Salem Update

Well, quite a bit has happened in the past week and I will update on a part of it. The family finally made it to Salem to stay. Last Wednesday, I was supposed to head to Utah to pick up the family, but instead Stacey drove the family out with our Sister-in-Law Misty. They drove the whole 13 hour trip in one day. Apparently the kids did a pretty good job and were great on the trip - thanks to DVDs and a TV screen...and lots of goodies. I am not sure who was more excited -- the kids to see me or me to see the family. Samantha had a very interesting response. When she saw me she started laughing hysterically and pointing at me and hugging me, but she was so happy to see me that she was on the verge of tears. It was so cute - her laughing with tears welling up in her eyes. For the next three days, the family just hugged each other continually. On Thursday, I took the day off and we went to our storage shed to go through all of our stuff. We had lined up movers to come help us on Friday and we tried to get them to come earlier, but they couldn't. So, we started moving things ourselves. The moving company owner saw us moving things and told us that if wanted to he could bring his truck over and we could load it up - then, he would drive it to our apartment to unload. We spent the next couple of hours going through boxes and loading the truck. We moved most everything but the furniture ourselves. By the time we were done, the owner had recruited someone to come over to the apartment to help us unload. We unloaded and unpacked the house and were able to set up beds to sleep on that night. On Friday, we went over to the storage unit again and loaded up the furniture. This time we had a little more help and we did not have to move any of the heavy stuff. By Saturday, we were wiped out so we took the day off and went to the Coast. We went up and down the coast checking out the beaches and a lighthouse. We found some sea lions lying on a dock on the bay and we were able to watch them from a higher dock overlook. Sami absolutely loved watching the sea lions. We got to play on the beach when the tide was low and all the kids loved that. They were able to run around crazy all over the beach and play in the water a little bit. The sun was shining and the weather was perfect. We closed out the day by eating at the World Famous Moe's - famous for their seafood. By the time we got home that night we were completely wiped out. On Sunday, we drove to Portland and watched Payton give his homecoming talk - he did a fantastic job. As you can tell, we had a busy, fun, exciting first few days. We are just so excited to be together as a family and it has been great. No more bachelor life me...