The One with California or Bust

Then:
Now:
It's amazing how different an apartment can look once everything has been taken out of it.

I had a major panic attack Friday night and had to have Chris give me a Priesthood blessing. See, my home is my happy place. I'm a home body. I love being at home, surrounded by familiar things and sitting on my couch, relaxing and watching movies. When I woke up in the middle of the night and realized I was never going back to my happy place in my apartment in Provo again I just freaked out. I have experienced so many emotions about moving and they all just culminated Friday night and I had to take a spiritual chill pill to relax. I watched Quantum of Solace twice in a row to fall back asleep.

Saturday morning we loaded up the rest of our belongings and the pets. Chris and Jay took Rachel the cat in the truck and Allie and I took Chandler the bunny, Li'l Chinchilla the chinchilla, Jadis the conure, Alice and Frank Jr. the zebra finches and Gunther the guppy fish in the Land Rover.Here's Chris putting the last of our stuff in the truck. We filled all 24 feet.
Bye bye Maplebrook!
California here we come!The animals I was most worried about transporting were the finches. They are so skiddish and I was sure they were going to die from fright. The first time I stopped about an hour into the 10 hour drive I noticed everything was doing well except Chandler. He was huddled in a corner shivering like crazy. So Allie held him on her lap the rest of the 9 hour drive. Bless her heart. He was as happy as a clam sitting there like this.
We passed through Vegas and it rained. I wonder how often in rains in them parts of town.

Allie and I were about 5 miles away from our final destination in South Pasadena. I was cruising and so happy at the thought of almost being home. Suddenly I had to slam on my brakes to avoid rear ending the car in front of me. I heard an earsplitting and sickening crash and realized the fish tank with Gunther had broken into a million pieces inside the car. I pulled over to the side of the freeway, knocking over an orange cone in the process, and frantically searched through the pebbles and glass to try and find him. I cut my hands up real bad. It was a very dangerous place for me to be parked and I got honked at once. After about 5 minutes I gave up and told Allie that I hope he died quickly. But once we were back on the freeway I got off on the next exit to try and search again. I once had a goldfish that lived outside of water for 9 hours, maybe Gunther could have survived. We pulled into a parking lot and continued our search. A couple minutes later Allie found Gunther. Dead. I'm just so sad because I've had him for about 4 years now. I've cleaned his tank every Saturday for 4 years and I've watched him grow. I'm so sad that we were just 5 miles away from him being safe and sound and I had to go and slam on my brakes which resulted in his death. It's all my fault and I feel horrible. Sorry Gunther. You were a real good fish.

We arrived in South Pas 10 minutes later.

Chris' dad has a saying: if you look up and you can see a palm tree and blue sky, life can't be that bad. I got out of the car, looked up into the blue sky and saw a palm tree.Another beautiful sunset.I live in California now.