What a WEEK! We have all packed up and moved out to Laramie Wyoming for Law School, which Michael and Christopher started yesterday with excitement and all nerves. But let me tell ya, it was quite a rough start though. We got to Laramie last Saturday and found our apartments....:s lets just say the place was a run down looking college kid apartment. (not REALLY that big a deal) . The inside was okay, big living room, open kitchen and two bedrooms with a small bathroom, no carpets. Whatever. Doable for at least a year. Got the elders quorum to come help us move all our heavy stuff up the 13 step wooden stair case, including my million pound upright piano--not sure how those stairs didn't cave it. Settled in for the night, had a little bit of a trouble sleeping because the train runs a couple of blocks by our place and it was loud, it felt a little like Manhattan. Still, whatever. We start unpacking and shutting the doors and a strange odor subtly stenches up our apartment, unbeknownst to us. Sunday rolls around and we head to church, meet the new ward, head home. We walk in and *WHOPH* a cloud of gross hit our noses and both of us starting hack up a lung. I eventually figured out that it smelled like a really grungy old motel room...who know what kind of smoke, dog/cat urine had been all over that place. They had ripped up the carpets because of the previous tenant who own a dog. Ya...didn't help much. On top of that, hopping in the shower the night before, my feet were black from walking around barefoot on the "new" hard wood floors. DISGUSTING! who should be afraid to be barefoot in their house?? NOOOO OONE! Anyway, suffice it to say we spent the night at Maddi and Christopher's apartment, not getting a lot of sleep worrying about what the heck we were going to do.
8AM Monday morning we are all up and out of the apartments, on the hunt for a new place to live. All 4 of us were willing to spend more just to get out of the ghetto. We split up and started to search. Maddi and I found a few places that looked pretty nice, which of course were all booked up the week previously and were cheaper living for low income families...lame. We find a real-a-state agent to show us a few places that turned out to be crapper than the apartment we were leaving, HA. "Oh Laramie", is now starting to be our sentiment and mantra for this whole happenings and shinanagins. We next got a call from the boys who told us that they found a place over in what they called "West Laramie". Maddi and were skeptical, BUT why not. Couldn't be worse that the crap shack we had just left. We somehow found the place and mind you it is NOT hard to find places in Laramie, you just drive for 10 minutes and you will know its either wrong or right cause you'll be on the edge of town. :s So, the apartments they found...decent. Actually more than decent, pretty stinkin nice compared to the everything else. Rent was about what we had been paying in Provo but by the time we all saw the LAST TWO place left available, which happened to be exactly what we were looking for, we were sold. AND the property manager was looking to hire an assistant to help in the office...DING, pick me! I had filled out an application for the job while Michael was signing the lease. haha (they ended up calling me that afternoon to ask me when I could start:) brilliance. ) So with an new, nice apartment to move into and a new job, the real work began!
 |
| The New Digs |
By this point we had already moved all of our stuff into our apartments and took back the Uhaul. So we rented another Uhaul which thank goodness didn't cost another arm and leg, and started moving Maddi and Chris's stuff first because their apartment was ready right then. HO.LY COW! we were definitely not prepared to put in the kind of work that we did that day! We had found the apartment around noon, got the stuff out and in the Uhaul and unloading at the new place by 1:30ish. OH i forgot to mention..Maddi and Chris's apartment was 3 flights up...we pretty much died. We couldn't get help from the elders quorum until 6 that night so we were left to tackle the 3 flights of stairs our selves and boy did we ever. There was heaving, and sweat and cramps and i'm sure just a bit of throw-up. But we did it. We finished their place around 5:30 and had to go back and start on our place. Only Heavenly Father could have given us the strength to go and do ANOTHER house that day, and he did. He had been answering our prayers all day and wasn't about to stop blessing us there. We left the big stuff for the elders quorum to help us with and started on our place. We finished getting everything in at about 9pm and were beyond exhausted. Then I started work on Wednesday after we got to spend a day on the house, which Michael, being the trooper that he is, ended up doing the rest of it himself when I went to work the rest of the week.
So anyway, on top of all that, our phone carrier didn't work out in Laramie. It was only today that we were able to actually get service because Virgin Mobile took a week to actually unlock our phones so we could get AT&T. *sigh* it's been a looooong 8 days. BUT things are looking up, we are finally settled, Michael and Chris are hard at work already, Maddi is finding some Dance Studios to teach dance during some of her evenings, I'm working full time and just got an interview at the University for a full time Admissions Rep position....not bad Jesus, not bad. We worked hard and I feel like Heavenly Father is making it work for us all here in Laramie, Wyoming. The ward is absolutely fantastic as well, we love it and we have already run into my first baptist preacher. :) Probably wont be the last either. haha.
Rebeckah
