STOKER FAMILY

This summer has been pretty good if I do say so myself. It is the first summer in our new home here in Utah and I have to say it is a lot better than last summer. Last summer consisted of packing, saying goodbye, moving across the country and living in a small apartment that we all hated.

This summer was vastly different because we were in a house again. This home has been amazing. It sits on a cul-de-sac with lots of other kids and we have made so many friends and found so many fun things to do here in Utah.

The kids will be starting school next week. I always have mixed feelings about them going to school but it's the circle of life. Paul and I will get back to home improvment mode and enjoying our lives together for better or worse.

Ok so it has been a year since I last posted a blog. But I have a pretty good reason.

Shortly after last years spring break, Paul received a job offer in Utah. The whole thing was such a blur. We had talked about him looking for jobs and trying to move closer to our families in Arizona for two years. But then when the opportunity was finally there in front of us it was really scary. We had lived in Georgia for close to six years, 3 of our 4 kids were born there, we had amazing friends that are as close to us as our family and we loved our home. Our lives had changed so much since moving to Georgia, now it was hard to imagine living anywhere else.

But we pulled the trigger and it was not an easy choice but we decided that it was what was best for our family. Since the choice was made things have been insane to put it mildly. We put our home up for sale, but we were unable to do so in the time we had to move. We were fortunate though. We had recently become friends with a family that was looking to move to the area and wanted to rent our home. So far it has worked out really well. So with that settled we went to work packing up six people and six years worth of memories. It was not easy but the hardest thing of all was saying goodbye to our very close friends, the Days and Cooks. These are families that we almost never went more than a few days without seeing each other. There were a lot of tears as we hugged and our kids who had grown up together said their goodbyes. I still really miss seeing those amazing people everyday.

The day came and with a lot of help from my mom and our friends, we got the very large moving truck loaded up and we left Georgia. The trip across the country with our entire lives in tow was long and very stressful. All along the way I was on  and off the phone with the apartment management in Utah and found out that things were not going to go very smooth. But we made it to Arizona were we took a few days to rest and drop off my mom. Then we were off for Utah. When we got there it was a long day of unloading the truck into the apartment and storage unit. At the end we were all very tired and dirty.

Over the next several months we lived in that apartment waiting and counting the days until we found a home and could finally settle down. But looking for a home was not as fun as I thought it would be. The homes in Utah are more expensive and designed in a way that it made it hard to see ourselves being able to live in any of them. But after looking at about 30 homes we finally found the one for us. But the icing on the cake was that it happened to be in the same school zone my kids were in and so they would not have to change schools again.

We are now mostly moved in and really enjoying the space, yard and neighborhood. My kids go to bed exhausted every night from all the playing they do here.

I don't know if we will love it here in Utah as much as Georgia or if we will make life long friends either but I do know that our family has gotten through some tough times in this last year and we are stronger than ever. As long as we love each other all is well.

Now we are about to have our first Easter and spring break here in Utah. I am hoping to get back into posting on my families blog. I feel like it is my families little diary and I hope my kids can look at it one day and remember all these times together.

Gavin is 9, a black belt and top in math for his class. He loves to learn and one of his presents was a board game were you have to answer questions about the plants in our solar system. When Gavin opened it, one of his friends said, "That's boring. What's in the next present?" Gavin looked at him like he was nuts and proceeded to tell him why he was so wrong about the game being boring.

Sidney is 5 and still my emotional flower child. She loves to laugh and play pretend anything. She has a very bubbly personality that others are drawn to. She even received a flower, just for her, from a boy in her class, for Valentines Day. We love our Sidney girl so much and all the sunshine she brings to our home.