Okay, I've been a bit delinquent. I'm sure the literally handful of you that will ever read this have been waiting in rapt anticipation. We have been moving this week and are finally starting to feel at home in our place in Sioux Falls.
We left one week ago and drove overnight from Sioux Falls, SD to Marion, IN. Amy and Xander picked me up after work (Maia was with my folks) at midnight and we arrived shortly after 1:00 the next afternoon at Keith Connor's place. Keith had a gig over the weekend and told me to stop by if we got there before he left. We then picked up the truck, dropped it off at the house and went over to Brent and Kathy Williams' place where we enjoyed tremendous hospitality. It isn't everywhere that you can show up after sleeping just a few hours on the road and grab a shower and a nap before socializing with friends you haven't seen in months! We had great chili (not a soup, for the record) and had fun hanging out and catching up.
Saturday was moving day. We met at our house at 10:00 and started loading the truck. It was primarily furniture with some boxes and odds and ends to boot. We weren't too far in when we realized we didn't have enough truck to do the job. We continued to plug away anyway and made plans over lunch to add a 5' x 8' trailer to the equation. A little while into loading truck and trailer, we still weren't sure we had enough truck, but when the doors were pulled shut at 7:00 pm, we had everything that was going with us.
Sunday morning was hard. We went to Hanfield and got there a little bit before the end of 1st service, attended 2nd service and hung out into the 3rd service before starting the drive. It was great to see so many friends and enjoyed the service a lot, but it felt like we spent the entire morning saying goodbye again. We crammed as much catching up as we could into the conversations we did have, but we wished we could have spent more time talking to everybody. I was especially sorry that I missed my friend (and new dad) Tim Lehrian who I waved at down the hall, but never actually got to talk to. I'm also sorry to have missed guys like Ryan Fox, Keaton Whitehead (and his wonderful family), the Hoeksemas and so many others that have been such a huge part of our lives over the last eight years.
We drove to West Branch, IA after services (Amy and Xander in the car and me in the truck & trailer) and stayed with friend and fellow Sheldon HS alum Margaret (Oosterhuis) Duhn. Amy and the kids had stayed with Margaret and Brian last month, but I hadn't seen them in about three years. It was a great chance to catch up some and, again, we were blessed by the hospitality.
We arrived back in Sioux Falls on Monday night where my folks, Amy's Dad, Mom and Step-Dad and a handful of folks from the church here helped us get things off of the trucks and into our new digs. We pretty much decided that if we didn't have a definite place for an item, that it was going to the basement. Well, the basement looks like our truck threw up all over it. We've been getting things put together and organized since Monday night and we're beginning to make some decent headway.
I want to give special thanks to Brent and Kathy for their love and hospitality (wish we'd have had more time to just hang out), Kent & Melissa for watching Xander, LJ, Bryon, Dave, Luke, James, Mr. Brown, Kent, Jack and the piano movers for their help in Marion, Margo, Brian and their beautiful kids for letting us disrupt their lives for a night, our family and church family from New Hope Family Church for their help on the final stretch. We definitely felt loved, supported and encouraged through the entire weekend. Can't wait to head back to Marion for a visit without physical labor!
No comments:
Post a Comment