Hello Boise, ID

Thursday May 8,
     We woke up about 6am and drove all day through never ending Nebraska. We stopped for the night in Sidney, NE where our friends Alicia and Trevor, were kind enough to let us stay (and shower!). We got there about 5pm which was nice to just be able to relax for the evening.
     The following morning we left around 7am in hopes of making it to Boise late that night, only 12 hours remaining. We were finally getting a little better gas mileage and were so close to our destination and being out of the truck!!
     About 4pm we were passing through Evanston, WY. Nate and I were having a silly conversation about something when he goes, "Oh...I just missed my exit." I wasn't paying any attention and figured, oh well we'll hit the next one. Until a sign told us the next one was 37 miles and our gas light dinged. We crossed the border into Utah, and our truck sputtered and died. WORST. FEELING. EVER. (except bed bugs in your hotel!). Luckily, we were smart and signed up for AAA before we left, though we didn't print ID cards because we didn't ACTUALLY think we'd need them! No problem we thought, we'll just look them up on Nate's smartphone. Except he of course had NO SERVICE to make calls or access the internet. Awesome.
     We were able to sloooowly look up the information on my old reliable not-so-smart-phone and make the call to AAA to get us some gas. The "20 minute wait" turned into an hour before the gas man showed up to save us. I was slightly annoyed as I really had to go to the bathroom, but I think Nate and I were both good sports about it and made the best of our situation, joking and laughing as much as we could with our screaming baby. And I peed on the side of the highway for the first time in many years! :)
     When the gas man arrived he asked, "So how did this happen?" Nate replied, "I missed my exit" to which the gas man responded, "All 3 of them?!" pretty sure he thought we were the biggest idiots. We were given $20 worth of gas, enough for us to turn around, drive BACK to Evanston, get gas there, and THEN drive on into Utah. Only running 2 1/2 hours behind schedule.
   Once in Utah we met up with Nate's little brother and his fiancee as well as my little brother and his girlfriend. We all went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner which was delicious. We didn't get done there until almost 9:30pm and luckily Aaron's fiancee was nice enough to lend us a guestroom in her house for the night. We very much appreciated that since we were BEAT after 4 days of driving.
     Saturday morning we stopped in Layton on our way up to Boise to visit Nate's 92 year old grandpa Oren and introduce him to Spencer who is named after him (Spencer Oren).

`1`

     We made it to Boise Saturday about 3pm and are SO glad to be out of the car for a while! We spent the next few hours unpacking and organizing. We are glad to be in Boise closer to family but we sure miss our friends in Pennsylvania!!

Goodbye Waynesboro, PA

April 21, 2014

     Nate got a call with a job offer working for the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections in Nampa, ID. They wanted him to begin working on May 12 which was only 3 weeks away! We quickly started getting things in order as well as started packing up our tiny apartment. Though the call was an answer to our prayers, the fact that we were actually leaving our first home, the place that we became a family, was bittersweet and harder than we expected. 

Our first home.

May 6, 2014

     So we sold our furniture, said goodbye to our wonderful ward and our great friends, and set off on our 2,380 mile drive across the country, this time with a baby. I'll admit, I cried multiple times. Living away from family really was a blessing. It taught Nate and I to rely on each other for everything. It taught us how to live on a tight budget. And it is where we became a family instead of a couple. A part of my heart will always be in Waynesboro.

Saying bye to Lexi.

     We left PA about 1:30pm and drove through Maryland, West Virginia, back through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and stopped about 2am in a Walmart parking lot in Dansville Illinois. Funny enough we stopped for dinner in West Virginia at the same place we stopped 14 months ago when we were moving to PA. It was some delicious mexican food! 

dinner in WV.

     Spencer's first blowout happened on this leg of the journey. We had poop for days! The next morning we got up and drove to Nauvoo, IL where we toured around Carthage jail and Old Nauvoo. It was an interesting day, we took a wagon ride around Nauvoo and it thundered and lightninged and rained so hard and as soon as we got off the wagon to walk around the town the sun came up and it got sunny and hot!

wagon ride in Nauvoo.

Carthage jail and the window Joseph Smith fell from and died.

bullet holes still in the door.

the window from the inside.

     We toured around Nauvoo for a while, we visited the Lucy Mack Smith home, the blacksmith shop (my favorite), the Brigham Young house, the brick yard, the bake shop, etc. Such a cute place with lots of fun things to do and see. We ran into some relatives of Nate's (his mom's cousin?) that were on a mission there and later that evening we met up with my great aunt and uncle who are serving as temple missionaries! It was fun to see them since we hadn't since our wedding. They were so gracious and fed us dinner and volunteered to babysit Spencer for an hour while we went to a show put on by other missionary couples. It was nice to get to enjoy the show with just each other and Spencer had a good time playing with Aunt Sue and Uncle Pete! After the show we hopped in the truck for some more driving!

upstairs in the Lucy Mack Smith house.

the women's garden.

Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo.

     We stopped somewhere in Iowa and decided since we hadn't had a shower we'd stay at a hotel. We picked a moderately priced one, not a super cheapy gross one...BAD IDEA! We walk into the room and set out stuff down. Nate jumps in the shower and I inspect the beds for bed bugs. Didn't see anything too suspicious so I began to change Spencer and get him ready for bed. I pulled the blankets on my half of the bed down and started nursing him. I suddenly had a thought to pull the other side down. I did and I noticed a redish brown spot on the sheet. I thought it was just a stain so I ignored it. Then I had a thought to not ignore it. So I looked closer and to my horror it was a bed bug!!! UGH!!!! I was sooo annoyed, disgusted, and just mad!!

little traveler!

     I grabbed a cup from the counter and caught the bug. I packed all of our stuff up as fast as I could and yelled to Nate to hurry, I was not staying in this hotel one minute longer than I had to! We went to the front desk where I set the cup on the counter and said, "I'm sorry, we can;t stay here. I found a bed bug in my bed!" The front desk clerk said, "sorry" and did something on the computer, handed me a refund receipt and we left! NO WAY was I dealing with those awful bugs again!!! 

our load that made it possible to only get 9 miles per gallon!

     So since I had some adrenaline going we decided to drive a few more hours, after we dropped some bug bombs in the trailer for safe measure! We drove till about 2am and stopped in Pella, Iowa and slept in the Walmart parking lot!! :) In the morning we discovered it was actually a really cute town with windmills and tulips and Dutch influences.

somewhere in Ohio.