The Move

It's been 52 (ish) days since we left Northwest Arkansas and I can honestly say those days have the been some of the longest of my life. Our relocation to the Gulfport area has been such a long process. Although we left Arkansas the first of March, we are just now beginning to settle down.

Let me explain:

When we began our packing/moving process I came down with a flu-like virus. I had cold sweats, high fevers, an achy body...it was horrible. I had it for about a week, and of course I passed it on to my husband who then gave it to our boys. All in all, this virus stuck around for about a month. As you can imagine, it made the moving process all the more difficult. We had originally planned to be leaving NWA on the 31st of February. We made all the proper arrangements with our landlord and picked up the moving truck bright and early on the 30th to ensure we left on time. As we began to load the truck, we realized we weren't going to be able to fit everything. We then called my oh so wonderful Father in Law and begged him to bring his truck up, which he did. Even with my FIL's help, we didn't get out of NWA until the 1st.
That part of the move was pretty bad. We were all sick and it took forever, but thanks to Dennis we were able to get it done. Little did we know, this was just the beginning.

When Jon accepted this job, our biggest concern about relocating was not knowing the area. We had never been to Gulfport and had no idea what the housing situation would be like or what to expect with the cost of living. So, we decided to put everything in storage and live in temporary housing until we could get a feel for the area. We spent the first 4 weeks in a beach cottage just off of HWY 90. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it was in the right place at the right price so we made do.(I know, "making do" with a house just off the beach...oh what a hard life right?) Well, we rolled into Gulfport at about 9:00 at night. Thankfully, the Bishop and several Elders were there to help unload the truck. I don't know what we would have done without them! After 2 hours or so, they had everything unloaded into the storage unit. We moved a few things into the beach house and began our new adventure.

Our Beach House

Not a bad view, eh?

Our first trip to the beach. It was pretty chilly that day, but the boys loved it.

This little guy had no fear whatsoever! He ran straight into the water the moment I put him down.

After a week we went back to the storage unit to get some movies and to check on our stuff. Everything seems to be fine. We left without any issues. A week later we came back again to get our stroller. This time we noticed a problem. Mouse droppings. Lots of mouse droppings. We started looking around and heard scuffling in one of our boxes. We immediately informed management and took a few pictures of our unit. They told us they couldn't really do anything but they would send their maintenance man to lay down poison Monday morning. It was Friday. We told them that was unacceptable and we went out and laid our own traps and poison. We came back Monday morning and found that we had caught two mice. We took pictures and started looking through some of our stuff. We began to see damage. Quite a bit of damage. We saw holes in our couch, we saw holes in some of our boxes, and we saw droppings everywhere. We had only been in the unit 3 weeks and this is what happened. Thankfully, we had found a house to rent and we moved out that weekend. We lost our couch, our bed, our box spring, the boys bed, our stroller, some books, and several boxes of clothes. We took pictures as we went and have filed a claim with our insurance, but haven't heard anything yet. The best part is that as we were cleaning out the unit, we met our "unit neighbors" who were also moving out because of the rodent problem. They had been there two months longer than us and they said that they had told management about the problem back in February. Nothing was done. They knew about it before we moved in and they didn't say a word to us! Oh, I can tell you that this Mama was not happy.

We lost a few of our books.

We stored our couch on it's side. As we were getting ready to move it out we heard movement on the inside. Jon dropped the couch and we backed away. A few seconds later mice came running out from holes like this one. It was, seriously, the most disgusting thing I've ever seen.

On top of everything else, while we were living in the beach house we had our mail forwarded to my in-laws. Well, when we found our house, I switched our mail to our new address. Silly me, I put on the form that our whole family was moving. It didn't occur to me that my in-laws shared our last name. Their mail started shipping to us. When they tried to fix it, our mail started shipping to them again. All this time, we were waiting for Jon's first paycheck and it was stuck in Postal Service Limbo!

Now we are in April. Jon's paychecks are being directly deposited, we have moved into our new house, we have new couches and a new bed, (no box spring yet, just the mattress. William is sleeping in his pack n play, Spencer is on William's crib mattress on the floor.) and things are finally starting to settle.

I have to say, that although we have had to deal with lots of unpleasantness in this move, we have had an absolute outpouring of blessings. Everything has somehow worked out and I know that Heavenly Father has been guiding us the entire way. It's been a rough beginning, but I'm so thankful for the opportunities this job has opened up for my family. I just hope the next few months are quiet and uneventful. :) 

Our new couch...

...loveseat...

...and club chair!