The BIG Move

So we made it! Ty drove all 16 1/2 hours, he was a trooper!

The one who deserves the real award though is Saylor. She did AMAZING in the car! Like seriously maybe only cried once for the whole two days of driving. The poor little girl was crammed in the back of the car with all our stuff but she was happy! I know this is a way random picture but I thought it was so strange that the stop lights were sideways in Nebraska...wierd
We made it to Missouri! The drive was not even that bad. I only broke down once when I saw a moving truck pass us.

This is how Saylor looked when we rolled into Kirksville...

The Kirksville Sign

Driving into Kirksville I was super nervous. I had obviously never been there or anywhere near this part of the country but mosty I was nervous about our house. We had only seen pictures so we hoped for the best. When we drove up to our house the grass was way overgrown and the place just looked run-down. They had left pipes and random things in the front yard and bags of sticks and garbage on the side of the house. When we walked in the front door there was a moldy/mildewy type smell which is definitely not how you want the place you're moving into to smell like. They had just put in brand new carpet so that was good but the carpet people had left scraps and remnants of carpet everywhere. The kitchen and bathrooms were absolutely filthy. The floors were covered in dirt and all the cupboards were filled with mice poop. I have never seen a dirtier bath tub in my life and the sides of the tub had exposed dry wall so we couldn't even shower for the first 3 days. There were bugs, spiders and spider webs everywhere in the house. Upon further inspection we found mold growing on one of the walls. We were so concerned. The people had told us it was a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house but one of the bedrooms was upstairs, with out a door, stains all over the carpet, the blinds destroyed and the air doesn't work up there so it's like 90 degrees. So basically its unusable. Also our 2nd bathroom had shelves in the shower and was just pretty nasty so we won't really use that either. The acre backyard we were so excited about is on a big hill so you can't really do much back there, it just feels like wasted space. So you can imagine how excited we were about moving to Kirksville after seeing the house we had to live in. To make things worse we went over to both of Ty's friends houses and they both had really clean, nice places. Poor Ty took it the worst. He was honestly ready to get back in the car and drive back to Utah for good. That night we slept on the floor and I had nightmares of mice running over my face.

We called our landlords pretty upset and luckily they were really nice and tried to get as many things fixed as possible. The next day someone came to mow the lawn, an exterminator came to spray for bugs, someone came to inspect and remove the mold and a guy came to fix our bathroom. They also told us to keep track of the time we spent cleaning and the money we spent on cleaning supplies and that we'd be reimbursed. After MANY hours of cleaning we finally were able to start unpacking our stuff. Once we started unpacking our stuff into the house it started to feel more like home. Ty still isn't a fan but the house is really growing on me. It's not so bad.
Here's Ty and Say in front of the house

Wow, sorry this is so long. We've been in Kirksville almost 3 weeks now and it's still hard for me to believe that this place is our home. Here are some interesting things I have noticed about Kirksville:

-They have fireflies! They are so awesome and our yard is packed full of them at night. I love them! They seem like magic to me because they fly around and then they just dissapear!

-They have wild turkeys, possums, frogs and bunnies just running around. It is so strange to me to see a bunny just hopping around in your backyard. And what the turkey?

-When you go to Walmart you always see Amish people, they are everywhere! (I didn't know they were allowed to shop at Walmart)

-Nobody waters their grass here! That is so crazy to me because in Utah if you go one day with out watering, your grass will die. There is enough rain and humidity that no one has sprinklers or ever waters their lawn.

-It is SO HUMID! Just a quick walk down the street and your whole body is drenched in sweat. You can even just be standing outside not doing anything and you just sweat. My hair is always frizzy and my face is always greasy. It doesn't cool off at night either, the air is just so thick ALL the time. Its sad to me that its summer and you can barely go outside to play:(

-The people here really are super nice. The day we moved in like 10 people showed up at our house to help that we had never even met.

Two of Ty's good friends moved to Kirksville at the same time as us and its been such a blessing. I didn't know them that well when we moved but just to know a familiar face is so nice. Me and Ty are used to being out playing with family every night so we've hung out and played games with them a lot. We always apologize to Ty's friend Mike since we go over to his house like everyday.

One of the first few days we were here we went to a concert in the park and had apple pie and ice cream.

We also celebrated Ty's birthday right after we got here! I was worried Ty would have a horrible birthday because he was so homesick but I think he had a great day. We went to the pool, saw a parade (which was actually pretty pathetic) and his friends had a BBQ for him where we had steak and they bought him a bunch of fireworks and they lit them off (everything is legal in Missouri so they were pretty excited)

Saylor at the Parade

Say looked so cute in her 4th of July outfit!

On the actual 4th of July the city had fireworks that were much better than I expected. Since all fireworks are legal people are constantly lighting them off all over the city. I've never seen so many fireworks in my life. If you just go outside, huge fireworks were going off all night long. Say had fun running all over the field where we watched the fireworks.

So that is our life in Kirksville. Ty is loving school so far and its been nice because its pretty laid back in the summer so he's only gone 4-5 hours a day. We miss family a lot but we are excited to be on this adventure together and meet lots of new people!