Rosemary, the two moves

Yesterday we finished painting Sarah's room. We still need to put her bed and furnishings back but at least it is now blue. In the afternoon the family (at least the two youngest members of the family) went to see "The Dark Night". It was fun.
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On July 30, 1983 we said our goodbyes in Edmonton, which was especially hard for Lisa since this is the place where she grew up. It was also where she was living when she was baptized as a young teenager. We found a small house to rent in Bassano on 2nd ave and 7 th street. Or in that area somewhere. It was a small little single story white house with a partial basement. I can't remember all who helped us move but I do remember Mom and Dad were there and Lester and Barbara and Jackie and Ross. Greg and Gaylia might have been there too but I'm not sure. On July 30, 1983 we rented a small U-haul truck, loaded up our stuff along with our little baby who wasn't even a year old yet and and headed down highway 21. When we were almost to highway #1 the truck stalled and left us stranded on the side of the road. What a helpless feeling that was, remember, this was long before the advent of cell phones and we were on a deserted road. Most of the people in the group were ahead of us. All of my worlds possessions were on that truck and it was in the middle of nowhere. The good thing was that part of my "worlds possessions" included my tool box. I figured that for the motor to run it needed air, gas and a spark all at the right time. I started with the spark since that was easiest, I pulled a plug and turned over the motor and it sparked (good). I checked the air cleaner and the choke plate and the throttle and that all looked good. I then pulled out the fuel filter and blew through that and that seemed to work and then when I put it all back together the truck started. What a relief. I'm sure it was just vapor locked and would have worked fine if I'd just been patient. It was a hot day. We all arrived safely in Bassano and most of our stuff went into the small basement to be sorted through later.

On August 1 I started my new job and Lisa went about setting up our first real house. In Edmonton we lived in a small town house which in reality was bigger than the house we moved to but it just seemed different since it was a whole new life for us. We made several trips back to Edmonton in the next few weeks and on one of these trips we got a dog. I had never really planned on getting a dog but we were talking to the Jim and Barbara Palmer and their Border Collie had just had pups. They were so cute and I loved the idea of having a Border Collie so we added a little puppy to the family. She bounced around like a little butterfly so Lisa let me name her Vlinder which in Dutch means butterfly. While I had never planned on a dog I had always pictured myself with a cat but Lisa figured that a dog was enough and we didn't need anymore animals. One day I was at work and I got a phone call from Lisa. She was crying hysterically. When I finally got her calmed down enough to make sense of what she was saying I got the story from her. Apparently she had been downstairs going though some boxes and when she opened one of the boxes a mouse jumped out of the box right into her face. We got a cat. We named the cat "Dragon".

I'm not naturally a very outgoing type of guy and it isn't natural for me to go out of my way to meet new people but we felt very welcomed in our new ward. Lisa of course is the exact opposite of me and she wanted to meet everyone. We had met a couple of families in the ward before we moved there. My mom's cousin was Elna Hall and her and her family lived on a farm just outside of Bassano. They were one of the first people that we met. They are a wonderful family and their son in law actually worked at Global. Lisa's Mom's cousin was Reg Kesler and he had a ranch outside of Rosemary. We didn't see him much and I don't even know if he lived there but his daughter Pat Norton lived in town. We immediately became very close to both the Halls and the Nortons. Lisa of course wanted to know everyone else so for the first few weeks after we moved we went and visited many of the families in the ward. I was worried that we might be intruding but we seemed welcomed everywhere we went. My memory is a bit vague on this point but some of the families that I think we visited are Bill and Roselynn Easter, Noel and Laveve Crapo, Delyle & Leone Sorensen , George and Ula Horneburger, Bob and Karen Baxter and I'm sure there are others.

A month after we arrived in Bassano, Kira had her first birthday. I remember the Halls were at her party and I think the Nortons came as well. As our first year went by it became more and more obvious that most of the people we associated with lived in Rosemary and we eventually came to the decision that we would burn less gas if I drove to work everyday and we lived in Rosemary. While we felt a bit like we were deserting our friends in Bassano (the Halls and the Baxters) we believed it was the right thing for us to do. We started looking around for a place to buy in Rosemary. The memory of me talking to Valerie Watson on her back doorstep kept coming into my mind and I thought this would be a nice place to live. Imagine my surprise when I learned that they had moved into a new house and the old one was vacant. We eventually bought the house and as soon as our lease was up we moved to Rosemary.