2026, March 9-15

We spent a harried week cleaning and packing and made a quick weekend trip to Missoula and back. You could say we're a little tired. 

We're so grateful for friends and family who have helped us so far. 

We had some beautiful sunsets this week.

Mike appreciated getting to see the local ponies. 

Fergus has been quite the cuddler. 

Early spring flowers are in bloom in the neighborhood. 

With all of the boxes getting packed, one or two were sure to become traps. It is nice to have a few moments of joy from our animals in the midst of the crazy.

The local quail covey has grown quite large. There may be 20-30 from a group that started as a pair a few years back.

Another sunset caught on camera just a little late. 

Hallie's tattoo is healing nicely. She notices the passing of time in the balloon and her wrinkly skin.

Kai liked nosing around the buds north of Center Street.

After some days of deep cleaning her bedroom, Eliza was bushed. 

In addition to packing and cleaning, E babysat our neighbors' dogs. As a reward, she got some treats from Hawaii! We were told that many of the locals wear these fun clips in their hair. E tried all of them at once.

Mike caught sight of this brave, brave (sir) robin on a low tree branch on one of his walks. 

Coming back from work, Hallie saw this mysterious smoke plume. It was burning marshy terrain off the freeway. It took Hallie's friend Kora nearly an hour to get here to help load the truck because of the freeway danger. 

After we got boxes ready in the garage and picked up the moving truck, our neighbors and friends gathered together to help pack up. Took all of 30 minutes to do most of it. We are grateful to those who turned up to help ease our burdens. Even Landon's friend Zeke and Landon's girlfriend Jocie came to help.

Many hands make light work. 

Another sunset. 

Pizza for the helpers! Many, many thanks! 

On Friday morning, we drove up to Montana. The kids entertained themselves on their phones. 

We had mostly clear roads all the way to Missoula County.

It was only once we got near Missoula that the weather got bad. Mike wryly joked that Missoula was trying to show us her bad side on purpose for good luck, kind of like rain at a wedding. 

Nonetheless, we made it. We even had Gary's Local Burgers for dinner. Simple smash burgers for the win.

Unfortunately, on Saturday morning, the weather continued not to cooperate. Originally, we had planned to pack Mike's apartment with everything, but seeing the state of the ground and the continued forecast, we called an audible and decided to rent a storage unit instead. 

As the day progressed, the weather slowly improved, but not in time for it to matter. All in all, we suspect that reasons beyond our reason account for us going ahead with the storage unit option rather than our original plan. We managed to get everything from the truck we needed to get into the unit, just the four of us! Needless to say, while it took longer to unpack and put stuff in storage, it went surprisingly fast. We had freakouts, and we had laughs. The kids worked their tails off and came up with creative solutions for problems that arose (including the truck nearly getting stuck early in the day and Mike having to do what felt like a 20-point U turn after we left the storage facility). We were dog tired by end of day. Mike had promised an all-you-can eat buffet at the Lodge, but it was closed! No!! Fortunately, Dobi's Teriyaki served as a good alternative. We'll have to save Biga Pizza for the next trip. 

Bright and early Sunday morning, we had to head back out. Now, the snow had subsided in Missoula, but we had to go through snow and ice back on the way to Butte. After Butte, the roads were fine. In Dillon, we made a pit stop and got to see how the ice had caked the car. 

Hallie had to share with her Starbucks coworkers her sad protein drink. No sprinkles! And the baristas at this location weren't as friendly.

We made it home before 8:00 p.m. to the ecstatic whines of Kai, the meows of Fergus, and Jocie hard at work in our kitchen after a weekend cleaning in the house. Thank you so much, Priscilla, Becky, and Jocie! 

Next week will mean more cleaning, packing, and prepping for staging before Mike heads out to Oxford and back to Missoula.  

2026, March 2-8

Mike surprised Hallie and the kids by showing up in Springville late in the week. 

Earlier in the week, March progressed normally. Hallie's tattoo is healing up nicely. Her right arm is her Disney arm.  

Fergus is ever alert to Eliza. He's been spending nights with her lately. 

After visiting with the realtor and stager, Hallie is feeling the reality of getting the house ready to be sold. We have a lot of little things to do. Part of the overall task involves freshening up the outside of the house, decluttering, and removing a lot of what makes the house individually ours. 

Apparently there was a lunar eclipse Wednesday night into Thursday morning visible in parts of Montana. Mike had rain and clouds, so he didn't see anything other than a near-full moon early Wednesday evening. 

On Thursday, Hallie sent Mike a few vague texts asking about whether he had meetings on Friday. Turned out that what she was really asking was whether he could come down and help out with getting the house ready. And it also turned out that Mike's coworker and her husband happened to be coming down to Utah that very afternoon. So Mike quickly asked if he could bum a ride, ran to his apartment to grab some clothes, and was on the road to Utah within a couple of hours of Hallie's texts. We live in an amazing world that a person can wake up in one state contemplating another set of quiet activities on and around campus and before bedtime be back home in the thrall of all the moving drama. Pinkbox helps (and so does seeing everybody for the first time since Christmas break). 

We spent the weekend packing boxes, cleaning bedrooms and the office, and babysitting the neighbors' dogs. This little figurine we got years ago in a Kinder Surprise egg and which we adopted as our house's kitchen witch will make the trip up north along with dozens of boxes as we vacate the house of most of what makes it our own to make it look more enticing to prospective future owners.  

Eliza continues to enjoy her online high school experience. This week included creating a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting two countries and their influence on world culture and finishing up an origami art class. Here are some of her projects, replacements made this week for others made with origami paper last week that accidently got thrown out in the cleaning frenzy before they got photographed as evidence of Eliza's successful completion of her work. 

No trip down to Springville is complete without neighborhood walks with Kai. Mike captured signs of spring in birdsong and flower. 

The kids are having a hard time working on their rooms on their own. Landon fell asleep cleaning out under his bed. Poor guy!

Here is just a sampling of a morning's worth of packing. Joy. 

Pinkbox helped, and so did Thrify Chocolate Malted Crunch. This is not to say that we only ate junk food. In fact, we had some tasty wholesome oatmeal and protein-rich carne asada quesadillas. We just happened to get two fun treats this week to act as the metaphorical "spoonful of sugar" as we get serious about the move.