Move to Cove, Utah

When we returned to Maryland from our trip to visit our family in the west, we now had a mission - to figure out how to move to Utah!

We knew our target settlement date - September 1st, 2009. So we figured out a schedule of driving truck number one and two across the country. We spent every available moment purging stuff: giving away unnecessary furniture and stuff, putting stuff on Craig's list, and also packing important things. So many books! ETC.

We arrived in Logan in the middle of August with our first 26 foot long Penski truck, full of stuff. We stayed with Dan and Cheryl in Hyrum. We looked at the available rental homes in Cache Valley and hated everything we saw. After living in rural Maryland for so many years, we rejected subdivisions and yearned for a more rural home.

Saturday, Aug 15, we discussed our options: put our first truck full of stuff into a storage place or ?? I was thinking it might be fun to go to Cove (north of Logan and still in Cache County) to Church the next day. I even looked up the schedule of the ward there. We liked the area out there. (Cheryl had taken us to pick some peas at a little family farm plot in Cove and we ended up looking at a house for sale there in 2008. We liked the rural area, mostly farms.) Ron wanted to go to Church in Dan's ward - Dan had some neighbors who were movers. Ron wanted to connect with them to line them up to move our stuff to a storage place.

When I woke up Sunday, I told Ron that I had the feeling that someone would have a house for rent for us in Cove. He looked at me quizzically? and said okay?!

Sure enough, The Lord provided! We went to Church in Cove. We went to Sacrament Meeting, then Sunday School, then Relief Society and Priesthood. After Relief Society, someone asked what why we were here. I said we were looking for a house to rent. "Oh, Maryanne has a house for rent..." Meanwhile, Ron was in Priesthood, he met Mark, the husband of Maryanne. "Oh, go up to the house and check it out... the door is unlocked!" So that is how we ended up in Cove.

BTW, later I heard our landlord's side of the story. Maryanne wanted advertise the house in the newspapers, but Mark said, just wait, someone will come....

Now, we are here and are wondering what the next step is... What does the Lord want us to do? What does the Lord want us to learn?

The Kitchen & the Move

Shortly after the kitchen was completed in March, Kathie went to Utah for a two week family history research session in Salt Lake City. Two friends, Beth P. and Dolly Z., went with me. We spent one week with Michael Neil, who had a research group at the Family History Library and another week doing more research.

During the time there, I spent some time with Erik and Missy. They made it clear to me that they felt our retirement years should not be spent in Maryland - far away from the family - but in Utah or somewhere closer to our family. This was not a new concept to me because I had been feeling for the past year or so that we needed to be closer to our family. Ron loved where we lived and loved being next door to his best friends, etc. He had poured his heart and soul into our property - and had made a literal "garden of eden" - with decorative and fruit trees, flowers of every kind, nearly rebuilt the house, etc.

How to break the news to Ron?

Part of the problem was the kitchen. The kitchen was supposed to be the first item done in our White Hall house. A new kitchen was the last thing Ron had done in the Sunnybrook house, in preparation for selling it - right before we moved to the White Hall house. However, there was always something more important that needed to be done in the White Hall house - the septic had to be updated, the roof redone, the porch repaired, the heating/cooling system updated, etc.

So, I really wanted a new kitchen - especially if I was going to be stuck in Maryland, so far from our family. (I was impressed that we should NOT spend the $$ on the kitchen; but I really did not want to hear this and did not "obey" this prompting. I could not see the future!) Meanwhile, Ron was similarly impressed not to spend the money on the kitchen; but he felt that perhaps by getting it done, it would entice me to stay in Maryland....)

Eventually, Ron agreed to put our White Hall house up for sale. The market was terrible. Our realtor told us it was the worse market she had seen in 35 years of doing real estate work. I told her that if the Lord wanted us to move, the house would sell.

We put the house on the market for $589,000 on March 12, 2009. We lowered the price after a month and sold the house for $535,000 in July 2009, right before we left for our annual summer trip to visit our family in Utah/California. We settled the end of August. (Another posting about the move)