Moving Out and Life at the Boudwins

August 15th was the last day we lived in our house, but we couldn't move in to our new home until September 3rd, so we had about three weeks of "Where do we live" to deal with.  We considered living in my Grandma Osborn's basement in South Jordan and commuting, but there were so many things that were less than ideal with that situations.  We also considered camping for three weeks, or attempting to afford a hotel for three weeks, those were also not ideal situations.  But once again Heavenly Father blessed us with the perfect solution. Our good friends Derrick and Cami Boudwin turned their basement into a live in apartment and they currently did not have any tenants, so while it was a bit unfinished it was still the perfect place to stay.  

We spent the first week of August packing and moving as much as we could into a storage unit.  ONe day my mom and sisters came up to help me empty our crawl space - this is where we stored most of our seasonal belongings, extra clothes, water storage, and much much more.  This crawl space was packed full.  It took us well over an hour just to get all of the water storage out and emptied.  It was a bit silly to see jugs of water lining the halls and rooms of my house.  The boys however were thrilled to have all the water dumped into a pool to play in.

 Justin Keller's roofing company has an old Penske moving truck that they were not using, so we were again blessed to have a moving truck for free parked in our driveway for a week so we could load it at our pleasure.  It was wonderful.  The boys once again had a great time playing the days away in their truck fort.

 And a picnic lunch inside a truck fort is the icing on the cake :)

 This crawl space..... I was so grateful for the extra storage space, but oh how I hated going down there - it was dark and creepy and very uncomfortable to crawl around trying to find the next box of clothes that my boys had grown into or to find the decorations we needed. UGH!  I still can't believe I put up with that dreadful space for eight years.  When my mom and sisters finally saw it for the first time they were amazed as well.  Yup, the crawl space is one thing we will definitely not miss!

 The Saturday before we had to move out of our home was the day we moved 90 percent of our stuff into the storage unit.  We had SO many people come to help us load up and move - we filled the moving truck two times, and my dad's flat bed trailer two times as well, and there were still a few small truck loads to go.  I was so grateful for the people from our family, wards, friends, and co-workers who came to help us move!!

 After that we had a week to live in our empty house.  We had folding camp chairs to eat our meals, relax and watch TV on, we had just our mattresses to sleep on, and a few nit-knacks to tide us over until we moved to the Boudwins basement.

 Brandon and Grant even pitched in to help move their belongings over to their new place.

 August 15th was a crazy and hard day.  We still had SO much to move over to the Boudwins, and there was still so much to be cleaned.  We worked extra hard with the great help of my mom and a few others.  The new home owners had told us that they would not be moving in until the 16th (Saturday) but for some reason, they could not wait, so sadly they rushed us out when they started moving their stuff in around 7:00 at night.  It was frustrating to be so rushed to get out when we were already SO tired, and we barely had time to say goodbye to our first little home.  When the last car load of stuff was moved out and I was the last one to drive away from our home I cried and cried!  It was hard to say goodbye.  This was our first home.  We brought our first dog Maggie home to this house, and this is the house where she died.  We brought home our three boys from the hospital to this home.  We celebrated, loved, struggled, and grew so much in this house.  We made so many different improvements to this little house.  We made SO many wonderful friends in the house.  It felt like by moving away all of our good memories would be taken away as well.  But I am SO grateful that that is not the case.  We may no longer live in this house, and our children are likely too young to remember this house very well, but the memories Jared and I have in this home can never be taken away.  I am so grateful for cameras and journals that keep these memories alive!

 The Boudwin's were such wonderful people to share a home with!  Their basement apartment was ideal! It had one rather large master bedroom for Jared, Trent and I, and another good sized 2nd bedroom for Brandon and Grant.  It had a large bathroom with LOTS of storage, and a full kitchen with lots of storage and a little living room area.  We were able to have our fish tank, dogs, piano, 2 tvs, king bed, portacrib, and two twin beds, as well as many other creature comforts for living the next three weeks.

 They even let us use one side of their garage for storing our washer, dryer, and freezer as well as grill, bikes, and other items.  And they let us use their laundry so that we didn't have to go to the laundry mat all the time.

 It was so fun to have built in friends every day for our boys to play with.  Brandon and Grant were so happy to have Patrick and Nora to play with anytime they wanted.  Derrick even took the boys for rides on his four-wheeler. :)

 While we were living their with them they bought a second hand play structure, so to thank them for letting us live there free of charge Jared and I worked to sand and stain it for them - we only got about half of it sanded before we moved, but we tried.  We also worked to mow their lawn for them, and "help" with their chickens.  It was so nice to have a backyard to play in as well.

 They didn't have a bathtub, which is what our boys are used to bathing in, but they did have a very deep kitchen sink - the boys thought this was way too much fun - they could watch TV, eat and bathe all at the same time.  :)

 Having chickens to "take care of"/play with - was so much fun!

In many ways it was nice to live in such a small space - we were a closer family, there was less to clean and maintain, and much less to worry about - We couldn't do it long term, but it was refreshing.
Another fun benefit to living with the Boudwins was that on the weekends we could put the kids to bed in their own beds and then meet up for a movie night.  Sadly we only got to do this one time because Derrick had some terrible health problems that sent him to the hospital for several days.  I am really so very grateful for good friends who opened their home to us in our time of need and who made our stay so comfortable, fun and with minimal stress!