to take the cut-off through town. Crazy man that he is, he didn't. He took the freeway over the mountain. I followed in the Expedition pulling the ATV trailer. He was in a 26 foot U-haul pulling our car. It blew so hard at the top of the hill that I could see the side of the truck, and I was in the same lane. While the truck was pulling, the wind blew his back tires toward the shoulder of the road. He had both girls in the truck with him. When we got to the bottom of the hill, I realized I'd been holding my breath. My heart was pounding. It was so scary.

Seven hours later when we reached our new home, the sun was shining. It was twenty-three degrees with NO WIND. We haven't felt even a small breeze since we've been here. It snowed all day while we unloaded the U-Haul. Nathan and I were wearing hooded sweatshirts and gloves. Yesterday it was thirty-seven degrees. It feels like SPRING! Every time we've talked to someone from our old town, we ask, "Is the wind still blowing?" The answer is always yes.

Ethan and Mazie are already terrorizing the neighborhood on their bikes. We attended our ward on Sunday. It is HUGE!!! Relief Society alone had more people than the sacrament meeting in the branch. I expected to come in quietly, sit on the back row and mind my own business. I expected that they'd ask Nathan and I to introduce ourselves in Gospel Doctrine class. Everyone would nod and say hello, then we'd be ignored. We walked in the door fifteen minutes early and sacrament meeting had already started. This couldn't be right, I thought. Mormons don't arrive or start anything EARLY. So, we wandered around the building and found our ward. It has Relief Society/Priesthood meetings first. One of the sisters in the Relief Society presidency offered to show us around. Pretty soon a nice gentleman came around the corner and said, "You must be ...." They'd already received our records. People knew our names. A sister came and sat by me. Her daughter is in Ethan's class.

Wow, I thought. They really care that we're here. Also, I'd forgotten how small the boundaries are around here. Pretty much everyone I met lives on my street or one of the streets on either side. I've now met half the neighborhood. Even the school secretary is in our ward. She walked up to me and said, "How are you, Michelle?" It was nice to see one familiar face. Our ward has an assigned temple night every month. The Relief Society sisters have a craft group and an exercise group. They also have a group that goes every Tuesday morning to the temple.

Yesterday Dylan was invited over to a new friend's house. This new friend is in his class and in the ward. They live two houses down.

Our house faces east. This is the view from our living room window. (Okay, it's actually from the front step because the window is grossly dirty!) Its sort of ironic. We left the small town in the mountains and now we live closer to the mountains. Yes, I think we'll be fine here. I just hope Nathan likes his job and that someone buys our house soon.