Eastward Ho

It's been three weeks now since we up and left Michigan, so it's time to talk about the move! (And hopefully this will be the last mammoth post for a little while.)

Whew. That move. Every day I would think about other moves -- the time we moved with a newborn and Kevin spent 3 days at a conference right when I was packing, the time we moved when I just had found out I was pregnant and was dealing with morning sickness and the stress of a Christmas concert/creche exhibit, and . . . it was kind of funny. I had plenty of help with babysitting, Kevin was done with his PhD, and it was still by far the hardest move yet.

Of course, this time there was the combination of a horrible humid heat wave, mild stomach bugs we kept passing back and forth to each other, a laptop that kept crashing and showing the blue screen of death (only a year after the previous one had done so), headaches, Matthew teething (of course), sleep deprivation, constant butterflies in my stomach due to stress and anxiety, expensive car repairs (looking at you, brakes), Kevin being helpful in a myriad of ways but none of them involving packing boxes (his stuff was harder and extremely important, but it wasn't as visible so I had to remind myself he was working hard too), and above all, being oh so sad so much of the time. No crying, but I would go to parties and just feel sad about missing people already, and then I would feel guilty for not having fun. Fun times!

But, everything worked out. We all got better from our various ailments (including the computer and car), and we stopped being so sad and anxious once we were out the door. It was kind of like being 41 weeks pregnant -- it's not necessarily going to be easier once the baby is born or once you've moved, but the anticipation and heaviness is just plain miserable. And anyone who deals with chronic illness or fatigue or depression or anxiety, I salute you! A week or two of it is bad enough!

After packing up on a muggy Saturday evening that turned into a stormy Saturday evening that left me drenched (but none of our stuff, thankfully), "sleeping" two nights on an air mattress, and scrubbing and sweeping with the help of some kind friends, we were on our way! Except we had to drive around the circle one last time so I could get one last picture.

Those flowers are probably not doing so hot now.

Our first stop was the Johnson farm that we never went to when we went to Kirtland last year. Matthew was a little bit more opinionated this time compared to the time he was 5 weeks old, so the missionary rushed through a few parts and I left still not really knowing why Joseph Smith was ever there. (He did manage to tell the whole horrible tale of Joseph's tar and feathering to my sweet Joseph, who stood there with wide eyes. It didn't really seem to faze him, though.) When Matthew acted hungry, the tour basically ended. Haha! (In actuality, there were some really cool parts, especially seeing the room where Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith had the vision of the celestial kingdom.) We left without taking a picture and headed on our way.

I've shared this before, but it still makes me laugh. He had to hold every credit card this trip!

We've always wanted to cross West Virginia off our states list, so we grazed a corner of it and spent a wonderful 2 or so miles in it. And it was dark. So I don't know if we should count it. We drove past Pittsburgh and spent the night in a pretty good hotel.

The sign you can't read says Moon, Pennsylvania. We considered it.

We spent a bit of the next morning at the hotel watching Olympics and Daniel Tiger, and Kevin took Joseph to the pool.

Enthralled.

We then spent the next few hours driving through beautiful Pennsylvania while surviving Scripture Scouts and Three Doors Down (Joseph's new favorite song is "Kryptonite") before arriving at my dad's place near Princeton, New Jersey where he worked this summer. Man, they sure make up a lot of crazy driving rules to make it impossible to correct your mistakes if you happen to miss your turn. After dinner, we headed over to campus to admire the buildings. There were definitely a lot of beautiful buildings at University of Michigan, but this was a whole different scale of castles.

So many great archways!

This was probably used for some scene in Harry Potter

After we finished walking around, I wanted to go see our old house in Hopewell Township, so we drove there. My family has stayed in contact with our former next door neighbor who is probably in her eighties by now, and she invited us in for a chat. She reminded me of how she would watch us ride bikes and play and how every morning she would open her window so she could hear us practice the piano. I am so grateful those are the memories she's held onto because I feel like all I ever journaled about back then were our fights. I spent a minute looking at our old house, remembering the musty old basement that we got used to, watching Babysitters Club and putting on shows, the old brick driveway, the stuffed animals taped to the broom that Kaylie and I tapped on the window the time Leslie wouldn't let us hang out with her and her friend, and the days I spent cross-stitching bear after bear after bear. There were lots of great memories in that little old house.

(I forgot to take a picture of the house. But here is a picture in the house.)

We had promised Joseph some ice cream, so even though it was late by then he stayed awake to get his just desserts. After a little bit of Olympics, we headed to bed.

The next morning, we all went to Philadelphia to see the temple open house. Before we left, we were discussing how nice it was to have family on the East Coast since Kaylie's here too now. "Well, I guess Mom has a cousin over here, too, but we probably won't run into her." But as fate (or providence) would have it, after dutifully following instructions to head over to the church to watch the intro video that we've all seen at least twice at various open houses, we were richly rewarded with "You're my cousin!" My mom's cousin was our usher! (And the video was good, as it always is. I love the narrator!)

And the temple was beautiful! We kept Joseph's attention by counting the pictures of Christ on the walls (I think we got 33), and there were just such lovely vases and designs throughout. (See here.) After the tour, we chatted with my mom's cousin and my second cousin a bit and then got some lunch.

My phone never took a picture, but luckily she shared her picture with me!

We had also considered going to Independence Hall, but when we got there we couldn't find parking. Not that we looked super hard. We were tired.

"I've been here before," Kevin said.
"I've been here before," I said.
"The Liberty Bell is just a bell that doesn't do anything," my dad said.

Joseph and Matthew wouldn't have cared either way. So, I didn't channel my inner Aaron Burr and we did not go in the room where it happened.

We did, however, stop by Washington Crossing State Park. The boys were asleep, so my dad stayed with them in the car while Kevin and I walked around. I have been really interested in the Revolutionary War lately, so it was really neat to be there. I felt like this was sacred ground in its own way, and as we walked I peppered Kevin with trivia. "The Hessians were German mercenaries, so they celebrated Christmas. Americans really didn't celebrate Christmas til the mid 19th century. They had the 4th of July and Washington's birthday, and they thought that was enough holidays so they didn't celebrate Christmas." (though . . . that doesn't explain why they didn't celebrate Christmas in the 18th century, since neither of those mattered in 1776.) I imagined Washington and his ragtag army crossing the Delaware that cold night and felt such a sense of gratitude for their bravery.

Where Washington's boat crossed the river.

Boats from that time.

We drove past my old middle school and grocery store, saw where my brother-in-law almost won BYU 50, and then went for a brief walk along the canal.

We swung by the old church,

drove past some funny power lines,

There's definitely some reason those are there,

and then headed back to the hotel for dinner, swimming with friendly kids, Olympics, and Disney Channel.

The next morning, we met up with Kaylie at a park

and then we were finally off to our new home in Connecticut!

And thus began our next big adventure.