Another Move

Just a quick little update before I do the BIG post.  Casey applied for a job in Madison last December and the end of January we found out he got it.  He's still with the same company, just working for them as a Network Engineer instead as a Network Technician. So in February we made the big move from Reno to Madison. I did everything via craigslist and the internet in order to find a place to live.  I contacted all the Bishops in the Madison area and only heard back from one, so that was the area we decided to look at was within the Madison 2nd Ward Boundaries. 

We left Reno on Saturday Feb 16th and only made it to Elko that night as we were a little late getting out of Reno.  So we arrived to Mike and Alison Barnes house on Sunday afternoon and spent the night at their house in Saratoga Springs. We left Tuesday morning and started the drive to Cheyenne WY.  We got in pretty late (about 11pm) and just happened to watch the weather channel while eating our delicious fast food dinner (yuck!).  There was a HUGE storm right on our tail, so we slept for about 4 hours and left the hotel Wednesday morning about 5am.  The original plan was to stop in Cheyenne, Lincoln, and Cedar Rapids on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights respectively.  With the storm chasing us we decided to drive ALL day long until we couldn't go any longer.  We made it  to North Platte Nebraska and it was coming down hard!  I was driving ahead of Casey (kind of like a big game of leap frog) so I could wait for Casey (he was usually an hour or so behind me so I could stop and let the kids out while we waited for him).  When Casey caught up to us the roads were all still open but most were still green with a few yellow areas according to weather.com. We decided to take our chances and go for it.  It's a good thing we went when we did, otherwise we would have been stuck there for a day or two.

We drove for about 18 hours with a few breaks here and there and a whole lot of Redbull. We finally made it to Des Moines Iowa and I got lost so Casey had to try and find me and the boys while in the HUGE Penske Rental.  We lost about an hours time dealing with that!  We decided to continue a little longer and made it to Cedar Rapids Wednesday late night.  We found a motel and stayed the night and continued on to Madison on Thursday. We were a day ahead of schedule but still ahead of the storm, and that's what we were going for.  We managed to find a hotel (all rooms were booked on the east side due to the severity of the storm) and stayed the night in Verona and even got to relax in the pool and hot tub for a bit.  We woke up on Friday morning and had arrangements to meet people from our new ward at 11am.

When we arrived we had help from so many members and the missionaries it was incredible! Bishop Schaefer was amazing at coordinating everything for us and the Relief Society was terrific and brought dinners to us for five nights in a row.  I don't know how we would have made this move without the help of our old ward (Reno 2nd ward) and our new ward here in Madison. I love that where ever you go the church is the same, it's so comforting to know that no matter where we may end up we will always have the constant of the church to help us transition.

Since moving here Casey got called to be the 12-13 yr old Sunday school teacher and I'm a den leader in cub scouts and primary pianist. We love our ward and are glad we already have such great friends.