As I mentioned in my last post I have found a few old friends on Facebook. Only one of these friends knows about our move so I thought instead of writing to each of my 38 friends, I would post it on my blog.
In February of 2007, we were watching TV and trying to stay warm. Charlie's daughter Megan called and informed us that it was 64 degrees in Atlanta. It was below 0 in Salt Lake. I said to the family that this is silly! We need to move to a warmer climate. My health does not do well in the cold which is unusual for MS patients. Most MS patients do better in the cold. Charlie's job at Western Governor's University allows him to live anywhere. The only thing holding us back was how to pay for the move. So we had the house appraised and found out we could get closed to double what we paid for it 7 years ago. So we did a little renovations on the kitchen and added a mudroom. We painted the purple family room and the red living room a boring beige and spent less than $10,000. Then we put the old house on the market at the end of March.
Three weeks later it was sold for more than double what we paid for it. So we now had enough money to pay a mover and plenty to put down on a new house. Meanwhile, I was doing the research on where we should move. We were hoping to get half way between Charlie's two daughters (one in Atlanta and one in New Hampshire). We could not go too far north because it is just too cold. So we settled on Raleigh, NC. Well, it turned out that all of the schools in Raleigh were going to a year round school year. I don't like year round schools so I started my search over. This time I settled on Greenville SC. I don't know why I overlooked this area on my first search because it looked perfect. The schools are amazing, the climate was close to perfect, low crime and the cost of living was amazing. It was only three hours from Atlanta and 15 from New Hampshire.
So Charlie and I flew to Greenville just before Mother's Day to look for a house. The night before we were to meet with our agent, I found a house that looked interesting in Roebuck, SC. Our agent had never even heard of Roebuck. She made an appointment to see this house along with what seemed like 10,000 others. After two days of looking we were exhausted and had one more day to look at our top three homes. I had to do more research on Roebuck which is just outside of Spartanburg and things looked great. So, we decided on the house in Roebuck mainly because of the pool. I posted a photo of the house in my last post.
Charlie closing on our house in Salt Lake.
Charlie drove out to Roebuck to close on our new house the first week of June. The kids and I waited for the movers who came on the 14th and we left on the 15th. We decided to take our time and see a little bit of America. The boys also wanted to skateboard wherever we could find a park. So here are a few photos from the move...
Bye bye icky old house..
Hello Wyoming.
Patrick skating in Wyoming. They skated in Wyoming, South Dakota, Missouri, and one other place that I have forgotten.
Mitchell skating somewhere.

Hello South Dakota
Patrick, Vinny & Mitchell at Mt. Rushmore.
Hello Iowa!
Hello Humidity, I mean Missouri!
Vinny, Patrick and Mitchell on a river cruise in St. Louis. Where are the hats? It was too windy.
Yes, we got stuck with taking Baci the cat with us. She was a very good kitty on the trip. She just laid around on the floor eating whatever food the kids dropped on the floor. Life is good when you are a big fat kitty.
I don't have photos of Tennessee, North Carolina or South Carolina. Their welcome signs are not in a very safe place to pull over and take a photo.
We pulled a little trick on Charlie. We called him when we were about 20 minutes away and told him we were just leaving Asheville. He thought we would arrive in 2 hours. So, when the kids rang the doorbell he was quite surprised. We had not seen him in almost 2 weeks. He had been staying in a hotel the whole time but we planned on spending this first night in the house. STUPID IDEA! W had three pillows, no blankets, nothing but the bare floor. It was awful. Oh, that is Mitchell who is hugging Charlie.
Patrick getting a hug.
And last but not least, Vinny getting a hug. I got one too, I just did not get a photo of it.
So, the first thing the kids did was run through the house, grabbed their bags, and then this...
Mitchell
Vinny.
Patrick.
The next day we were so happy to see this pull up to our house...
Did I mention that we sold every piece of furniture we owned before we moved? We still managed to have 393 boxes of STUFF. We still don't have every room furnished but we are getting there. The first thing Charlie bought was a pool table which has been the best money we have ever spent. We also converted the pool to a Salt Water Pool. If you have a pool, I highly recommend this.
So, we have been here for over a year and we all love it. The kids are so happy and doing well in school. They have great friends and are involved in singing, drama, skateboarding, and of course they swim just about every day.
If you are ever in the area, please let us know. Our door is always open and we have plenty of space. Tomorrow some great news about Vinny!
Don't be shy, please leave a comment.