Farewell tour and Welcome to MO

It has been so long since we've written, so much has happened, it is hard to know where to start! This is Carrie--finally on the blog--trying to update on our adventures of the past few weeks. To quote Tyler Lars Nielson, "It's the end of an era." Anthony has been in Provo since the Fall of '99, and I started school at BYU Fall of '01, so this is a big change for both of us. We tried our best to live it up, amidst finishing my first graduate class, packing & preparing to move, and I think we did a pretty good job.

Thank you to everyone who made time to get together with us before we left!

A few highlights:

• Carly & Daniel treated us to Cold Stone
• Enchiladas, Sunday afternoon nap & Anne of Green Gables with Jill
• Salt Lake Temple--our first live session--and then delicious roast dinner with Meredith & Steven
• Old Spaghetti Factory with Nikki
• Costa Vida with Tony Capone
• Fro-Yo with Kieri
• Walks with Marquita
• Tucano's with the LegaLees staff
• Mama Chu's with Jill
• Family Gathering with the extended Fletcher/Bennett family
• Brick Oven with Nat & Tenille, Melissa & Brandon, and Candace
• Nikki, Melissa, and I winning glow-sticks for our awesome skating chain at Classic Skating
• Multiple trips to Seven Peaks with Nikki and Carly & Daniel

I'm sure there are more, I apologize if I left anyone out. We are also very grateful to those of you who helped us move, both on the Provo end and in Missouri.

Anthony's co-worker at the Rodeo House, Aura Conde, let us borrow her truck to take our stuff to the ABF station in Salt Lake. Carly & Daniel came over early and helped us load the truck, and then our neighbor and friend, Landric Ieremia, helped us drive our stuff up.

We left for Springfield a few days later with a full car. We drove first to Cheyenne, WY, and stayed the nice there in a "comfy" Motel 6. Along the way we ran into my cousin, Reed Dayton, who was headed west, back to Bennington. Small world. We got up early the next morning and got on the road. We drove all through the very hot day until we got to Kansas City around dinner time. Apparently I don't know my way around downtown KC like I used too--did I ever?--and we took a longer route to my parents house in Overland Park than we had planned. Since it was rush hour there was a lot of stop and go, our car started to struggle as we got closer to our home. I think we prayed it to be able to make it to my parent's house. Poor car, we put it through a lot that day: driving about 85 mph in the humid 100 degree day stuffed to the brim. After a brief respite in the OP we headed to Springfield the next morning. My dad and Jill drove down to help us and we couldn't have done it all without them. Our car worked just fine on the way down. As we drove down it really started to hit us that we weren't in Utah anymore. It is really pretty down here, but we are still trying to get used to the humidity.

That weekend was an adventure...finding a place to live that didn't smell like stale cigarettes, getting our rental application approved in an hour even though I don't have any income, picking up our stuff at the ABF in Strafford before it closed for the weekend, and learning our way around town, etc. The rest of my family came down Friday night and we all stayed the night at a hotel together. Saturday we went shopping to outfit our new place. We've spent more money in the past week than we've spent in the past year on a bed, couches, tables, microwave, internet paraphernalia, books, etc. I'm trying not to freak out about it, but I will feel much better once I get a job. The hunt is on...

Anthony starts classes at MSU on Monday, but this week he has had orientation things. The school is really pretty and people seem very nice. I think he is pretty excited to get started. Last night we went to a BBQ for all graduate students in the Psych department. His classmates and teachers are really cool. The highlight of the night (for Anthony) was that the department head's wife if part-Finnish and they spent half an hour talking about all things Finnish. There were two other people there with Finnish ties: a wife of one of Anthony's classmates went on a mission trip to Finland, and "another dude there" is half-Finnish. It was also a new experience for us to be around so many people drinking alcohol. Don't worry, Anthony drank two Sierra Mists and I had a Dasani and some lemonade.

We'll update later with pictures of our new place and how we like living in the Bible belt.