One Last Stop

Saturday, the 28th, we drove to Utah for one last stop before the big move. I got a call about 8 hours into our drive from my sister, Cami, saying that 2 of our siblings (Teri & Nathan) would be at her house around 6:30 for a little bit because they happened to be in town for their grandmothers funeral and that we should stop in on our way up to Taylorsville. It worked out well, because 6:30 was right when we were driving through Provo, anyway. Good timing! It was good to see them all. I hadn't seen Nathan since 2005 at our Grandmother Black's funeral and we hadn't seen Cami or Teri since our trip up for Christmas. We were pretty tired from driving all day but we had a few good laughs and shared some stories and things. Not the best circumstances to see them, but nice nonetheless.

Sunday we went to church with Brent's parents and then after church the rest of the Gray clan and the extended family came over for dinner and socializing. We had fun playing with Hannah & Jocelyn (the babies) and talking to all of the cousins and aunts and uncles. I didn't get very many pictures and what I do have is of the little ones, but they are the best part anyway, right?

Monday morning we were going to go to the Draper Temple open house but I was REALLY sick. I starting feeling sick late Sunday night and by Monday morning I couldn't even stand up without practically falling over. So, I took some drugs and went back to sleep while Brent, his parents, Camille (his sister) and Jared (Brent's cousin), Ceyln and Jocelyn Pond went to the temple. Brent said it was beautiful and that the celestial room has the tallest ceiling he has ever seen. The chandelier is 13'-14' and is hanging from a chain at least that long.

Monday afternoon, I scraped myself out of bed and we drove down to Utah County to visit people. Our first stop was Spanish Fork to see the Rowley's (Luke & Sarah and their 3 kids), friends from California that moved back to UT a couple years ago. (Funny side story: Luke lived in the same ward as me when I was in junior high/high school and was friends with my older siblings. It was funny to meet back up with he and his wife in Studio City, of all places.) We had lunch and visited for about and hour or so but didn't take any pictures. Darn!

Then we went to Provo, back to Cami's house. We hung out and giggled and played with Luis' sister, Ana's baby Kenley, and ate food and talked about fabric and making things and watched a dog show (yeah, yeah, I know) and the boys played video games. For a couple of hours, my dear friend, Jessica, came over to visit. I haven't seen her in a couple of years so it was nice to hug and what not. She is my oldest friend that I am still close to. We have known each other since elementary school. I love her.

After a few hours there, it was getting late and I was feeling pretty crummy. You can see in the photos how I'm all flushed and shiny. I had a pretty bad fever off and on the whole time we were there. Ugh! So we left. We had a few other people we would have loved to have seen but I was too sick.

On Tuesday, I was feeling a bit better so I did a little last minute shopping with my mother-in-law, LeAnn, while Brent stayed home and took care of some last minute financial things to make sure we were all settled with our accounts and things before we split the country.

That evening, we had a big family picture taken with the whole Gray clan. They are getting the pictures back tomorrow so maybe I'll be able to post some here in the next week or so. They turned out pretty cute. It's getting harder to have family pictures taken because we have so many people. Isn't that just a wonderful problem to have? I love it. Hopefully soon, we'll be too big of a group to fit in a studio.

That night, Grandma & Grandpa Duzett and Jared, Celyn & Jocelyn all came over and we had a bit of a party. Some of us watched a movie and some of us played Scotland Yard because, well, we just had to! It was a blast and we stayed up way too late and we said most of our goodbyes.

We gave Dan & Andrea the present for Hannah's birthday which is coming up next month. I made it for her back in LA before the packing and moving all happened. I got the idea from my friend's website and then made up my own pattern. I think it's hilarious. Possibly the funniest thing I've ever made. Those long, bendy legs sure do match Hannah's!

Wednesday morning Brent's dad gave us father's blessings so that we could feel settled spiritually before this big adventure and we had a nice breakfast with Brent's mom. Then we spent a couple hours packing and organizing and shuffling weight between suitcases so that we wouldn't be paying too many overweight bag fees. We got it all settled except for one bag was 11 pounds overweight. We figured since we didn't pay for the plane tickets, we could pay for one bag fee. Little did we know that ANY overage on international bags is $350! Good grief! When the lady at the airport told us that, we found a way to get rid of some excess weight, we carried our small duffel of dirty clothes on board with us. It was odd but it worked. The Salt Lake airport is notorious for being ridiculously meticulous with the security so we were worried we'd run late but everything was smooth and we still had 30 minutes before boarding. Then off we went!

Life As A Gypsy -or- How We Survived With Nothing But A Few Suitcases Of Stuff

The Monday after our weekend in Fresno, we drove back to LA so Brent could go back to work for a week. We checked into our corporate housing and upon entering, set off the alarm!! Ahh! They did not tell us about an alarm when we picked up the keys and no one answered the phone at the secretary's desk OR the security desk. So we were standing there, with the alarm blaring, waiting for cops to show up but no one ever came. Eventually the alarm stopped. But then it started again. Still no one answered any phones we called. No cops. Not even the gardener whose truck was in the driveway came. Odd. So Brent went back to the office to the check-in desk to get the code. He came back, ready with the code, then the gardener showed up. Dumb. The experience was scary, then annoying, then REALLY loud, then annoying, then just dumb. AND no one ever responded to the alarm. Sure made me feel safe. Oh well, we were in a good neighborhood and Brent's office was literally across the parking lot in case anything did ever happen. So that was the beginning to our week.

During the week, Brent worked, I slept in and ran some last minute errands that didn't get taken care of before we moved out. I also went to my last Young Women's activity. They had a little party for me. It was nice to see them all one more time and they gave me a tote bag full of goodies and snacks and magazines for the plane. It really came in handy, several times. I also went to the library a few times to use the internet. That was weird. And gross. The people at the library using the computers generally fall into these categories: creepy, homeless, creepy & homeless, pervy, kids skipping school and sad ladies looking for jobs on monster.com. I wonder which one people thought I was?

Corporate Housing was kind of boring, kind of relaxing and there was a housekeeper to make my bed. The house was pretty nice. It was a pretty big house with all of the common areas and 6 private rooms with bathrooms. Of the 6 rooms, 2 of them were filled, us and the dude in the room next door. Not sure why they put the only 2 occupants next to each other but whatever. He snored like a chainsaw! Luckily, we were so tired, we usually slept right through it.

The diningroom, looking into the breakfast room & kitchen


The hallway to our room (#2) & our room. Pardon the mess, I should've taken pictures before we settled.


The entryway & livingroom, us on the morning we left

Brent loved his commute and we went out to lunch together at some of his favorite places almost everyday. We also ate out for most of the dinners, 2 of which we shared with good friends. Eating out got old, though. And I'm pretty sure I gained back the 5 pounds I stress-lost during moving week.

Our house and the view of Brent's office from our bathroom.

All in all, it was a good week. An interesting one to say the least but a good one. Saturday morning we loaded up the car and hit the road. We thought it was pretty cool that we drove out of LA on the same freeway we drove in on. This might not mean anything to those of you who don't live in LA but there are dozens of freeways and the one we were on we've only taken twice, on the way in and the way out. I kept trying to get a good picture of the city out the back window but by the time I'd get a good view, get the camera ready and take the picture, it was all wrong. Oh well! It was strange to think that it was the last time we'd see LA for awhile. We reminisced about the day we drove in and saw that skyline and felt overwhelmed at what we'd gotten ourselves into. Now it's "home". Or I should say, was. I got a little teary. Shocker, huh?


What could have been a really awesome picture if I would've been a little faster & the picture that will have to do.

Next stop? Utah. I'll try to get that up tomorrow. No promises though...

Fresno Farewells

After packing up all of our belongings, we drove to Fresno for a few days to see my family one more time and to unload our Penske full of storage stuff.

We got there late on Friday night and just crashed for the night. The next day, after Brent got all drugged up and slept for a few extra hours (remember, he was really sick), we went out to lunch with my parents, my sister Tiffani and her baby Sam & my brother and his girlfriend and their baby True. We ate at Tahoe Joe's. It was super yummy, I had the Calamari Steak. Best. Calamari. Ever. It was fun to have some "grown-up" time.

After lunch, we went back to my parents' house and unloaded the truck. My step-dad had extra room in his trailer for us to put our stuff in and is so nice to let us keep it there for the 2 years we are here. It is saving us thousands in storage fees or the alternative was sell all our stuff, which seemed uneccessary and we'd still have to find a place to store all of our memorabilia stuff. Then we dropped the piano off at Kris' house so he and his girls can babysit it for us.
(I told you he was very creative in packing the truck!)

Saturday night we relaxed and hung out with mom and Bob and watched tv and movies and talked.

Sunday, we went to Stake Conference with the Makely's while mom stayed home and slept (remember, she was really sick, too). After church, we went back to the Makely's house and played games and had food and talked and snuggled babies (well, Brent couldn't because he was sick but I sure did!). Kris and the girls and mom came over for awhile, too.


Sunday night, we went back to my parents' house and had a yummy tri-tip dinner with them. Bob knew we'd have a hard time finding his quality of tri-tip over here so it was a "last supper" kind of deal. Yum! Yum! Yum!

We'll miss our weekend trips to Fresno!

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?