Over the Praries and through the Tornadoes

Finally, we moved.

Well, first there was the packing, which took more days than we had anticipated. Then there was the finding out where in the world we could stay with four kids, 100 boxes, and a 2-month rental agreement. Then there was the packing up the truck, which took more days than we had anticipated. Then there was the drive--the long, long drive. And then there was Fort Wayne. Along the way, there were fun times, crazy times, so-tired-we-could-fall-asleep-standing-up times, and lots of just-keep-going-because-there-isn't-really-another-choice times.

There. That's the short version. For the long one, keep reading! We got an offer on our house just in the nick of time. The first Sunday of August, we had a family fast. Even Emerson skipped breakfast (we told him that he didn't need to and wasn't old enough, but he really wanted to). We prayed together on either end of it, and Aaron and I each squeezed in a temple session. We had figured out how the move could work without having the house sold, but we knew that so many things would be so much easier if it did sell, and we had tried really hard to scratch out the lessons of patience and hard work that had come with the delay. At the end of our fast, we all had a good feeling about the house selling. We left the house looking nice as we left for church on Sunday, and two or three different people came to look while we were gone (one thing we were definitely blessed with through all of this was a realtor who didn't waste time letting anyone and everyone know about our house, and made sure there were lots of showings)--one of the couples had visited our home three times, and we hoped they would finally make their minds up and offer (they didn't)! Well, the next day we got an offer in, which we quickly countered, and which they quickly accepted. It wasn't like the previous time, when we had sensed some reservations, we just felt good about this one going through. We sprinted through the inspection process and everything else, then rebooked our moving truck (we'd changed our reservation no less than three times, and got seriously busy packing. We'd already done a fair amount, but those long winters really made for some deep dark closets--it seemed to take forever!

Naturally we tried to enlist the kids' help . . . with varying results. Addy was a huge help, Emerson tried pretty hard, and Theo went around trying to move anything and everything with the furniture dolly--love that kid. When we finally pulled out, we'd put off the moving truck by one day three different times, then put off our departure date another three days. More stuff just kept coming! We had to leave the furniture that we hadn't sold, and we couldn't even fit our really nice grill that never got enough use in Canada (the grilling season is really abyssmally short). It all comes of the fact that we had to use UHaul, as it is the only even remotely reasonably priced option that does Canada/US moves (fortunately, we don't forsee more of those in our future). When we finally finished, the kids were all wiped out . . . well, almost all.

As we set off just before midnight on Thursday August 12 for a hotel in Weyburn (we really had to go this time, the beds were irretrievably packed up), we waved good-bye to this place.

I've called it The Green Grotto with mingled affection and distaste over the last three years, and I really have some mixed feelings about it. First and foremost right now, I feel gratitude. This place has been our shelter from the troubled economy in the US for the last three years. It made us a little money while lots of other people were suffering under foreclosures and short sales and reposessions, and I couldn't be more thankful for that. GG has also been an example to me, of how something unattractive and unappealing can, with hard work, turn into something lovely and worthy of admiration. The shiny floors, bright walls, cozy basement and green backyard all became quite enjoyable over our stay there, and while I wouldn't like to have to do all that work again (hear that, fixer-uppers? We're not buying you!), we learned a lot about home maintenance, style, patience, and hard work along the way. But it's also been a place where I've felt sad. At times over these three years, I've felt sad and angry and frustrated and hopeless. I've had to come face to face with parts of myself that I'd rather not acknowledge, things that make me uncomfortable in my own skin. Honestly, it didn't break my heart to say goodbye.

After crashing around 1 am in Weyburn, SK, just an hour from Regina, we slept in before heading south through North Dakota and Minnesota on Saturday. Driving through the little dot-on-the-map town of Bowbells, ND, we saw the leftovers of a tornado that had whipped through the night before, killing another man from Saskatchewan. Apparently a string of them hit various parts of North Dakota in mid-August, and we felt really grateful that our slowness in getting started had saved us from their furor.

The next few days of driving, stopping at gas stations, eating at sandwich joints (we all sort of swore off fast food recently due to the fact that it tastes awful and is awful for you), and staying at whatever hotels we could get into late at night were . . . less bad than you might think. True, it was no picnic to be driving separate vehicles, but there was actually some fun bonding as we rocked out to tunes, told stories, passed snacks around, and oohed and awwed at the beauty of the changing landscape. Each of the kids really enjoyed taking their turn in the moving truck with Aaron, too. In fact, they would all fight over who got to ride with him next until I finally said "hey you guys, I'm fun too--don't you want to ride with me?" At which point they pointed out that Daddy had candy in the moving truck, and was much more generous with the snacks than me. What can I say? I was fairly beaten. Meanwhile, I continued the probably less-than-safe practice of snapping photos out the window.

Saskatchewan landscape

Lots of oil rigs along the way

There's a quiet beauty about freshly harvested fields

These sunflower fields were scattered through North Dakota and Minnesota

Probably my favorites are the dilapidated little shacks that dot the side of the road in some places. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to get a decent shot out the window while driving (they go by fast!) This is the only sort of decent one I got.

Most of them turned out just awful, but I got a few that sort of give the flavor of our drive. It was fascinating really, to watch the landscape change like that. The whole time we lived in Saskatchewan, I was plagued by a sort of trapped feeling that the sky was closing in on me. Weird, I know, considering there was nothing (and I mean nothing) but open space. But Aaron actually did a little research on this, and found out that the atmosphere is closer to earth the nearer you get to the poles--something about the magnetic pull there or something. Crazy, right? But I could feel it moving away, letting in more light and air as we travelled south. The sky seemed to get bluer, the grass greener, and trees started to appear. By the time we pulled into Fort Wayne, Indiana on Sunday night, I had a smile on my face. It felt right. Feels right. I don't know that we'll be here forever, but it feels like the absolute most right place in the world for our family to be right now. We're going to grow here. Not just grow, but flourish. I like to think of us sprouting buds and blossoms left and right to go with the hearty root system that we did our best to build up back in Saskatchewan.