Packing it All Up

            On Tuesday, April 23 we received the phone call that we were hired as new houseparents for  a boarding school in Hershey, PA. Our start date would be Monday, May 13. We’d done our homework and passed the hurdles required to be offered this new position and opportunity. (Hurdles included two phone interviews, background check, quick trip to Hershey, PA for an in-person interview, reference checks, 2^nd background check, in home visit and interview by private investigator, and physical including lift tests.)

            The day of my physical I received a message from my friend Holly asking if we were home and she said that she had something for us. When she arrived she handed over some poppy seed muffins. We got a good laugh at the attempt to get us to fail our drug tests after the tests were over.

            We’d been fairly confident that the job was ours, however, we’ve had other positions we were confident about that fell through. As such, the phone call saying we were hired was a relief to receive.

            After hanging up the phone we began the process of packing up our place in Boise. We had a number of things we’d not unpacked from our previous move which made things easier but boxes still needed to be gathered and filled.

            Dan and I would spend a good portion of the morning packing together. Then he’d go to work and I’d find the energy to keep packing for 3-4 more hours. 9 days after we started packing the movers showed up to collect our things. The day before they arrived we received a call asking if they could come a day early, luckily we had 99.5% packed so having movers show up a day early wasn’t a big issue or stressor.

            The day the movers arrived three sisters from our ward were there to help with the cleaning. By the end of that long day we were all packed, cleaned and checked out of our apartment.