Thank you Rosemary

Once we had made the decision to move reality began to set in. Lisa started packing and I started stressing about where we were going to live in San Diego. Lisa was really blessed when she learned that a family that she was close to in Edmonton had moved to San Diego. She contacted them and that really helped her to not stress so much. As moving day came closer it became more real that we were leaving our family, our friends and our country. When we told the kids, they were devastated. Well, they weren't all devastated. Kira was devastated, Brandon was upset that we were leaving the second largest country on earth, Ben was bawling but Alycia and Alex didn't seem to care. Alycia was three and Alex was only one. I didn't even dare suggest that we leave the cat behind so we made sure she had all her shots and took her too. Early in June I flew down to San Diego and lived with one of the partners in the company. I went to work in the day time and another partner drove me around in the evening looking for a car. I finally bought a Chevrolet Astro van. That was an interesting experience. I had no credit history in the States so no one would give me a loan. Finally they asked if I had ever bought a GM vehicle. Well the little Sprint that I had for two months before Lisa totaled it was a GM vehicle and fortunately I had financed it through GM. Since my Astro was a GM vehicle they were able to find my other GM loan and sold me the van based on my other GM loan. Once I had the van I drove around deciding what neighborhood we wanted to live in. The closest neighborhoods to where I worked were La Jolla, Del Mar and Mira Mesa. Houses in LaJolla cost a million dollars, Del Mar was $750K and Mira Mesa was affordable but full of gangs. I learned that the Poway school system was nationally ranked so I liked that but I didn't want to drive that far. I then learned that Penasquitos was in the Poway school system but it was west of the hills meaning that it was closer to work, closer to the beach and about 10° cooler in the summer and about 10° warmer in the winter. When I first drove around Penasquitos I immediately fell in love with it. There were plenty of green parks with kids playing little league baseball and there was the Penasquitos canyon. The schools looked nice and I decided right then that this was going to be our new home. I looked at a few houses for rent and finally picked one. At the end of the month I drove straight through back to Rosemary (a thirty hour drive) and pulled in about 3:00AM. It kind of freaked Lisa out when I knocked on our bedroom window but I was glad to see them after being gone for a month. Now it was time to pack up. We rented the absolute biggest moving van that we could find. Thanks to some very good friends we got it all packed up before July 1. I remember the Nortons helped us a lot and the Cormacks and I'm sure there were many others. I could never have done it on my own. We moved a lot of stuff. I was worried that we exceeded the maximum weight limit so John Cormack drove the truck down to the elevators and weighed it. We were about twice the maximum load. I was horrified. I had no idea what to do. I finally decided that I'd just play stupid and drive right on by all the weigh stations and make them come after me. If they did I'd just say, "huh?? You mean I have to stop at the weigh stations? I thought those were just for commercial trucks." Luckily no one stopped me but my heart would race every time we drove by one. In the end we had to rent a little trailer to pull behind the moving truck. We had a lot of stuff. We made the decision to leave the day after the July 1st celebrations. That was always a big deal in Rosemary and a lot of fun. They have a parade, fireworks, games and a ton of food. It really is an amazing celebration for a town of 317 people. The day before the July 1 holiday it rained hard all day long. The kids were all depressed because they were counting on this day to say all their good byes. I was upset as well because we were also saying goodbye. Then the most amazing thing happened. Kira had her friend Amy Forrest over and the two of them decided to pray that Heavenly Father would stop the rain. It is certainly true what they say about the faith of a child. After several days of rainy and miserable weather, July 1, 1992 dawned bright and sunny. We couldn't have asked for better weather and we couldn't have asked for a better event to be able to see as many people as possible and to say goodbye to them and to the town where we had created our family. That night some friends of ours from Edmonton arrived. Rudy and Marline Van Overmiere had to go to southern California anyway so they offered to car pool with us. That was good since we had sold my motorbike and both our cars. It would cost us more to license them in California than they were worth. July 2 we got up and pulled out of town. My heart about broke as we left our home for good. I felt like a creep for tearing my wife and children away from everything they knew and loved. This was their home and what right did I have to take them from it? I remember one day I was driving into Brooks with Brandon and out of the blue he said to me, "isn't it so beautiful?"

I said, "isn't what beautiful?"

He said "the countryside" and he gestured out the window. I looked at the prairies with their wheat fields and for the first time I saw this land in a very different way. I was from the foothills and lived most of my life in the mountains. The picture at the bottom of my blog is Waterton park and that is where I grew up. I had always pictured the prairies as rather boring and perhaps a bit ugly. But this is where Brandon was raised and it was pretty much all he knew. This was his home and looking at it again it was beautiful and I was taking him away from it.

We only drove to Cardston that day and visited with my sister for a day and then headed out the next morning. We had two freezers full of moose in the truck and I had run an extension cord out the back of the truck. Every night I plugged it in hoping that the food would stay frozen. It did. We lived off that meat for two years before we had to buy any beef.

I was a bit worried about crossing the border but I didn't need to be. Lisa had been meticulous in her packing and had every box numbered and a book listing everything that was in each box. We pulled into the Del Bonita border crossing and she showed the book to the border patrol agent. He looked at it, looked at the kids green cards and sent us on our way. We did have one minor crises at the border. The cat got out. Poor Shadow hated the carrier that she was in so they let her out once in a while. Well, the kids weren't paying attention and she got out of the car. We finally rounded her up and got her back in the car. I'm kind of glad I was driving the van, I guess that cat cried the entire trip. We stayed the next night at my sisters house in Blackfoot and the next night at Whiskey Pete's in Primm, Nevada.

By the time we pulled into San Diego the pain and misery of leaving Rosemary were a bit faded and the excitement of starting our new life was starting to build. I clearly remember the excitement as the big old van crawled up the hills leading into Escondido. It was late and I was getting very excited. We had called ahead and the men in the ward were there to meet us and help us unpack. It was brutally hot, even that late at night and those poor guys were such a blessing to us. I don't know how I would have done this move without good friends in Rosemary and the church in San Diego. We have one of those big old piano's from 1913 and if we ever move again it is staying with the house. The guys unloaded the boxes and even stayed long enough to set up the beds and then we all sat in our new house and let it all sink in. We were here and it was the beginning of a new phase of our lives.

It hurt like crazy leaving Rosemary but looking back it was the right thing to do. Our kids have all had opportunities and experiences that wouldn't have been possible in Rosemary but the years we lived in Rosemary are a part of us and it is an experience I wouldn't trade for anything. I like to think of it as the foundation that we now stand on and I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't for Rosemary. Thank you all.