Back to New Mexico... One Last Time

James came to pick me up at the end of Ladies’ Retreat with the van packed to the hilt with flattened moving boxes the Hoffman’s had given to assist in our move, along with three kids, a dog, and enough clothes to last us about a week. Maybe.

We had been gone about 30 minutes when I decided to check for my cell phone. I often experience this surge of panic out of the blue and think “Oh, no. ~gasp!~ Where did I put ________?!” Could be my phone, my camera, my keys—oh, any number of things. Then I quietly scramble around trying to find it before James discovers that I’ve lost something. I HATE having to tell James that I lost something. 99% of the time (well, maybe 90% or 95%) I haven’t actually lost anything, I just have to check and make SURE that I haven’t lost it. Well, this time I looked and my cell phone was indeed missing from the purse pocket where I keep it. I looked everywhere and still couldn’t find it. I was certain that I hadn’t lost it however, so I told James I couldn’t find it and asked for his phone so I could call my own and we would hear it ring and discover where in our PACKED van it was hiding. Long story short: I called it but we never heard it ring, we looked some more but couldn’t find it, I called the campground to ask if they’d seen it, the dude said he’d go look for it. A few minutes later it James started wiggling around and then we heard my phone. He had been SITTING on it and felt it vibrate when the campground guy tried to call it! HA! I’m just so glad it was THERE. :-)

We had a good trip out west, though I can’t recall any details of it at all. Just as well, I suppose. We ate at Fazoli’s in Amarillo, of course, and got a room there in town—after going to Mardel and getting some FANTASTIC deals, like .69 cents for $20 books—WA-HOO!!!!!

The next day held some dramatic weather changes. In those last 5 hours from Amarillo on home we went from using the air conditioner to the heater. We stopped to get a bite to eat in Moriarty and actually saw some snowflakes in the air. God loves me so much. :-)

We got home at noon on Tuesday. It was a strange feeling to walk into the house. I suddenly felt “homesick” for it for the first time! We’d been away for a month and it just felt so nice to walk in to “my” home. God has worked out such miracles for us and blessed us so abundantly—and we can’t thank Him (or the Powells!) enough. But there’s still something so relaxing about walking in to your home, you know? It’s been the perfect house for us these past three years and we’ve been so very, very happy there. I’m so thankful God saw fit to allow us to have a little log cabin up in the mountains with lots and lots of snow, gorgeous scenery, breathtaking sunsets, fresh mountain air, a wood burning stove for crackling fires—all that stuff. I just feel so, so blessed to have lived out “my dream come true” for a little while. :-)

Like I started to say, we got home at noon on Tuesday. We unloaded the van and I got everything unpacked and put away. It felt really stupid to unpack just so I could start packing (!), but it had to be done. I managed to get the boys’ room completely packed up, bed taken apart, and sparkly clean (ceiling fan, window inside and out, blinds, baseboards—it makes me so happy!) that day. Not a bad start!

I spent all day on Wednesday packing up the den. It took FOREVER. I washed all sorts of things that I’ve never washed before, just wiped down—like James’ little antique trucks and cars. There’s no way you can get to all of the tiny little crevices, even with a q-tip. So I took them (and who knows what else!) to the kitchen sink and sprayed them all down, then laid them out to dry. ~sigh~ It feels so good to know that someday when we move into whatever house we find everything will be so nice and fresh and sparkly clean! :-)

Anyway, perhaps due to my obsessive cleaning along the way, things moved very, very slowly that day. It was late afternoon by the time I finished up that one room. I was doing the math in my head and knew that we were never going to get everything done in time at that rate! I HAD to get one more room done that day, at the very least. I headed to Katie’s room, but I was already sooooo tired and feeling frustrated with the lack of productivity. James turned things around for me however when he showed up to help. :-) Typically I refuse to let him help. Guys just don’t know how to pack and James is probably worse than most. So I gave him the job of wiping things down or dusting them, then putting them on the bed for me to pack. It’s amazing how much that sped things up! By the end of the night we had completed that room and had it all packed up, emptied out, and mopped.

On Thursday morning I hit it bright and early, starting in our bedroom. Unfortunately, it was slow going in there too because of all the things I “had to” spray down and clean—the pine greenery, the fake bush, and all the little mooses (I know it’s not a real word, I just really like to say mooses) and other little things. Still, I managed to get everything packed up (except the closet) before…

The Hays arrived mid-afternoon that day!!! Can you believe it?! ~sigh~ They are just the best. They drove the 5 or 6 hours to help us move in to this house three years ago—before any of us even knew what great friends we would become! Ha! Then they came and helped us pack up our first moving truck this February, and then came AGAIN to help us with the last of our packing, cleaning, and loading up the big truck in March. They are amazing and I can honestly say there is NO WAY we would have been able to get everything done without their help. We would have been in big, big trouble!

When the Hays arrived on Thursday afternoon Brother Dustin’s got busy fixing all of the electrical catastrophes he had created over the previous years that the inspector had thrown a fit over and ordered to be fixed. Okay, so that’s not exactly the story, but there were a few little glitches he was kind enough to take care of for us. I moved my work out to the living room so I could be with the people. Couldn’t stay cooped up in the bedroom working all alone, you know. ;-) Sister Jamey helped out by washing stuff for me as I packed up all the décor from off the walls.

Before long it was time to get cleaned up for church. It was so nice to be in church. I’d been at Retreat the previous weekend, but it had been a long, hard four days and it felt like ages since I’d been in service! I can’t understand why/how anybody can just skip church—especially when life is crazy and hectic and spinning out of control. You know, when you “don’t have time” to go to church! That’s when I need it the very most! It’s sooooo refreshing to be with God’s people and—most of all, for me—to sing and worship the Lord in that setting. I can just feel all of the stress and pressure drain away and I feel so refreshed and renewed afterward, like I’m suddenly strengthened and ready to go conquer whatever I felt like I was sinking under before. God’s amazing that way. :-)

Sister Shanna flew in to Albuquerque that night and the Clarksons had gone to pick her up at the airport. After service was over we all went out to Dion’s together—James’ favorite pizza joint that he’d already been missing in Alabama. We had a good visit, but Sister Shanna was soooo tired. We got back to the house that night, set the work aside, and played games. I don’t remember anything specific about it, except that it’s always grand. :-)

We got up Friday morning and got back to packing again. I can’t remember how far we got, but we stopped to go eat at Burger Boy, the same little burger joint we ate at with the Hays when they helped us move in to this house. ~tear~ Ha! We had a good time and the Frito pie was some of the very best I’ve ever had. They make their own chili fresh every day and it was fantastic, though it was HOT—I was on fire for quite a while!

After lunch the Hays headed on down to Hatch to get settled in for Youth Convention. ~sigh~ I had been holding to this crazy little dream of getting everything done in record time and being able to go to Convention, too. But alas, we’d been working dawn ‘til dusk (ha—way beyond dusk) every day trying sooooooo hard… but there was still sooooooo much to do and we were to close on the house on Monday—had to have everything packed up, loaded into the truck, and have the house shining by then. We were still sooooo far away from there—the house was a WRECK and there were still things to pack, much less clean. ~sigh~

Since we knew we couldn’t leave and go to Convention Friday… my new goal was to work like a madwoman in hopes of getting far enough along that perhaps we could swing down for part of the Convention on Saturday! I worked in a frenzy all afternoon, all evening, and into the night. I got up Saturday morning and rushed from one end of the house to the other at record speed working, working, working, thinking perhaps if I got everything packed we could rush down to the last service that night. I knew the house would be TRASHED, but maybe we would be able to get it all cleaned up and loaded in time anyway… maybe.

I figured we needed to leave by 3:00 if we were going to make it for church, so my goal was to get far enough along by 2:00 or 2:30 that we could all clean up (sort of) and get dressed and head down there. Didn’t happen, or even get close. So then I rethought it all and decided that maybe if we could leave by 4:00… ha! In the end, we never did get “far enough” along to consider going to Youth Convention.

But we went anyway!!! Ha! We just couldn’t NOT go. How in the world can you be three hours away from a Church Convention and just NOT GO?! So we got everybody looking decent, packed one bag, and headed to Hatch. We got there ten or fifteen minutes before the evening service, enough time to say our howdies and see all the purty faces. :-) Brother Clarkson and Sister Shanna were both on to preach that night and I was greatly blessed by both messages—and so thankful to have been there. Brother Clarkson preached about the peace of God from the verse, “Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.” It was sooooo good! ~sigh~ I miss Brother Clarkson already! He is SUCH a blessing and I just liked it best when I'm in church with him all the time. ;-) Sister Shanna preached about the truth of God and had lots and lots of good thoughts taken mostly from 1 Samuel about the lives of David and Saul. Good, good stuff.

After service we were THRILLED to hear that there were left-overs from the noon meal! WA-HOO!!! It would be wrong to go to Hatch and miss out on the food. I got the very last tamale. :-) Life is grand. We enjoyed visiting with the folks that night, mostly the Shulers. We hadn't seen them in nearly a year and were really wanting to see them before we moved so far away. Philip had called that afternoon (while we were getting dressed to go down there!) to beg James to pleeeeeease come to the last session of Convention. James never let on that we were going to do just that, so it was fun to surprise them. I just love Philip. :-) Anyway, I think it was sometime between midnight and 1:00 when we made it to the motel in Truth or Consequences.

We crashed and slept well, then got up and left a little after 8:00 to drive back to Albuquerque. We got to service there in time to catch the tail end of Sunday School and the CPMA service that followed. The Clarksons had stayed over to visit the local church in Hatch, and most of the others were missing at church that morning, too, so it was just our family and the three ladies—Sister Grimes, Sister Bailey, and Sister Galaviz. It actually ended up being really special because of that. When we first went to Albuquerque, they were the core group that we started with and they are all pretty special to us. We all said our goodbyes and shed a few tears—even Sister Galaviz, who has a heart of stone. HA! It’s so not true, but I have to give her a hard time because she reads my blog. ;-)

We left the church, grabbed a quick bite at James' other favorite restaurant (known to us—thanks to Sister Shanda—as “The Crusty Chili”), then headed home again to get back to work. THERE WAS SOOOOO MUCH TO BE DONE and the house closing was THE NEXT DAY! The Hays arrived at the house just shortly after we did and we all worked like the wind. It is amazing, however, at the things we seem to have time for when we’re all together. HA! I’m not sure how or why it started, but Joe—who prides himself in being “Houdini, the Second” and is actually quite good (due to his Jell-o like physique, no doubt) at wriggling out of most any knot—insisted that he could escape from anything Brother Dustin could dish out. Brother Dustin, being no more mature than Joe (ha!), can’t walk away from a challenge like that, so...



After just a few moments Joe had freed his hands and was untying his feet.





Brother Dustin can't handle being beaten by a nine year old, so he decided to try a different approach. Charlie found the entire situation most interesting.



Alas, not only has Brother Dustin crushed my son beneath a massive boulder (just had to throw that one out there once more), but now he has also crushed his spirit. Joe was beaten, unable to loose himself despite his best efforts. The picture is too washed out to be able to show them well, but he had horrible rope burns on his arms, something that seemed to deeply disturb Brother Dustin (he doesn't often experience guilt or regret, but I believe we saw some that day), mostly because he worries about Joe's granddad finding out. What if there are terrible consequences for such an action?! Ha!



Even though we were still not completely packed (just a few things left to do in the utility room and our closet, stuff like that), we started loading up the big truck. James and I had run into town on Saturday morning to pick it up and he did an AMAZING job backing it up beside the house, with only inches to spare. I was so impressed. Anyway, the loading started off pretty slowly as we arranged, then rearranged, then re-rearranged, trying to get the "Mom's Attic" space filled up just right. We all decided that I'm obsessive about cleaning the house, Jamey is obsessive about packing the truck tightly with not a single square inch of space unused, and Brother Dustin is obsessive about the way his arms smell (don't ask). Loading a moving truck is hard work, but we were distracted by how much fun we were having along the way. That's the ONLY way to move, let me tell you! Brother Dustin is always sporting some weird head gear of some kind. This afternoon he was wearing one of the kids' fireman hats and an arm cover from the couch.



I couldn't not include these clips...





Those poor kids never did get a chance to ride, only the dads. Ha!

We worked and worked and worked and finally stopped once it got dark and fed the kids whatever was left in the house--ham and cheese, chips, Spaghetti-o's. Once we got them put to bed, the work continued for the adults. James insisted on going to Subway to get sandwiches for the adults (we really were running low on things to eat around there!) and I think it was nearly 10:00 when we finally sat down at the table to eat dinner. That's a new record for me--even with the Hays there. Ha!

After dinner we played one game of I Buy, but were just too bushed for Balderdash. A true tragedy. James is the one who made the call and said we'd be sure to play it the following night.

Monday morning we got up early and packed up the last of the stuff that was still not packed yet and got busy cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Jamey is AMAZING. She did most of the cleaning while I was packing up our closet contents and stuff like that. She mopped all of the tile floors and I don't even remember what all else she did, I just know that I'm sooooo glad she was there! I did scrub behind and under the stove and the freezer and the fridge, though James didn't want to pull the washer out for me--so we'll never know what gunk we left for the new people. I HATE THAT!!!

Jason knew that we still had a ton of stuff to do, so he was kind enough to bring all of the closing papers out to us instead of having us come into town to sign them. Is there another realtor in the world who would do such a thing??? ~sigh~ He's the greatest. :-) We signed the papers that morning, knowing that funding would go through and we'd need to BE OUT by 5:00 that afternoon. I think we finished up the last of the loading and cleaning at about 3:30. I had cleaned out and scrubbed the fridge and freezer a day or two before, but left one precious commodity: Blue Bell ice cream. I couldn't bring myself to throw it all away, so some of us grabbed plastic spoons (left out for just such a purpose) and ate what we could before disposing of the rest.



Then it was finally time to pull out, for the very last time. We were too tired and still enjoying being with good friends to get too emotional about it. ;-) I wish I would have thought to take a picture before James starting pulling out the U-Haul so you could see how tight it was getting that thing in there!



We drove into town, my vehicle stopping by the thrift store to drop off a few things, then the library to return the last of our books. We got to the hotel, hauled our stuff in, cleaned up, then went to meet the Clarksons at a park. We let the kids play for an hour or two while the adults visited and Brother Clarkson tormented unsuspecting kids at the park. I'd explain, but it wouldn't be funny here--you just had to be there!

Sister Jamey snatched my camera and got busy taking pictures. These were some of the best. :-)

Sliding Aleah



Swinging Lillie



Sandy Katie



Racing down the slide



These next pictures CRACK ME UP. The guys were discussing "getting fat" and how their fat feels. I found it especially amusing with Sister Shanda sitting there. Usually girls go and feel the pregnant lady's belly... but I'd never seen GUYS feeling one another's stomachs! Until now, that is. Ha! Couple of weird-o's. :-)





The Clarksons. I love 'em. :-)



I can't recall what he had done, but I have no doubt Sam deserved this. :-)



I was trying to remember the sequence of tooth events, but I can't remember when they all started falling out. I know Sam lost one of his front teeth just before we went to New Mexico. Then while the Hays were at our house before Youth Convention, Sam "assisted" Isaac (use your imagination) in loosing his first front tooth. The tooth had been loose for quite a while, so that's good! Sam loves Isaac to death and calls him his "bud" or his "chum." I thought it was cool that they were missing a tooth at the same time. Then during Sunday School on Sunday morning Sam ripped his other tooth out. (Really, he worked on it all through service and finally--after a few bloody tissues--presented the tooth, along with a huge gaping smile.) We were all amazed when Isaac woke up on Monday morning with his other tooth missing! He had somehow lost it during the night. So here we have a picture of the boys each missing a tooth...



And a picture of them missing BOTH teeth! Ha! I love it. :-)



When we left the park we took the Hays to the Olive Garden for a big "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP--YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING!!!" dinner. :-) By the time we got back to the hotel and got the kids to bed we were feeling pretty tired ourselves. It had been a long, hard week, you know?! We made it through I Buy, but James--who declared we would have a great time playing Balderdash because we had missed it the night before--was fading fast. He was sooooo tired and needed to be roused on several occasions. I threatened several times and finally had to follow through... I rolled him off the bed.



It took a great deal of effort and was great fun but, as you can see, didn't really achieve the desired goal. ~sigh~ It was pitiful. He fell asleep several times throughout the game. While we did laugh a lot, most of our laughing was AT James and his condition. It was still fun, but a great departure from the usual formula.

The next morning we had breakfast together (Sandia Courtyard has the best motel breakfast I've ever seen), then loaded up the vans and said our final goodbyes. Of course, there was plenty of nonsense going on the whole time, mostly in the form of a pine cone war among the boys. ("The boys" being anyone under age 10... and Brother Dustin.) Sometime through it all Joe accidentally nailed Sister Jamey with a pinecone in his attempt to hit someone else. Brother Dustin saw fit to help him make his wrongs right.



We kept trying to get a decent picture of the kids together, but to no avail. I'm not sure how I uploaded so many of them here (slip of the finger?), but as long as it takes to upload I decided I'd just leave them here!



These boys crack me up. :-)







Katie took this picture of all the adults for us. Actually, she took several but we had a hard time making James behave himself. This was the best one we got.



And the guys together. ~sniff~ It's so touching. I think Jamey might have a picture of the two of them that's a LOT better than this one. I was too slow pulling the trigger. ;-)



And the girls.



Wish I could remember what was so funny...



James and Brother Dustin have formed a... unique friendship over the past several years and it's breaking their hearts to be separated. They get all emotional and blubber about it all the time. Well, that's what Brother Dustin does. James just cuts a check. HA! (Long story--I'll skip that one.) Anyway, we were really and truly LEAVING this time, MOVING to Alabama never to return again. The guys' goodbye was so touching we asked them to reenact it for the camera.



Okay, so maybe touching isn't exactly the right word. ;-)

~whew~ And that's it! We loaded up, and headed to Alabama "for good." What a bittersweet thing it is! Bitter to be leaving such good friends (ALL of them out west)... but sweet to be going to the place God has called you to be, still working among His wonderful people. Blessed. That's the word that keeps coming to me. We are just so, so, so blessed. :-)