Crystal Shores Ward

Even though I woke up late due to complete exhaustion, I made it to my new ward. My favorite thing about Arizona so far is how friendly people are. I've already met a couple of my neighbors and felt very welcomed into the ward. Becky found me in the hall and had me sit with her through the meetings. She introduced me to the Bishop and to many other people in the ward. It's a little scary to go places ALONE so I was greatful for her! Although the average age of the ward seemed to be 50, I'm looking forward to getting to know more people in the Crystal Shores Ward!!

Thank Goodness for GPS

My sister and I decided that we were going to start blogging. I decided that it would be a good thing for me do when I moved to Arizona. Well now I'm here and I'm already behind. The weekend has been a whirlwind. My family (Luke, Dusti, Mom and Dad) arrived on Thursday afternoon. We hung out a bit and went to the pool. Surprisingly there was no blindness caused by the whiteness of Mom's legs!! Hehe Anyways, we visited John and Hayley, went to dinner and then one last trip as the Vegas tour guide to Fremont Street for Dusti. We got back to the apartment about 12:30 and that's when the real fun began. We decided to start moving stuff out to the trailer while it was cool (if you call 80 degrees cool). After a few rearrangements of the trailer, a lot sweating, too many trips to count up and down the stairs and 3 1/2 hours we decided to call it quits for the night.
Side note: I have to give a special thanks to my friend/sister Jen. She got up in the middle of the night even though she had to work the next day to come and sweat with us. It really meant a lot to me for her to do that. You really know who your true friends are. Thanks for the beautiful letter. It's a little easier to say goodbye to friends like that ONLY because you know that those are the ones that you will keep in touch with no matter where we are! I love ya girl!!
Back to the move.......of course Dad was up at the crack of dawn. Luckily I was up pretty early too. Thanks to my little brother's getting Dad fired up first thing this morning he was ready to go! We finished loading the trailer, went to breakfast and then were on our way to Mesa! Through tear filled eyes I drove out of Vegas to start my new adventure. Mom and I drove in my car and decided to go over the dam in hopes to get to Mesa fast enough to pick up keys. The other three took the truck, trailer and GPS through Laughlin with the plan to met back at the hotel in Anthem. Well Mom and I made it BARELY in time to pick up the keys. Thank goodness the apartments were so nice to let me pick up keys without even signing a contract. The other crew on the other hand decided to follow the GPS instead of the detour signs and end up going on an adventure of there own to a little town called Nelson. It was only about a 50 mile detour. So much for GPS helping you find the right way!!
Mom and I got back to the hotel only to have Dad waiting for us out front telling us we were going to go unload right now because the clutch in Luke's truck was going out. He decided that we needed to get unloaded and back on the road toward home as soon as possible. After getting into a heated "discussion", Dad won and we headed back to Mesa (45 minute drive). We unloaded in record time of about 1 1/2 hours thanks to Ruger coming to help and Luke running up and down the stairs. It felt good to be finished except for the mountain of boxes that I have to unload. My apartment is cute though.....I really like it! I will take pictures as soon as I get things put away. I decided to drive back to Anthem (AGAIN) to stay with the family. It's a good thing because this time the GPS really did come in handy. We were detoured off the freeway for road construction except that the detour signs just disappeared. Thank goodness I had my GPS that helped us get back to the hotel. It could have really been a LONG night!!!
Dad was pretty patient and let everyone sleep in until 8:30 (can you even say that is sleeping in??) We had some breakfast and then they headed home and thankfully they made it the whole way home without the clutch going out!!
While they were traveling I began the dreaded unpacking. Of course I have to clean everything really well before I can put anything away! I KNOW I"M A LITTLE OCD!! My GPS has helped as I've been learning my way around. I just type in Wal-Mart, Target, Grocery Store and my little GPS takes me to where I need to go! It's great......It helps me to not feel so lost and alone (it talks too :)) Ok this is getting extremely long so I end here!!

I'm officially a Zoni!

I finally made it to Arizona. I've been talking about moving here for so long that I can't believe I'm finally here. It was a bit more of an emotional rollercoaster than I expected. I now know why if I'm going to move that it has to be sooner than 6 years. Yep, I've been in Vegas for 6 years. I can hardly believe it myself. I had started growing roots that were a little harder to pull up than I had hoped. I've experienced some of the greatest joys of my life there and also some of the greatest sorrows. I spent the month of June saying goodbye to friends and family. I really felt sad to leave my second home at Palo Verde High School. I have really grown to love the people I work with. They have not only been my mentors as I developed as a teacher but have become great friends. I will miss them greatly. I did pretty good holding back my emotions in front of everyone until it came to saying goodbye to my Vegas brothers. The May's have become my family away from home. I couldn't hold back the tears when I said goodbye. It won't be the same without them to call when I need help or just a good steak! Luckily Vegas isn't too far away if I need to make a quick weekend trip to see everyone.
Although the goodbyes were tough, I haven't felt so good about a decision in a while. I know that moving to Arizona is the right thing to do so I am moving forward with blind faith that Heavenly Father is directing my path. I'm not going to lie......it's been tough and scary to change everything in my life. I'm not only changing locations but I'm also changing jobs, friends and pretty much everything I know. It's truly a NEW BEGINNING!