The u-hauling event of the year went famously - we had about 15 people to help! It was crazy, but good - we got all the stuff put in the truck with no one having to work like a dog to get it done. Jeremie and my Dad managed a herculean feat - getting all our stuff to fit into a 17 foot U-haul. I had originally expected a 24 foot one (but the day before U-haul said they didn't have any and I'd need to get a 17 footer), and no one could quite believe that everything fit. There was a glitch though: U-haul was out of furniture pads, though I'd booked a bunch, so we had to run around to thrift stores and borrow blankets from friends to pack everything with. But we ordered pizza and snacked on the lawn, Matt P kept getting the kite stuck in funny places, and we all had a chance to hang out as well as packing the truck.
We then had a chance to drive the 5ish hours to Grande Prairie, which was fun. I managed to drive for the first two hours before I got sleepy and Jeremie took over. One long drive later we stopped in Grande Prairie to pick up Jeremie's car, and drove both cars the 13 kilometers north of Grande Prairie to our new hometown - Sexsmith. Just as we were pulling up Colleen called Jeremie's cell to see if we could come to her church in the morning. It was great to hear from her, and it was nice to know we already had someone in the area who wanted to see us. We pulled a few things out of the U-haul, set up the air mattress, and crashed - by this time it was 11pm and we were both exhausted.
I got a chance to try out our new shower the next morning (ugly door panels, nice water pressure) before heading off to the 11:30am service. We met up with Colleen and her family there - 2 kids that we saw (I think she has 3?) and her husband. It's weird to see her as a mommy, but she somehow manages to do so while still being the same person I know & love.
The service was a mite Pentecostal for my tates - a lot more about the laying on of hands and such than I'm comfortable with. The sermon topic, though I'm not sure how accurate it was, was interesting. The topic was 'the soul of a woman is a deep, deep place' for Monthers' day, and he based this premise off of Mary's strength and faith when confronted by the angel Gabriel, while praising God at Elizabeth's place, and her trust when she and Joseph escaped to Egypt. He gave it the slant that she was standing up to the Angel when she asked him questions about Jesus' birth, and equated her as giving him some attitude. Interesting to think about, makes her seem a bit more like a person, but I didn't see this anywhere in scripture.
But back to the moving saga. Jeremie had arranged his (the Sexsmith) end of things in regards to moving help, and 2 guys from his work and 2 girls came over to help move in. The girls unpacked while the guys hauled boxes and furniture, and by the end of the afternoon we had most of the kitchen, living room, and bedroom set up. All the stuff that was crammed into our 2-bedroom apartment comes close to filling up a 4-bedroom house. Interesting, no?
Monday we went shopping for some yard tools to go in our lovely shed (big enough to stand in, has lots of shelves too!) and planted some corn and carrots in our garden. I read about squarefoot gardening a bit and might like to try that next year - you basically make squares of 3-4 feet surrounded by walking stones and plant little sections of your things, instead of rows (which apparently were created when gardening in order for the big machines of today's harvesting industry to have an easier time of it). We cleaned up after that and I flew back to Edmonton. Ben picked me up in his car and dropped me off at home.
With a lot of paint and some new hardware (probably over several years) our house will be all Boulianne-ized. I've got big ideas - it'l be fun to see which ones work out in the end!
