Our first week in Utah we had the great pleasure to watch Theodorable while Haley and Jacob went to Cancun with some of their friends.
He was giving me serious Baby Merrick vibes. Mostly because of the fatness. My soul delighteth in fatness.
It was fun to have a baby around again.
There's a lot more time spent on the floor.
Look at the squish!
There is nothing so nice as a fresh, warm baby squish.
He had a tendency to hold his arms tightly to his chest and grab on to his soft squishy skin so tight that it would be red afterwards, so we did try to keep him clothed as much as we could bear it.
Even swaddled babies are snuggly. Baby grub.
Theo has very small nasal passages and is consequently an alarmingly loud eater and sleeper. His dragon snorting is especially ominous over a baby monitor speaker. But then he looks like this!
Milk drunk.
Theo has a pronounced partiality to Drew, who has a pronounced similarity to Jacob.
Theo accompanied us to the Highland Fling, which is always a fun time.
Do you think now that we live in Highland in The Highlands that I will need to learn to play the bagpipes? I just looked them up--a beginner set is only $122! I could walk around the neighborhood every morning at 9:00 this summer and wake everyone up, like the Queen. The neighbors will love me so much!
We missed seeing the high school marching bands in the parade. Did COVID kill bands? I hope not. After the parade we walked down to the library sale with Grandma Paula for a little while, then let the kids run wild through the bounce houses while I lurked with a napping Theo in the shade. It was a sweltering sort of day and the air was all smuggy from half of the Western US burning at once. Lest you think I am exaggerating, this screenshot is from July 28th, the week before:
It's good for me to see this actually. I'm writing this post in *cough*February*cough* and am feeling very sick of winter. I will count my blessings! There were some other fun things in the field in addition to the bounce houses. Most of the kids tried the climbing wall...
...and then they surprised me by waiting patiently for an hour and a half for a turn to walk on water. It was nice to be able to dangle feet while they waited.
Vivien made sort-of friends with the older girls in front of her in line. I was watching from a distance and couldn't really tell if they were being nice or if they were bothering her. One of them pushed her totally into the water at one point.
I was sitting there trying to decide if I needed to intervene and had my camera flipped towards me accidentally, so in case you were curious, this is my Momma-bear-at-bay face. I needn't have worried. Vivien looked the girl straight in the face (well, not straight, since she was a good six inches taller than Vivs), said, "That was rude," and used her wiry strength to return the dunking in kind.
At last, it was their turn.
Some hard working teens were in charge of rotating the kids through the 4 balls.
They used leaf blowers to inflate them.
The kids all covered their ears--I'm sure it was very loud!
It was funny to watch them rolling around on a frictionless surface.
Vivi had a pretty good stretch on her feet at one point.
Here's little Merrick flailing around.
They let the kids stay out as long as they wanted, which might seem like it was a bad idea, but it actually worked out pretty well.
How long could you last, doing gymnastics with no air exchange under the glare of a full August sun? Rafe's post-experience face will give you some idea of the humidity involved inside!
Haley came home and we had to relinquish The Theo. He is a hard baby to give up!
But we still get to see him lots.
We started settling in to our life of squatting in Grandma Paula and Papa Mark's basement.
We had a chore rotation...
...and a dinner rotation, too. Here was a fun picnic dinner at the park.
Some people rode bikes, some people drove.
I had grown used to being fed by Bo pretty regularly in Albuquerque, so I chose to make a lot of Korean food for my dinner nights.
This necessitated trips to the Asian market, where I would send pictures to Bo and she would help me know which brands to get.
We got to celebrate Annie's 6th birthday!
She wanted a Harry Potter party, so as many cousins as could came over and we played Pin the Sock on Dobby...
...painted Golden Snitches...
...and played some fun games outside. Kate let us borrow her Hogwarts banners and we had a sorting, then we ALL played a Fruit Basket-type game of musical chairs using house names instead of fruit. What did we even eat? I think we had hamburgers. And I think I made a tasty cake. I didn't take any pictures, and neither did anyone else. I think that means we were all having too good of a time! I did take a picture of the Harry Potter themed wrapping paper the kids made for one of Annie's presents.
Here's that sweet little six girl with her birthday present from Jaina.
Just a few more end-of-summer pictures. Here was a fun dinner with everybody at home.
It's just so fun to be here!
We had an outing to BYU. What was it for? I remember not. I just went back through my texts with Haley to see if I could find out and saw that we were going to leave after I'd finished teaching English Connect. I had forgotten all about that! Mom had virtual consultants set up to help the Guatemalan missionaries work their way through the English Connect stuff since they didn't have any gringo missionaries to study with and I helped out with that for a few months. Anyway, I think we went to visit Alex in the HFAC...
...then met Haley for lunch at the Creamery.
Vivien sure loves her burgers.
Last, here's a summer picture of Mr. Merrick...
...and Rafe in his favorite pajama shirt...
...and Vivien, who had a rough move emotionally. Probably more on that later.
In January of 2021, Melanie and Isaac (who were living at Mom and Dad's) decided to buy a townhouse in Lehi. This, in combination with Drew's virtual corporate job that he had started the previous October, opened up some intriguing possibilities for moving to Utah. A move was really not on our radar. But then it was! It was like when you aren't anticipating being pregnant, but then you think you might be on accident, and you can't stop your brain from going into hyperdrive and imagining and planning your new life with another baby, all before you even have time to take a pregnancy test the next morning . . .
Drew started talking to his boss about the possibility. Thus followed many months of high-stakes waiting. Like being back in the military again. At the end of January Drew's boss said it didn't look likely, then by 2/11 Big HR had ok'd a two year move to Utah, but then it had to be run by many different VP's, and then there was a meeting with all of Intel because lots of people were wanting to work remotely and they needed to be careful what kind of precedent they were setting with our case.
On 4/25 Melanie texted me, "Seriously when will you know!?" It started to be most inconvenient. Do I tell the Family School we won't be back next year? Should I sign Merrick up for preschool in Utah? Should I tell the Symphony I won't be able to be on the board in the fall? Should we travel a bunch this summer or will we be trying to get our house ready to sell? Should I tell my students to find a new violin teacher?
Finally, FINALLY, on 5/13, fully four months since we first asked, we got approval for Drew to work both virtually and remotely in Utah for two years. At the end of that two years they'll either say, "This is working out just fine. You can stay in Utah long term," or they'll say, "You need to move back to a city where there is an Intel site." In either of those cases we most likely won't be moving back to Albuquerque, preferring either the Arizona site near all of my cousins, or the Portland site in our beloved PNW, or even the Ireland or Israel site for another adventure abroad, so we decided to sell our house. We got through all the end-of-school events of May, then started prepping in earnest. I quit my job so I'd have enough time to get it all done.
The first moving hurdle was getting the house ready to show--all the "stuff" got packed away into boxes and stored in the garage. This is the library. We have...a lot of books.
I took down most of the decorations and tried to make the house look homey without making it look so much like Sabrina's house. A realtor in the stake who's really good at staging helped me figure out what to do with what I had over text messages.
I decided to sell our queen loft bed because we weren't going to need it in my parents' house.
A family in the neighborhood next to ours bought it for $300 for their teenage son. I was explaining to them how to put it together and they said, "That's pretty cool!" Those golden words! I was most gratified.
I also sold our trusty old crib to a Latino family that I met at Target. They paid me in quarters.
I hope it will hold as much joy for them as it has for me!
We had a lot of work to do in the yard. Drew decided to sell his ducks rather than put them through the horrors of moving.
Then he spent many hours and calories dismantling the duck pond. We tried draining it with a syphon but were having trouble with the length of the hose we had chosen. I did finally get it going, but not before I got a mouth full of duck poop water. Not good for drinking. But great for the lawn! The grass was wonderfully green where we diverted the water.
We weeded and blew out the gravel, cleaned out the big river rocks, pruned the front trees.
Full day, full sun.
The trees in the back needed lots of tough love too.
I went to town on some of them. Sometimes you start and it's just worse than you thought, so you have to keep going. All the crepe myrtles had lost a lot of branches after some ill-timed freezes over the winter, so there was lots to pare down. So much trimming! Many trips to the dump. Bo kept trying to come over to spend time with me, but I had so many chores and her back was not feeling good, so she would sit and watch me from the porch swing, or through the window from the couch inside.
I felt like the yard looked pretty darn good by the end.
Inside there were walls to be scrubbed, bathrooms to be scoured, cabinets to wipe down and dings to color in with those magical stain pens. Drew and I painted walls together for the first time in our lives. We completely repainted the downstairs main room and all of the upstairs except the master, which just needed a couple touch-ups that Drew had a devil of a time finding matching paint for.
Spencer and some Morgan kids came over and painted one of the kids' bedrooms for us while we were out of town for a Spartan race. We moved one bunk bed into each room so it didn't look quite so much like, "wall to wall babies in here."
We let the kids have a sleepover downstairs while their rooms were being painted.
I repainted the stair railing and the baseboards and some door frames and finally finished painting the clothes shelves I had put into the kids' closet a few years ago. I also painted over Vivien's creepy message in her closet...
The house was ready to show by the time we left for our July reunions. A guy from the realtors office came over and took pictures with a camera that enabled him to make a digital dollhouse you could walk through virtually on the listing.
I think it's so cool! And also weird to be able to see it all at once.
We packed for our summer trips and left the same day the house was listed (7/1), everything pristine for the open house later that day. By 7/3 we had accepted an offer. We bought the house for $249,000 in July of 2018 and sold it for $340,000 in 2021. We came back from our trip to a big "sold" sign in our yard.
After the showings we started whittling down our possessions to what we actually wanted to move. Bo bought my piano from me (she needed a new one after Jaina fell over the railing onto their piano and demolished the front of it with her body). The maroon chair and our old IKEA TV stand and dresser went to the apartment of one of Drew's coworker's sons, where they are much appreciated. The rest of the maroon couches were appreciatively placed out on the curb to be picked up for trash day.
We sold the futon. One of the guys who was interested in buying it messaged me my favorite thing I've ever received on OfferUp: "Would you bless me with this for half price?" He came to look at it and was surprised by its dimensions, even though I had been quite clear on the listing that it was a full size mattress and had included measurements. Oh well. Somebody else claimed it.
It was kind of sad to part with that one as well. We bought it in Seattle as a "guest bed." I took my newborns out to sleep on it sometimes, because it wasn't as squishy as our other bed so I was less worried about them getting lost in it and suffocating. Here's sweet little Rafie:
I dismantled the bunk beds. Vivien had magically already accumulated this much junk under her mattress in the course of a few weeks.
I returned all the things that were in my house but did not belong to me.
All this packing was interspersed with lasts. I got released from Primary and turned over all my Google docs to Tiffany Kunzelman, the new Presidente. I updated all the orchestra rosters and did everything I could to get APO ready for their season to start in the fall. Krista and I had one more movie night together. Bishop Yorgason glued up my seams one last time and replaced the nut on my violin.
Michelle and I squeezed in a glorious hike up Sandia one of the weekends. I've got a bunch of pictures of this one. In the parking lot...
...hiking in the moonlight before the sun rose...
...making Michelle laugh...
...making Michelle sniff the trees...
...taking selfies on the top...
...admiring this wonderful contrasting color display of nature...
...picking up Murphy poops...
...admiring the sun filtering through trees...
...feeling accomplished...
...staying hydrated...
...feeling hot...
...feeling too hot to go on...
Ok, this one demands some explanation. Murphy was SO DONE with the hike by the last 2 miles. Any time there was any shade at all he would make a beeline for it and throw himself down. We were going to be on the mountain forever. Not really, but I was tired and hot myself, and "I don't want to hike anymore" had set in, so I tried to carry him. He liked that even less than walking, so we just tried to hurry him past any shade we might see and kept soaking him with water every couple minutes till we finally made it back to the parking lot.
He was very happy to flop down in the back of the car and pant till we got home. Though we didn't go straight home. We met a guy named Jason on the trail and he hiked up with us but took a different way down. He'd wanted to take us out to lunch after but we were too slow, so he left some water and $20 on our windshield. We got some smoothies in his honor.
We had many meals with the McEwens. Bo and I went out to lunch one day in a crazy rain storm.
We were very wet.
There was also a curry tonkatsu night (cue the meat pounding jokes)...
...with after dinner entertainment of all kinds.
One of the Saturdays we took the McEwens and the Sextons to Box Canyon. It was not a terribly warm day, but sometimes you just have to go for it anyway.
It's such a pretty hike.
Especially when it starts to be a slot canyon. I see this particular spot in my dreams sometimes.
There was cliff jumping! I'm pretty sure Drew was the first one to jump off, but I don't have a video of it.
The sound of the waterfall slowed down kind of sounds like how your panic feels when you leave the edge...
Here's Rafe totally rocking it.
He's pretty neat.
Vivien also did it, but did not like the landing.
Here she is being cold and miserable.
Michelle thought about jumping, but then thought better of it.
By that time everyone was cold and ready to head back. We took a couple family canyon pictures. I think I took one of the McEwens but it's on their phone.
Murphy is not the most cooperative picture taker.
It was easier to get one without him!
Here we are, glamorously hiking back.
There was a lot of river foam, I imagine from the rain.
Oh how I love this one of my Magical Annie Goose.
We stopped in the parking lot of Battleship Rock to eat our picnic lunches, then we headed home.
And then it was down to our last days. We had a party at the McEwen's with our wonderful friends. I think it was an early birthday party for Bo? Or a late birthday party for me? Or someone else's birthday entirely? I'm afraid I don't remember.
But I do remember there were lots of delicious treats and the Begays sang us a goodbye song.
It is so hard to say goodbye to such good friends!
Michelle and I went for our last run...
...and our last swim.
I miss all these masters friends! Clay reminded everyone to suck in their guts. Thia was surprised at how tall we all are out of the water.
A day or two before we left I was taking some boxes from upstairs down to the garage where I was staging them when I heard someone crying in the street.
I walked out to investigate and found Vivien lying in the gutter, weeping piteously, tangled in the rope of the Sexton's swing, which she had been swinging violently on because I told her she couldn't do something.
I picked her up, brushed her off, and set her walking back towards the house, when she started swaying dangerously and almost collapsed. She had suffered a fairly severe concussion when the rope swing broke, and she spent the next 5 hours being completely psycho. She'd fall asleep for a minute, then wake up in a panic, trying to remember where she was and what had happened, then we'd get her calmed down and she'd sleep for another few minutes before doing the whole thing over again. She couldn't remember anything from the past week.
But she was fine the next day, and her memories all came back. I was a little bit sad she remembered how much she hated cliff jumping. It would have been much easier to convince her to do it again if that memory had stayed lost!
The Sextons were going out of town and wouldn't be back before we left, so they came over to say goodbye.
Last minute teasing!
Oh Elliott! You were such a fun next-next-door neighbor for our Rafe. I can still hear Mike (that lived behind us) in my head, yelling, "EEEEELLLIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOTTTT!"
Neighbors like these are such a blessing. We miss them terribly.
The next day Krista very kindly helped me pack up all my kitchen stuff and schlepp it out to the garage. We had dinner with the McEwens again, I think a bunch of leftover stuff they were helping us finish.
I know Hillary and the kids came over one evening to sit in the shade on the grass one last time with us and say goodbye, but I can't remember what day it was. I think it was the day before we left. I have a picture of when they came to help load up the truck, but that was after we left.
The kids slept on their mattresses on the floor for their last night at home.
This is a very common sleeping posture for Annie.
Spencer came by to say goodbye on his way in to work, then the McEwen's rolled up to join the van Langens in the front yard for the send-off.
I walked through all the rooms one more time to say thank you, and lingered in my happy place for a moment.
Bo handed me a lunch to eat on my drive, which made me cry like a baby.
Then when all the hugs were given, we were on our way! I snapped pictures of the views I will miss the most from this drive. Sandias...
...plateaus leading up to the Jemez...
...colorful cliffs in the Jemez pueblo...
..this weird fold of land halfway between Farmington and Shiprock...
...Shiprock itself...
...the nub across from Canyonlands...
..maybe Cedar Mountain Recreation Area? Not sure, but it looks cool.
I got treats for the kids at a gas station, since it was a special kind of trip. I got myself a treat too :)
We drove to Utah and settled in at Grandma Paula and Papa Mark's. Drew stayed behind a few more days to finish up all the stuff for the sale of the house, then our sweet ward friends came and helped him load up the truck.
Home, sweet house, you were good to us.
Drew drove the monstrous truck to Utah, where we, aided by our long-suffering family and new neighbors, unloaded all of our worldly goods into rooms at Mom and Dad's house to wait some more.
Melanie and Isaac had painstakingly consolidated their things to make room for all of our junk.
So many people's things in one space!
Drew let me drive the truck around the neighborhood once...
