The Move

Well, we made it!  I never want to move again, that was NOT my idea of fun.  Erik’s wild idea worked out and we are enjoying exploring our new home.

We made the long drive from Phoenix to Douglas County over two days.  I think it took about 15 hours including many stops made.  Traveling with kids (especially a baby) and a huge uhaul is not fast.  The drive was uneventful and the kids were amazingly good.  Soren rode with Erik in the massive truck and the girls rode with me in the Mazda5.  Erik and I were able to keep in touch with our prepaid cell phones which worked out perfectly.  I don’t know how we would have done it without them!

So… we left Phoenix on Wednesday, stayed in Hesperia, CA Wednesday night and continued on to Minden, NV on Thursday.  Friday’s task was finding a house.  No big deal, right?  HA!  I still can’t believe our crazy plan worked out.  We looked at several rentals that were move in ready and in our price range.  Nothing was really exciting me although there were several options that were “ok”.  Most of the options were run down or smelled funny (pet pee, cigarettes, etc).  We decided to go look at a property in Genoa even though the rental specified NO PETS.  Erik had driven over to Genoa when he interviewed up here in April and thought it was beautiful, but we didn’t think there was any way that we would be able to live here.  We knew it was going to be good when we saw this a few houses down from the available rental:

After gawking at the deer who was totally unafraid of us, we pulled up to the house:

I Fell In Love.  But I tried to hold down my excitement.  After all, “NO PETS” and I didn’t want to be let down.  The inside was beautiful and the perfect size for us for now.  We headed back towards Minden, me sighing with disappointment.  If only another house was available in that area that allowed pets!  Well, Erik gave the property manager a call to see if the owner would allow us our kitty cat and we were warned that this owner did not give such waivers.  We decided to eat lunch and then head out to another part of Carson Valley to check out a few more properties.  While we were eating I got a call from the property manager.  The owner had said YES to our pet request.  The house was ours if we wanted it!  After some discussion we checked out a couple more homes but we were hooked and we signed on our new place Friday afternoon.  I felt (and still feel) so lucky that we were able to make an obvious right choice on where to live.  We didn’t have much time and once again things worked out for us (hmmm… seems to be the theme of this move).

Saturday night saw us with an empty uhaul and a house full of boxes.  We headed to church Sunday to meet our new ward.  For a large and growing ward we were surprisingly warmly welcomed.  I got the scoop on the new ward playgroup and tried to remember many new names.  Soren was excited to join his class in Primary.  Svea was a little more apprehensive about her nursery class but she didn’t cry or need us to stay with her.  Sunday afternoon we took a drive over the mountains to check out (finally) The Lake.

Tahoe is so beautiful.  As we crested the pine top mountains I began to see glimpses of a startlingly blue jewel through the trees.  It is so much bigger and even more stunning than I imagined.  We were able to stop and dip our toes in the very cold water.

Even Liv wanted to touch the cold water and sand.

Later on in our first week in the new place, Erik took the kids fishing in one of the lakes in our golf course.  Soren caught two fish the first night, although his luck hasn’t been as good since.

Playgroup here meets at a local park on Mondays, then Wednesdays are playgroup at Sand Harbor in Lake Tahoe.  A-MAZE-ING!  The kids and I weren’t able to find our new friends but we had a fun time at the beach anyway.  The water was amazingly clear and cold.  Soren dipped his toes, Svea went in up to her neck.  Liv enjoyed the shade and ate lots of sand.  Some of these pics aren’t great but they show the beautiful setting and clear water.

Liv is getting SO big!  She grew up while I was busy packing and unpacking and she is really becoming a little person now.

Soren’s toys floated away.  He sent his little sis in to get them because he was too cold.

Such a peaceful place.

We enjoyed the lake so much we went back again on Friday.  Got to get our Lake time in before summer is over!

Liv LOVES the sand.  She’s constantly rolling herself to the edge of the towel to grab handfulls and eat it.  Yuck.

Svea is a beach bum

Spitting with joy

It was a little cold for swimming on Saturday so we decided to take a hike on one of our local trails instead.  We found a used pack on Craigslist right down the road which was perfect for the baby.  The kids are little hikers, especially Soren who is a budding trail runner.  The trail was pretty and started in dusty pine covered hills and then paralleled a beautiful stream surrounded by greenery.

The kids favorite was the bridge that crossed the little stream.  The water was icy!

Sunday after church we were able to drive to Spooner Lake and we took a hike around the lake.  I feel like I am overdosing on pretty places!

Svea was tired of walking so she got to try out the pack for part of the hike. 

I’ve been so busy getting our new house set up I can’t believe I had enough time to see any of our new area yet!  We are almost all settled in with only a few boxes left to open.  Here’s a pic of our backyard view – can you spot the deer? 

Here it is again…

Svea and Chibi enjoying the yard:

Erik seems to be excited about his new job (so weird to be married to The County Engineer).  He is working on developing the new hobbies that have become possible here.  Although we have transplanted ourselves into alien terrain, I’m happy and excited that we’ve made this change and that feeling grows the more time passes.