Sitting at my computer, in my new home, while my kids play outside is bliss. (Yelling at them every five seconds to keep the door shut is not.) But life's good. We have a job. We have a home. We have each other.
For those non-family members who don't know the tale of us moving home let me tell you the story.
First, when Chris lost his job we decided we would not be visiting Arizona for Christmas. We were fine with it at first but after a week of job hunting the depression set in. We needed to be with family. But then our car started being stupid and we needed to pay for those repairs and the trip down to AZ was definitely out of the question. Chris's mom and sister's put together a garage sale and earned some money to pay for us to come down. (It was the first of many charitable gifts given to us). Had we not come home for Christmas, we would probably still be in Colorado stressed out and jobless.
On the day we left, we were pulling out of the driveway when Chris pulled back in, ran inside and turned the heater off. It's something we always did in Arizona before leaving on a trip. We're jobless, why pay to keep the empty house warm?
We came back home January 2nd. The house was 32 degrees and we were freezing. There was no running water and the toilets were frozen. I knew the pipes were frozen but being a dumb arizonian I didn't know the severity of what that meant. We called our landlord but it was 10:30 pm and she didn't answer. It was warmer downstairs by the furnace so we all bundled up and went to sleep downstairs. I woke up 3 times with Fiona during the night and I could hear the water running. I didn't know it was the water but it sounded like a bathtub running and how you can hear it from another room. I thought it was the heater. I was lazy, and exhausted, and cold, I didn't want to go upstairs to see what the noise was. At 7:30am Asher woke up and started to go upstairs. I tried to stop him cause I knew he would go outside to play in the snow but I wanted to keep sleeping. As I ran up the stairs after him the sound of the water running grew louder. I threw open the basement door and it was raining in the house. No. POURING IN THE HOUSE! I screamed for Chris and immediately went into panic-I don't know what the heck to do mode.
We started calling our landlord, her handy man and my Dad to find out what to do. We got the water turned off but... it was bad. We got a restoration company out right away and they turned on millions of fans to dry out the house. They said they were going to be able to save everything dry-wall, carpet, everything. We were so happy. We got a hotel for the night and the next day we got the call saying it would no longer take 2 - 5 days to dry the house but that everything had to be replaced and it was going to be 2 - 4 WEEKS. We couldn't live in a hotel that long. We couldn't ask a family to take us in for that long. We didn't have a job and no hopes of getting one soon.
We had to move home for help.
We packed up the kids and drove both cars home. Flew back a few days later and packed up our house in two days. Our amazing ward came and helped us and this was another huge blessing. Here is what the house looked like when we got there...
$35,000 worth of damage. And a million dollars of heartache.
We were now jobless and homeless and it was a very humbling experience to say the least.
We spent Wednesday packing boxes.
We spent a wonderful evening with our family away from home the Morby's. Amazing people!
Thursday we loaded up the moving truck. I had to give up so many things. When we had to pack all our worldly possessions in a 26 foot truck a lot of sacrifices have to be made. At this point I was ready to throw all my crap out I was so sick of everything.
We spent Thursday night walking the streets of downtown looking for soemthing to buy to take with us. I wanted a Colorado T-shirt but never found one that said COLORADO.
Saying goodbye to the first home I ever felt content and happy to call home.
We hit the road early Friday morning. The drive home was tons of fun with Chris and Fiona. I could do anything with him and be okay.
I cried at the Arizona border. I cried when I saw the dessert. But I'm going to learn to love Arizona.
I promise.
Thank you again to Longview Ward for coming to our aid when we needed help. Living away from family is hard, especially when you have depended on them your whole life. But when you live 1000 miles from the nearest family member you have to learn to depend on your ward family. Longview was so good to us. THANK YOU!
