California Day 1

We sold/gave away all our furniture except my piano. We packed up all our possessions except those that needed to be purged. We had several people help us pack up the moving truck Thursday evening. We took off Friday morning. Evan was a rock star road trip companion with a total of about 15 minutes of sadness for the entire car ride. The car worked well except, as all good road trip stories start, there was an interesting grinding sound from Isaiah's car just 20 minutes into the trip. (Fortunately the resulting impromptu brake-repair stop only took an hour and a half and Evan enjoyed the McDonald's play place in the meantime.) We stayed at a hotel suite in Lovelock, Nevada. Evan fell asleep on a camping mat on the floor at 6 and slept until 6 the next morning. (Best. Baby. Ever.) We arrived in Esparto, CA around noon on Saturday morning. The local missionaries helped move the piano in.

We'll keep most of our things in the garage and only unpack the boxes we'll need in the near future. The unpacking still has a long way to go. I found my way to church by myself this morning since Isaiah and Grandma Hudson went early for choir practice. Isaiah starts work tomorrow. I'll be working remotely now with totally flexible hours. We're trying not to be a nuisance here. Maya loves Evan. Evan thinks Maya is pretty cool, too. I love telling Maya what to do like, "Get me Evan's toy," or "Give Evan his bottle." I like to think I'm helping out by entertaining her in this way.

In case you're dying to know, Esparto has a population of about 3,500 people. The roads are named Road 20, Road 23A, etc... Don't be deceived--they're not necessarily in numerical order like the streets in Utah. They're just random and empty and long and surrounded by fields on both sides and the speed is "enforced by aircraft". In other words, it's not enforced. But we're not altogether away from the "real world". I can still check the internet regularly for any word of Princess Kate's baby. Evan hopes it's a girl.

Waiting at McDonald's for the car to get repaired.

So close to independent sitting