It's Go Time

It looks like it is go time for the Covey's. We have received 'Our Call' from the movers and this has set in motion a frenzy symbolizing the beginning of our new adventure: Road Trip! Watch out, Texas, here we come.

They say that life is full of cycles and I feel that at this moment. It was almost exactly 15 years ago that I was packing up from my parents house to begin the next phase of my life in Texas. I was going out to see the world, to learn important things, to find myself on my own. It was an exciting time that I had been looking forward to. A time of independence, of change, of the unknown. Back then my belongings fit in a large suitcase and the dollars in my bank account were best counted by the hundreds, yet I was armed with the fearlessness that accompanies the teenage years and the naivete that tells you know it all. Now as I prepare to start this journey again, I am carrying the additional weight of 15 years of experience. I would like to think that most of that is in the form of wisdom but these years have proven that, contrary to my teenage-self, I don't know it all. As before, I go forward optimistically, hopefully, even excitedly. Yet the 'what-ifs' are great, too. What if things don't work out like we planned? What if my family is unhappy here? What if we can't find an apartment/job/friends/schools/etc..? Too bad we can't always be as bold as our youthful selves! But part of life is pushing on, moving forward, changing, adjusting and becoming better. It is not always easy as we harden with age but it is always worthwhile. One thing is the same between 15 years ago and now. I feel a bit of sadness upon leaving home. It is bitter-sweet, really. I am so grateful for the extended time we had at home and to enjoy family, yet as always the end comes too fast. At least now as we move on, there will not be half a world of distance separating us and that is reassuring in itself. So tonight I go to bed with a longing for looking back but tomorrow we will drive looking forward. Here's to what lies ahead!

Father's Day 2012

On Father's Day, a thank-you for all that you do for us. Thank-you for smooshing bugs and kissing owies, for wiping tears and cleaning bums, for reading extra stories and sharing the limited bed space with babies, for studying safety manuals and fretting about recalls, for playing cars and exaggerating games of hide-and-seek, for setting an example to our children, for being playful and faithful and reliable and honest, and, most importantly, for choosing me to embark on this crazy adventure of parenthood. Happy Father's Day, Hubby!   

Storage and More

I never thought I would write a blog about storage units. I mean, I generally try to bore you with details of my adorable children, not other mundane things. However, I have been thinking a lot about this subject because 1. We are preparing our storage unit for its big move down to Houston and 2. I got sucked into watching back-to-back episodes of the dumb show Storage Wars on a slow night last weekend. 

When Regis and I were moving to Singapore five years ago, we only anticipated a 2-3 year stint abroad. While we got rid of almost everything we owned at that point, we decided to store some of our essentials, valuables really, in a storage unit in Salt Lake City. At least that is what our storage unit grew to be in our minds over the past five years--a unit full of our awesome possessions--to be unearthed upon our grand arrival back to the USA. It'll be like Christmas, we thought, opening box after box of fancy surprises! 

So last weekend, Regis and I drove to Salt Lake City to open our pressys organize our storage unit before the movers come next week. I might add that this was also our first weekend away from our kids together (Aren't grandparents the BEST?!). In a perfect world, I imagine we would have been spending the weekend hiking up big mountains and breathing in some fresh air instead of being stuck in our dingy cave-of-a-storage-unit breathing in five years of accumulated dust. Not so romantic, right? But, on the plus side, we were on our own and could accomplish a lot in a short amount of time.  

Once we got there and, with dramatic flare, threw open the door to our unit, I was practically expecting rays of light and hallelujahs to come spilling out. Rather, when the dust settled and our eyes adjusted to the dark, it was really more like a glorified trash deposit. The deeper we got into our unit, the shallower our estimated value was on the unit (Because we like to imagine what our storage unit would go for on Storage Wars. Let me tell you now, it wouldn't be much!). 

Before our wedding in 2005, Regis and I did the marriage encounter weekend through our church. I remember there was some test we took on compatibility. Apparently we passed because it was never mentioned to us again whether or not the test agreed that we were in fact compatible (or maybe we were a lost cause, offered up to the Lord to handle?). I have been thinking that a more practical test would be to let couples share a storage unit for a short amount of time. There is a lot you can learn about a person by their storage unit, like what they are planning for the future. I remember before we left for Singapore, we agreed to put things in the storage unit that we would need when we got back. For example, I put in a vacuum cleaner, a shower curtain, and a coffee pot. Regis, on the other hand, put in his high school football jersey, a box of comic books, and some beer steins. So my future self was planning to drink a bunch of caffeine in order to clean our new place and follow that with a shower. Regis' future self, on the other hand, was planning to sit on the couch in football jersey drinking beer and reading comics?!  You can also tell a lot about one's past, like how much messy baggage they are carrying. 

My baggage:

His baggage:

Alas, bound by a common goal and following multiple trips to the dumpster, we have organized this unit into movable boxes of useful things. So now we wait for the movers to come sometime next week and for our new adventure to begin! We will keep you posted on our leave date and our estimated time of arrival in Texas.

In the meantime, we are enjoying the beautiful weather, spending time with family, and the break from reality.