We finally made it!

So... after many months of waiting and wondering, we are finally here! Last Saturday, we packed our final belongings into another truck (yes... another 24 footer... how much stuff can one family have?). Clint left about noon with Allison and Zach and drove over White Pass. He said it was snowing and people were starting to go off the roads. But he made it through okay. Then, the other girls and I stayed at the house to finish the cleaning and check out with the landlord (who is a dork!). We met him at 2 and he finally got done at 3. We decided to go down to Portland and across on I-84, which is suppose to be a better road, although about 30 minutes longer. We started climbing in the mountains and we saw signs that chains were required, which we didn't have. So, when the roads were getting bad, the girls and I found a Best Western that took pets (we had Scout- our mini Beagle with us) and settled in for the night. I had a great book with me and the girls had swimsuits which they used at the indoor pool. The next morning, the roads were still bad, but we thought we'd try to get 20 miles to the nearest larger town to buy chains. But as we cleared our car of snow, the wipers broke. I tried for an hour to get a local gas station to fix them, but we could get them to work. No one in town sold my size wiper blade. So, we went back to the hotel and asked for the same room again! Another night of reading and swimming.

On Monday, we were able to cross a really scary bridge that had ice and snow on it, and go to a town about 5 miles away that had a Napa Auto parts. The man there was so nice, he spent 45 minutes outside with me readjusting my blades until they worked again. So then we were on our way. Since we were already across the river, we took highway 14 east which goes straight into the Kennewick area. The roads were great, cleared of snow and we were going fine until about 70 miles from the freeway change. Then the road was full of snow and ice. We drove about 30 miles an hour for about 70 miles.

There were hardly any cars, except for big trucks on the road. But, after an eventful trip, we finally made it to Kennewick. Clint had already signed papers for our house at noon, and I got here in time to do the walkthrough with the builder in the afternoon. On Tuesday, we got keys to the house and after Clint came home, we took our truck over and unloaded all our stuff. We were able to put the beds up and sleep there. Then, I unpacked stuff all day Wednesday, as well as went to the schools to sign up the kids, and then when Clint got home, we took the truck over to the storage unit and made two trips back and forth getting all our stuff to the house. The whole time Zach was saying, "this is the LAST move... right!!" We were dog tired and I have a HUGE bruise on my leg from something, although I don't know what.
So... we have just been unpacking and putting stuff away. The girls all started school and seems to like it so far. Zach starts high school on Monday and I'm really excited that there's a seminary building right across the street where he goes to seminary 3rd period. One women in my ward said the kids hang out there during lunch and whenever they can. I think that will be a great experience for Zach.
So... I won't be able to post pictures for a couple of weeks. I ordered high speed internet, but they are sending me the modem in the mail, so it will be a little while before I can upload pictures... but I'm glad to finally be back posting about our adventures!