HoMeLeSs but full of opporutunities

Well- We are officially homeless. We got back from Cali late Wed night (cali fun-ness to come later)... Thursday we spent packing the pod. A friend and her 3 young boys came to help during the day for a few hours. Even though their hands were little, it cut down on a lot of our trips up and down the stairs which was really helpful... then mr. clean and i took a break and ate some chipotle using a gift card i won while in cali... our friend mike came over that night to help mr. clean move the couch, love seat, and desk.. our couch really didn't fit well in the pods! :( we had to slant it... Anyway, we knew then we probably wouldn't fit everything into 2 pods like we had hoped and so we just decided to keep everything and we'll try to sell it once we are in utah. friday morning another friend came with his 4 kids (all a bit older). they helped us finish get everything into the pods. Packing for our trip took a little while since as we were putting things in the pod- if it had to go in the car it was just moved to the back room in no sort of order... friday night we decided to take a break and go visit some friends since we hadn't seen their new baby yet. He was so long and skinny but super cute. anyway, it was a great break. we're gonna miss them!! saturday morning we finished cleaning and left our place by 12:30. We turned in our comcast stuff and headed to PA for a visit with my family.

We lived in MD for the last year and half. I graduated from BYU while working part time for ACOM about 2 years ago. Then I was full time, promoted to team lead, and then to supervisor of the DC office all within 6 months. Once we found out I had the job, I had to start the following month. so Mr. Clean quit his job and packed up our house while I continued working. Then we took a 2 week house hunting trip to DC, flew back to UT and made the drive out3 days later. I started work 3 days after getting to MD. It was crazy and hectic and exciting... i loved my job and we made GREAT friends. We made weekend visits up to my family in PA and took a week-long vacation to NC with my mom's family. We took an anniversary trip to Atlantic City and enjoyed many day trips to DC... We got to see the fireworks with the monument and had fun callings in our ward. We started our family and were lucky to have such a great hospital for Jarhead. We had so much help and support from family and friends when I got sick... Living in MD wasn't perfect though.. We lost power- multiple times. We had flood and tornado watches. We had a crazy amount of snow where life basically shut down for a week. We experienced sickness and more hospital visits then either of us had ever had in our lives previous to that year. It was busy and stressful at times. When we decided that Mr. Clean was suppose to go back to school for his masters, we knew that UT was the place for us to be...again. I hated UT when we lived there but I've decided that this time would be different. I learned a lot while living in MD. There is a lot of bad with the good but if I make sure to focus on the little good things the bad tings- even if they are big- won't seem to matter quite as much. i read this quote that someone wrote in sidewalk chalk that reminded me of this "sometimes good things end so that better things can come". we didn't expect to have to leave MD in such a hurry- we had planned to be there for a few more years but the Lord had other plans for us. I don't know what they are. I know that Mr. Clean is suppose to go back to school and I know that the best opportunity for that is in UT. I know that once we get out there we're going to have to find a place to live- find jobs- and start the student life all over again. but it's also exciting. It's a whole new opportunity. Mr. Clean's siblings will be there and we're going back to lots of friends.In the end, we're really excited for our move. We're sad to leave our friends in MD but we're grateful for the time we had to be there and make them.

This was already a long post so I'll write about our cali adventures later... with pictures hopefully.. i still need to download them from the camera.