This is a long one.
December in Texas = leaves on the grass instead of snow. 
Getting everything all packed up and ready for the move. This picture is stressful to look at. 
Packing up the truck. We used a company called U-Pack – we boxed everything up and loaded it into the truck, and then they had a driver drive the truck to Utah. The tricky part was that the truck had to leave a couple weeks before we did in order to guarantee the right arrival day. So we put most of our stuff in the truck, and only kept behind the things we’d need those last few weeks and what we’d be able to bring with us in our van. 
Rachel and Lizza rolling up all our dishes in packing paper and stuffing them into dresser drawers. We had to get creative to be able to fit everything (and actually, we didn’t end up fitting everything – we had to sell a bunch of stuff and leave a bunch of stuff)
After we sent the truck with all our stuff on its way, our house was a little bit empty. We had some thoughtful friends who brought over puzzles and toys for the kids to keep them occupied for the next few weeks. Whenever people do things like that it makes me want to remember to be more thoughtful of other people’s situations and think of ways I could help – I’m not very good at that. 
One of the families also lent us this card table since our kitchen table was in the truck. It worked perfectly for the same things we always used our kitchen table for – puzzles, art, and games. 
I had kept out this toy nativity for the kids to play with, since we were going to be moving so close to Christmas, and I wanted them to feel like it was still Christmas-y in our empty house. Cindy and Henry played with the little nativity people every day. When they brought them in the car on the way to one of Henry’s doctor appointments for his ears, I could hear things getting a little wild: Henry was having one of the wisemen wrestle with the baby Jesus, and Cindy was cheering on with her shepherd guys, “Go, Jesus, go! Come on, Jesus! Use your best moves!” I had them stop, and then talked to them about how that wasn’t very respectful to play with the baby Jesus like that. Cindy answered back, “but Mom, it’s okay, because Jesus was winning! He was just about to get a trophy!” Oh, okay. Carry on. 
Planning for Christmas presents was a little bit tricky because I ordered a lot of stuff online, and some of it I had shipped to our Texas house, but other stuff I had shipped to Utah in case it didn’t make it in time. We had a few boxes arrive right before we moved, and instead of packing the boxes into the van, we just did some early present opening (we like to do that with a few presents every year, anyway). This year one of the early presents was some new Seahakws gear. 
Sleeping arrangements were fun, since all the beds went with the truck. We had kept out a few sleeping bags, and with some borrowed blankets from friends it was like a fun blanket fort sleepover every night. I actually didn’t mind living with such an empty house for a few weeks – clean up time was so easy! 
And Henry fell asleep in the middle of reading just the same as he did on his real bed:
Playing at the park with friends in shorts in December – something we probably took for granted while we were in Texas:
And then some more football in the backyard: 
Henry scrambling to finish this giant puzzle that our friends had lent us. He couldn’t stand to leave it undone, and he finally finished it the night before we moved. 
One last Texas dinner at Rudy’s BBQ:
Saying goodbye to my good friend who was in the hospital after giving birth to twins! It was hard to say goodbye, but I was so happy I got to see her babies before we moved. They came just in time. 
Last night in the house:
Saying goodbye to the house early the next morning before we took off for Utah. I surprised myself by feeling a little emotional as we left – I was excited about our move, but it felt weird to be leaving a home that we had lived in for almost 9 years. Half of our kids were born while we lived in that house! 
Then we were on our way. We split the drive up into two days. I drove the van, Daniel drove his Civic, and the kids traded back and forth between the two. I had been worried about being able to make the whole drive by myself (usually on our roadtrips we do a lot of switching back and forth), but it was better than I thought. We did have to stop and rest a few times. Here are the kids sitting on a curb somewhere during one of our rests:
We made it to Albuquerque the first day and spent the night there. The kids loved our hotel room. 
It even had a dining room table, so we ordered pizza for dinner and ate at the hotel and felt really fancy:
Then the next day – Utah!
We drove straight to the house we were renting in Alpine, and the kids were so surprised to find a Christmas tree already set up with presents and everything. We had gotten the keys for the house at the beginning of the month, and since we knew we’d be getting there right before Christmas with not a lot of time to do anything, Daniel’s mom and my sister-in-law had set this all up as a surprise for the kids. It was perfect. 
Tristan’s 14th birthday was the next day, which was also the day the truck got there so we could start moving everything in. Happy birthday/moving day, Tristan! He was a super good sport. I remember talking to him before we moved, and trying to figure out if there would be anything fun we could still do on his birthday for him. He said he didn’t care at all, and not to worry about it, which I thought was great, but then I got carried away and said, “you know, maybe it will even be kind of fun to move on your birthday! You’ll get to pick out your room and get it all set up and everything!” He looked at me with a very knowing almost-14-year-old-look, and said, “Mom. It’s fine, and I’m not going to complain or anything, but I’ve helped a lot of people move. It’s not going to be fun.” Ha! Smart kid. He doesn’t really like cake, so we made a birthday cake out of donuts for breakfast. 
And then got to work: 
It snowed pretty much all day while we were moving in. Welcome to Utah. Some of us (the kids) were more thriiled about that than others (me). 
But this was the view from our front porch, so I couldn’t really complain. Mountains everywhere – so beautiful!
Eating breakfast on the floor before all the stuff got brought in:
The first week or so at our rental house felt pretty overwhelming. The house had not been cleaned well, and felt dirty and more rundown than we had pictured. I remember wondering that first night if we had made a big mistake, and wishing we could go back to Texas. As we started to get things cleaned up and move our own stuff in, we began to feel more settled, and it didn’t take long before we were really happy about the move. We decided to stay in the rental until we figured out what our long-term plans were going to be; we weren’t sure if we wanted to build or buy (spoiler: after one year in this rental house we ended up buying a house just a few minutes away, also in Alpine. That’s where we’re living now. We love it).
My mom and dad (who now live only 25 minutes from us!), helped out so much with geting the house cleaned up:
And on the plus side, everybody loved the backyard: 
There was a huge hill right behind us, with tons of deer all the time. Very exciting. 
And snow: 
Lizza is a true Texas baby, and had no clue how to dress appropriately for the snow:
Just three nights after we got to Utah, we had a big Christmas Eve party at Grandpa Darcy’s house (Daniel’s dad). 
New pajamas: 
The best sparkle jackets ever:
Plus legos: 
And then Taysom Hill jerseys and more looking at legos: 
And then it was time to go home and put the kids to bed and deal with this (to be fair, the rest of the house actually looked okay. It’s just that we had been unpacking for 2 days and anything that people didn’t know what to do with ended up in the kitchen): 
I can’t remember what time we finally finished. Sometime in the middle of the night, Christmas Eve. All ready for Christmas morning! 
Christmas morning:
Lizza and Cindy matching with their cousin at Grandma Nini’s house:
Then over to my parents house for the evening. Henry and Cindy were pretty worn out after all the Christmas fun. 
The kids had so much fun seeing cousins and aunts and uncles. All the things we missed while living in Texas. 
My mom has kept some of the old toys we had when we were kids, and I love seeing my kids love them as much as I did. The Fisher Price Sesame Street clubhouse with the slide! That thing was the best. 
My parents always give each of my kids a book for their birthday and at Christmas. My dad sat and read all 6 books to them – I think he lost his voice by the end. 
Then it was time to put the younger four to bed under the lights of the tree at Grandma’s house so the grown-ups (along with Tristan and Oliver) could play games. Best kind of night. 
Other December stuff:
Sledding on the hill behind our house:
Cindy and Henry working on some of the new puzzles we got for Christmas. Our rental house had a huge front room that we didn’t really have any furniture for, so we put a table in there and called it a puzzle room. It quickly became Henry’s favorite room in the house. 
Daniel is still working for Dell, but made the transition to work full-time remote when we moved to Utah. Here he is in his “office”. It took a little getting used to, but now I think it would be hard for him to go back. 
Cousin fun: 
BYU basketball fun: 
More cousin fun: 
Sledding with cousins: 
Birthday dinner for Grandma Nini with cousins at Chuckarama: 
Cindy and Henry resting with books on my bed. I can’t remember why this was happening. Probably things were feeling crazy and tons of people were over at the house and sometimes when that happens this is the best thing for them. And they know it. 
And lastly, a teeny tiny snowman who got to live inside for a short while. On a washcloth on a plate. That big gash on Lizza’s chin is from her sledding down the hill behind our house straight into a tree. 
The end!
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