The Big Move to Georgia

Considering the fact that the move happened a week and a half sooner than we anticipated (finding out 2 weeks before) I think all went pretty well. I had a lot less packing time than I thought but was able to get everything done. I was sad to leave friends in Wisconsin and my wonderful neighbors, but other than that I didn't have a second thought about leaving. We made the long, 12 hour drive from Sparta to Louisville, KY to stop and visit Jared and Jenny. Thank goodness we decided to stay a day before continuing our trip! We needed the break! It was really nice to see them again! Thanks for the french toast Jared! :)

Our second big day of traveling turned out to be a very long one even though the distance was a lot shorter than our first day. About an hour into our drive we come across a HUGE traffic jam. It was already getting hot at 10:00 am and as I discovered on the first day, the air conditioning was going out on our Tacoma. Jaren was driving the moving truck so he still had a nice cool cab. Anyway, the freeway had been closed down completely because of a huge accident. The police were having everyone exit the freeway and re-routing them down a country road for about 3 miles before getting back on. It added about 2 1/2 hours to our trip by the time we both got through. We came across 2 other accidents that we were close enough to when they happened that we were able to get through pretty quickly. I was trying not to melt in the car but we finally arrived at our apartment around 8:30 pm. I'm very grateful that our trip from Sparta to Augusta (driving through 8 states) was made in safety.

The next morning we had to unload the truck and return it. We headed over to the storage unit and proceeded to spend the next 4 hours unloading the truck and loading the storage shed. We were sweating from the time we got there at 9:00 am. I underestimated the humid Georgia heat! Wow! We had cloud cover a lot of the time so the sun wasn't beating on us directly which was a blessing but by the time we were done we were drenched in sweat. I mean DRENCHED! I had to get towels out for us to sit on in the car because it was like we had jumped in a pool with our clothes on. GROSS! You know it's bad when you sneeze and sweat goes flying off your face...or you sit on something and leave a wet spot where you were sitting. But we stayed hydrated and made it through without either of us becoming a heat casualty. When we move all of out stuff into our house in a month, I will definitely be calling on ward members to help us! It was almost too much for me. Thank goodness our apartment complex has a pool! Although, it's so hot here that the pool feels like it's filled with bath water...and it's not heated (except by the sun). It wasn't as refreshing as I had hoped but the weightless feeling was sure nice on our sore bodies. We then treated ourselves to our favorite Italian restaurant (Carrabba's) then came home and crashed. We went to our ward on Sunday where it just so happened that they were changing the Bishopric. There are lots of nice people and were are excited to be in a WARD again!

For the last of our update, Jaren has started work now and says he works with a bunch of nice old ladies. Even though our apartment is furnished, we still have several boxes of various things I am trying to get organized. Our truck is in the shop now getting fixed so I don't have a car. I need to go to the grocery store but that will have to wait until Jaren gets home and I can use the car. I am looking for jobs (boo). We finally got all of our money back from our bank account fraud (yeah!). We walked through the house again and realized we have a LOT more work than we thought. I'm really glad we have time to clean before we move in. We are both happy that we're here and excited for all of the things to do. We have lots of places to explore and those will be posted on our blog in the future. We hope you are all doing well and had a good Father's Day weekend. We'll continue to keep you updated and hopefully we'll get some pictures up of the area soon.

With love,
Jaren and Emily

Another update: Jaren came home and told me our total bill to fix our truck will be $2500. So much for fixing the house up to be livable in the next few months. I guess we'll have to suffer with cement floors a little longer than anticipated. That's just how it goes! When it rains, it pores!