Move in Day

Wednesday we moved Ariel into her apartment at SUU. We left Vegas at 9:30 in the morning, which was too late to leave but as early as we could manage. We stopped at Pizza Factory in St George and had lunch. It was good, we were starving. Todd went to the bathroom and I picked a piece of each of the girls bread sticks off the end to eat. They said I should get my own, I said no dad wouldn't want me eating that big bread stick. Ariel said, "dad's getting worse and worse...pretty soon you guys will be grazing in the backyard." I had to include that comment because I laughed so hard about that one. I am sorry just the mental picture of being down on our hands and knees and grazing on the mostly dead grass in the backyard (thanks to our dog) was just such a funny sight. The van was packed completely to the ceiling and we removed one of the captain chairs in the second row. Meg was on the teeny tiny seat in the middle. She did not like that. She had a giant basket of shoes at her feet, Ariel had a case of water at her feet and I had a case of water under my feet. We were so crammed in there, we didn't even have room to bring Aaron. He was left home to babysit Zoey for a very long, long day alone. Ariel and Megan slept all the way to St George. I spent the whole time typing recipes into Ariel's laptop that she wanted and making her menus and other mother stuff like that.

We arrived at the school housing around 2:30 p.m. It was a very hot day in Cedar City. We had a ton of unloading to do and of course Ariel's apartment was on the top floor. There was one elevator, one very slow elevator, and there was a lot of competition for it because everyone was moving in at the same time. Lucky, for us there were volunteers (they were employees and faculty from SUU) that wandered up to the cars and said do you need help? We were so glad when a group of 5 or so "helpers" would walk up to us and we could load them up with stuff. The dean of the business school was helping us once, while we were waiting for the elevator he asked Todd if we were moving in a son or daughter... we laughed because we had already made about 50 trips with arm loads of stuff...Todd said a daughter...if we were moving in a son..we would be carrying in one suitcase. Her roommates seemed really nice. The girl she shares her room with is from Wellsville and she graduated from my high school (a few years after me) Mountain Crest. Go Mustangs! I was so excited when I learned about this. I promised Ariel that I would not break out singing the school song when I first met her. Maybe I can on my next visit.

We worked for about 3 1/2 hours unpacking and organizing things before I found out Ariel had to be to a meeting in an hour. We hadn't done her grocery shopping yet and she was really stressed to think about having to do that alone another day. I felt really bad so we said we would get the groceries and leave them in her apt while she went to the meeting. We went to Wendy's and got dinner and brought her back to her apt to drop her off. It was time to say goodbye. I gave her a hug goodbye and she felt so small and frail and so young.. I couldn't hold back the tears anymore. So then I got her all upset and she was starting to cry, which she did not want to do. I had to compose myself as best I could until she went inside and then cried some more after that. We went to my favorite store (typed with extreme sarcasm) Wal*mart, which is the only store in Cedar City for them to shop at. We spent an hour buying all the junk food that was on her list. Todd bought her a jar of pickled pig's feet. It was a disgusting sight. I tried to get him to put it back on the shelf but he wouldn't hear of it. He wrote her name with a pen on the lid so I couldn't try to take it out of the cart when he wasn't looking. He also bought her a Hannah Montana birthday card and crossed out the birthday and wrote in "move in day" we wrote some funny messages in there and quoted a few Hannah Montana song lyrics. We got back to the apt and unloaded all the groceries up to the 4th floor in the slow elevator, we put them into three big Rubbermaid containers so we only had to make one trip to unload groceries. We crammed the fridge stuff into the fridge, she was obviously the last to buy groceries there was no space left for her. The rest of the bags we left in her room for her to put away as she could. It was after 9 p.m. by this time. We still had a three hour drive home and Aaron had been alone all day, so I was a little anxious. Ariel texted us when she got home and got the groceries...she was excited and said she didn't think she'd ever run out. When she found the pickled pigs feet...she was pretty put out though...she said, "Also that joke pigs feet is not funny. I'm embarrassed." I told her it was a funny story she could tell her kids one day...you know the day you found the pigs feet in your groceries. She said, "It's really gross and I can't throw it away because they are all watching." I told her to hide the pigs feet under her pillow till her roommates fell asleep. It was pretty funny. We arrived home about 11:30 completely exhausted. We had been gone for thirteen hours. We accomplished a lot. We were glad Megan came with us to help us.

It was much harder for me the day after "move in" day. I woke up at 6 something and couldn't sleep and that is when everything caught up to me and I spent a lot of time crying at that point. I am very happy for Ariel and the opportunities that are in front of her. I am so proud to have a daughter going to college. I know it will be a good experience for her. I know this is a very long post with a lot of babbling but this was a pretty big deal!