Moving Out

So, this will probably disappoint all you people anxiously awaiting pictures of London (or maybe not, maybe I'm just flattering myself that that many people check out my blog?) but first I have a few other things to blog about: Moving out of our LA apartment, our weekend in Fresno, our week in Corporate Housing, our few days in Utah then England.

My mom came down from Fresno the week before we moved out of our apartment to help us get everything taken care of. We did manage to get a few fun things in, too. On Valentines morning, she and I went to the Newport Temple to do an endowment session. She came with Brent and I to the open house a few years ago, before the temple was dedicated, so it was fun to go back with her.

That night, we went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. We got there early but still had to wait almost an hour to be seated. It was worth it though, especially since most of the meal was paid for in gift cards. Yummy! (Cheesecake is my favorite dessert, FYI)

We did a lot of packing. A lot. There were boxes and packing materials and piles of Goodwill things and trash piles and luggage EVERYWHERE! All week. It was such a mess! You would think the 2+ months I spent working and organizing and getting ready before she got there would have made a dent. It sure didn't feel like it at 1am every morning. On Wednesday, the 18th, the movers came to get our air and sea shipments packed and on their way to England. We didn't have to pack any of those things which was nice but kind of frustrating at the same time. It took a lot of coordinating to keep the "To England" piles separate from the "Storage" and "Goodwill" and "To-do" piles. It got a lot easier though once the movers left with half of our belongings.


Watching the professionals pack up our stuff was very educational. Mom and I kept looking at each other and thinking, how do they do that? They wrapped up everything, even the couches! They came with 4 guys and just went to town on our stuff. I'm glad we had everything organized so well so we could just point and say that entire side of the room or nothing in this room, etc. They were super nice and left us some extra boxes, packing paper and several sheets of the big wrapping paper stuff to wrap our storage furniture in. It was a lot of coordinating, we were really worn out by the time they were done and we hadn't packed a single thing all morning. I did have to sign approximately 84,732 forms though. Hooray for insurance and customs! Not to mention the several page long inventory that Brent, Mom and I put together documenting every single thing we were sending and how much it would cost to replace, broken down by room. So. Much. Paperwork. Do we look tired?


Brent picked up the Penske that night and we had a few guys come over to help us load the piano, dresser, desk and other large furniture that is being stored at my mom's house. Thanks, guys!

Thursday morning mom and I went to the garment district in downtown LA to buy fabric. We mostly bought for my sister who wanted to bulk up her supplies before her LA connections were gone but I did buy a few yards of really cute stuff that I can't wait to use. I made extra room in my suitcase for that purpose.

Thursday and friday brought more packing. Lots and lots of packing. Are you sensing a theme? Brent took friday off of work and luckily our building's new maintenance guy was staying in his RV outside of our building and finished his work early, so he carried most of the boxes down the stairs to Brent who genius-ly packed the truck. We used pretty much every square inch of that sucker. We were REALLY thankful that Matt (the maintenance guy) was there because Mom and Brent were sick and we had all been staying up past midnight all week and there was NO way we could have gotten all those boxes down the stairs in the 4 hours it took Matt. Don't worry, we paid him well and bought him lunch.

Brent drove off with our stuff around 5pm on Friday and mom and I were about an hour behind him once we got all the last minute things wrapped up in the apartment.

It was kind of hard to drive away. We made a lot of memories in that apartment. I certainly won't miss the job, but the free rent and the fun times we had will be missed. I cried a little. Surprised?

Here we go...

Ok, we are finally almost leaving. (That was an odd sentence). Our stuff has been packed and on it's way for over a week, we've been living out of suitcases since then and we are on the last leg of our transient stage. We leave for Utah in the morning and will be flying to London on Wednesday. (What?!) Our little paper chain has been whittled away to practically nothing and we are running out of places to eat out at. I'm ready to go.

I most likely won't get a chance to blog again until we get our computer back next weekend. It's weird enough that I'm typing this post at the library down the street from our Corporate Housing. I just wanted to stop in and say hello. And goodbye.

See you on the other side! :)

Flashback Friday - Valentine's Day

So in honor of tomorrow, I thought I'd dredge up some memories of V-days past. Now if only I had pictures to go along with them...

'03 - Our first Valentine's Day - Brent's freshman year roommate was getting married in SLC so Brent picked me up from my apartment and had roses and an "I love you" balloon for me. We drove to SLC and I walked around the mall while Brent was in the temple. I bought him a silver picture frame and put in a picture of me for him to keep in his room and a little red bear. Why I gave a grown man a tiny teddy bear, I do not know. After the sealing, we had an early dinner at The Garden (a restaurant on the top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building) and then went to the reception in Sandy. After the reception I think we went to the dollar theater to see a movie. Probably a chick flick.

'04 - Our first Valentine's Day as a married couple - Brent picked me up from work in the evening and we went to Little Caesars and picked up a $5 pizza which we then ate in the car in the parking lot of the movie theater. We had planned to eat outside somewhere but it was raining. We saw Phantom of the Opera. Brent had flowers waiting for me when we got home.

'05 - Don't remember. Probably involved flowers and eating out somewhere and/or a movie. Are you seeing a pattern here?

'06 - We were both working a lot here in LA that year so we didn't have time to do anything big. I think the day before I gave Brent a card, the day of we grabbed some take-out the next day Brent had flowers and a nice relaxing bubble bath drawn for me (candles and music and all) when I got home from a long day at work (it was also something to occupy me since he was really busy studying).

'07 - We had an early dinner then Brent headed off to do Food Pantry. When he got home, we watched a movie and had ice cream. I'm sure he gave me flowers and I gave him a card.

'08 - We had an early dinner then Brent headed off to a High Council meeting. Traditional flowers and card were exchanged afterward.

'09 - The big plan this year is for Brent to study all morning while my mom and I go to the Newport Beach temple then we'll go to the Griffith Observatory all together then out to eat at Cheesecake Factory because we have gift cards. Maybe we'll do some packing too. Brent will probably get me flowers, I'll probably make him a card and maybe we'll buy momma some flowers too.

As you can see, we're not huge Valentine's Day-ers. I don't mind that. We've never been big on giving each other gifts. I mean, obviously we do on birthdays and Christmas but for minor things like V-day and anniversaries, we just like to spend time together and apparently eat and look at flowers and read cards. We're simple. It's easy.

Happy Valentine's Day, Brent! I love you!!!

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

So do you remember back in Dec when I said this?

"I promise when we get back [from Christmas in UT], I'll start blogging more regularly. Ever since Nov, I've just been too swamped to blog."

Well, I lied. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I really did want to get back to blogging 2 or so times a week. I guess I just forgot that I was moving halfway across the planet and that it takes a lot of time and work to do that. I won't make any more promises like that. In fact, starting next friday, for a couple of weeks we won't even have regular access to a computer so don't expect much from me.

Anyway, we've been super busy. Our paper chain only has like 23 more loops. (Yikes!) And we've had family in town off and on for the past 2 weeks. We loved having them here but now that they are all gone, I'm remembering how much we have left to do.

Here's a little bit of what we've been up to lately:

Sold my car. It was a sad day in a way. That car was the first big purchase Brent and I ever made. We didn't intend on buying a car when we went out to test drive some that day back in 2004. As we pulled into our driveway that night with our new car we looked at each other and both had a look of "What the heck did we just do?!" on our faces. $10,000 is a lot to commit to when you are newlywed college students but we managed just fine and got it paid off a year before the due date. It was strange to watch it drive away with me not in it.

Had Brent's parents and grandparent in town. We went to The Price is Right, Brent and his dad studied a lot and we went to the Los Angeles & Newport Beach temples. And what would a trip to Newport Beach be with out a stop at the Crab Cooker? It was Brent's grandparents' first time to LA since we moved here in 2005.

Had the Gordon Girls in town for a week. We mostly just hung out inside because it was too rainy to go out. We did make it to an indoor play place (the camera died 2 pictures in so there is no documentation of that) and the play place at the mall (that was an interesting experience to say the least and we were all glad we didn't bring the camera). Jake and his brother came saturday night after their Disneyland trip and we all went out to eat and then went to church together the next day before they all had to leave. We had so much fun with the little girls (and the big Gordons). We love being so involved in their lives and with the kiddos. There is just something so special about having a little person, who you love so much, be excited to see you. I love when they learn to say our names. Brent and I tried to get in as much snugly time with the nieces as we could. It was not enough...

So there you have it. A brief update. Maybe I'll get one more in before we go. Maybe not. We'll just have to wait and see...