Our Life in Alaska and Beyond

After being separated for nearly three months the day finally came for us to move to Alaska and be back together with Scott! We were so happy to be together again as a family of five, and also to be back in AK! The girls and I left super early Saturday morning and they were so good on the flights. When we arrived in ANC, Scott picked us up (and our million checked bags and boxes), and then we drove to our good friends', the Heaslet's, for some Moose's Tooth pizza. After that we drove home, in two separate cars (Scott had found and bought us new cars while I was selling our old ones in UT, lol) and it was one of the worst snowstorms I've ever driven in, lol. Luckily, we all made it to our new home safely, and we love it here! Our friends, the Woods', also saw that we were moving back and they had us over for dinner that night. So good to move back and feel so loved. We ❤️ AK! 

At the SLC airport. Time stamp is 5:20 am! These girls were the best travelers!

We moved out of our Farmington home mid-September, just before Scott started his new job in AK. We had the help of family loading all our stuff in a huge trailer. (We ended up moving back to AK pretty much the same way we moved from AK to UT, see here.) It was so nice to have everyone's help. After moving out of our home, we lived with my parents for a bit. I think Scott was with us for about a week before moving to AK, and then I actually stayed in Utah with the girls for a few more months while they finished the first half of the school year and several other extracurriculars that I didn't want them to miss out on. It was hard to be separated from Scott for so long, but we did lots of FaceTime, and I got to visit him at a work conference, and he also visited us for Thanksgiving, so it all worked out. Not sure we'd ever do that again, but glad we made it through! 😊

We moved from Alaska to Utah pretty quick! Scott was offered the job at the U in mid-February, and they wanted him to start less than a month later. We pretty much started packing right away and getting our home ready to sell. Luckily the market has been really good for sellers and we were able to sell our home really quick, and then we just had to sell all our big furniture and pack and ship the rest of our stuff. It was a super busy month and a half, but we did it! (We also moved to Alaska pretty quick, with about a month's prep time. Maybe I'll do a post about that sometime too. Ruby was only three months!)

Scott moved first, leaving on 3/13/21. It was -13 🥶as we were driving to the airport! He started his job a few days later, and then the rest of us came later in the month. My parents came a few days after Scott had left and they helped me pack up the rest of the house, and then at the end of the month (3/28) they left with the older girls, and Robyn and I shortly followed on 4/1. There was just a lot of final things I had to do with selling the house and stuff. We were lucky to have good friends who helped out, and of course,  my parents. We would not have been able to finish packing without their help. 

We ended up renting a big trailer to pack all our stuff in. It was then shipped to my parent's home in Farmington. From there we unloaded all our stuff in the garage, and it's still there, until we're able to move into our home (a few short blocks from my parents') when our renters move out. We're hoping to be in our own home by the end of summer (working on some renovations), but for now we're still with my parents, which is fun too. 

The temperature change was pretty extreme! We went from packing the trailer in the teens (so cold!) to 60-70s. It was so nice to be able to play outside so much! It has now gotten pretty hot, but we're still loving it, although we're missing Alaska way more than I thought we would. We'll definitely have to go back to visit! 

We still had quite a bit of snow for the end of March. ❆ Also, this trailer was huge! It barely fit in our driveway, haha.