Be Summer Smart!

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Here in Utah, the weather is already so beautiful! For the first little while, I was surprised every time I went outside and it wasn't cold. Now that we've gotten the most urgent moving tasks done, we're excited to get outside this summer and explore our new home! With all of the fun and excitement around the corner with summer though, come sunburns, bugs, and allergies. With summer vacation around the corner I thought I'd share some tips for taking precautions to make the most of these sunny days. Let's free ourselves from that desire to just hibernate inside, away from the sun and the pollen!

Here are some of the things we plan to do, to stay summer smart:

1st Week of April Journal

We've been so occupied with our move (driving across the continent & getting settled in a new country) that it's been 2 weeks since I've published on the blog! I'm happy to be back and ready to wrap up the "Smoke Saga" and get on with sharing the adventures that have come to us since then, with travelling from Ontario, Canada to Utah in the U.S.A., what it's been like for us to settle in a bit here, and at some point I'll go back in time and share our Disney experience with you!

Picking up where I left off last in the smoke saga...

Smoke Saga - Part 5

I'm getting more & more behind with each part of the "Smoke Saga" and I really want to catch up to the present! So, I'm going to do a quick summary of week 4 of dealing with the smoke damage, to try and catch up a bit!

Smoke Saga - Part 4

It's time for another installment of the Smoke Saga. If you're following my Instagram Stories, you know that we were busy last week, visiting Utah to find ourselves a place to live when we move. Now that we're back, we have one week to pack and then start the drive out there! I found a few minutes yesterday to get this 4th "Smoke Saga" post completed- it's all about what we did during the 3rd week of dealing with the smoke damage.

It was the last full week of Ken being home, before he headed out to Utah to see if the job he was looking into was what he wanted to pursue. Here's how it all went down...

We Have News...

Amidst all of the chaos of the smoke saga in March & April, Ken was offered a job in Utah. After flying out there to visit and check it out, he is accepting the job and expects to start in May! So that means that while we just barely got back into our house (and are still basically camping inside our home), we're transitioning from unpacking to re-packing!

The Packing Craziness

Unfortunately we can't just keep everything packed from when we moved out of our house for the smoke/soot cleaning because it all happened so quickly that;

a) it wasn't all packed efficiently and
b) we didn't have time to clean everything before we moved it out

...so we still have work to do!

This means we're unpacking all of the boxes, cleaning what still needs to be cleaned, throwing more things out, and trying to sell some things that survived the smoke but we don't want to bring across the continent with us! Then we'll re-pack and make an itemized list of what we've packed in each box for when we cross the border.

Why We're Excited About Utah

Smoke Saga - Part 3

It's time for part 3 of this crazy smoke saga! If you're not up to date, check out my first post about finding our house filled with smoke and my second post about the first week of this smoky adventure. I'll pick up where I left off last time, with a daily account of what we went through during week 2.

As you can see from the photo below, week 2 involved a lot of purging of smoky belongings.

As I look back on this week, I remember being in a bit of a fog as we kept our heads down and just did what we had to do. During the previous week I don't think any of our friends (beyond our parents & our sisters & brothers in law, and a few friends who follow me on Instagram) had heard what was going on. We hadn't even had a spare moment to think to tell anyone.

Thankfully this week, the word started to spread and we were so grateful for all of the help we received! We had friends come to wash and move furniture, several who took laundry home to wash (3 times, with vinegar, & hang to dry) and a couple even came and took me out for cheesecake in the middle of the day- what a relief to get away for a bit!