Getting Hannie Home

Knowing that Hannah was leaving on her mission to Ecuador February 7, I needed to get Hannie home.  To her credit, she took care of mostly everything out in Utah, including finding someone to buy her apartment contract.  When I got there, it was all about driving her around so she could take care of last minute things (selling back her books, mailing back a rented book, turning in her work stuff at the library), but really it was about some good old girl time too.  Eating at some of Provo's great eateries and buying cupcakes.

Kitty, sampling some of the goods.

Ah cupcakes.  Sweet Tooth Fairy bakery has become a tradition every time I visit Utah.  Seriously, they sell the most delicious cupcakes and cookies there.  It made sense to me to buy eight cupcakes for the two of us for a three day drive home.  Little did I know...

One of the things that I have done too many times to count now is helping my college-age kids move in and out of their apartments.  Seriously, I did it at American four times, at Michigan four times, and at BYU six times (if I'm remembering correctly).  Hannah has lived in her present apartment for a good while now, and as we all know, she likes to "collect" things.  Things with cats, Cosplay things, things Harry-Potter related, and just any other thing that is cute.  We ended up needing to do quite a bit of purging before we could do much of anything, but thankfully she was willing to pitch and purge without hesitation!

Occasionally, I would find something so ridiculous that I would make her use it/wear it.  Yes, I moan about the work involved in helping my kids move, but in the end, it usually ends up two ways:  either I'm yelling at them because I'm so tired and worn out, or it's a big old laugh fest.  With Hannah, it can only go one way:  laughing.

Hannah goes over to the Mechams' house for dinner every Sunday.  At some point, she was sent home with a mini sombrero...which she naturally kept.  It was so small, it was Hootie size (*dink*). So, for the rest of the day, I made her wear that silly sombrero everywhere we went, including selling back her books.

Second, it was our friend, Barbara Hong's, birthday.  We only make videos for people we actually love, but we were so tired that it took us three tries to sing "Happy Birthday"...and we recorded it as one long take.  Goodness, we laughed all the way through it though.

Finally, Hannie needed to return her rented text book, and all we had to do was take one of the appropriately sized boxes in her room (yes, she had saved even those), tape it up (yes, she had tape (and I'm looking at you Ethan and Mark), and drop it off at a UPS drop box.  Of course, with Hannie, nothing is ever easy or normal (but it's always hilarious!).  I pulled up to the drop box, thinking that I could stay in the lane of traffic because it would be so quick.  After a minute, I took this shot:

Yep, something was preventing Hannah's book from going down, and she was basically reaching in the box and rearranging the boxes inside so that hers would fit!  I know she's a crazy organized girlie, but this is taking things a bit too far! (An interesting side note:  I heard a story on the radio yesterday that a woman was reaching into a GoodWill donation drop box at night, her arm got stuck and broke, and because there was no one around and it was freezing outside, she died.  Buddy system, people, buddy system!)

Johannah also wanted to say one last goodbye to all of her Harold B. Lee Library peeps.  I don't know what it is, but we got a heck of a lot of comments about how much we look alike.  In fact, one of her friends thought I was her when he first saw me.  Again, I don't see it, but other people definitely do! 

 

Hannah loves working at the library.  She knows all of the ins and outs of "the vault", and I can tell her boss has put a lot of trust in her.  She basically works alone for hours, but she (of course) has so many funny stories to tell.  She once was bored and wrote an entire story about Pigicorn (or was it Unicat) on Sticky Notes and left them on her desk.  And when her computer was switched out for a new one, the IT guys kept other funny sticky notes from her old computer and placed them in the exact same place on her new computer! <3

The entrance to the library.  Look at how cute she is.  She's bringing a Christmas gift to her boss before she leaves <3

This is where she sits for hours at a time, by herself.  And she loves it.

She told me that she's not supposed to have food or PLANTS at her desk.  However, she felt the need to have some kind of living creature with her in the vault, so she got permission :-). She is, no doubt, going to miss this place.

That night, we had dinner with Hannah's second family, the Mechams.  They live right outside of Orem (which was where I was staying), so it was just a quick hop, skip and jump to their home.  They wanted desperately to see her one last time.  Having never met them in person, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I can see now why they were sanity lifesavers for Ethan on his mission in Poland, and why Johannah loves them so much.  I do believe she is the older sister Bailey Mecham never had, and a second daughter to the Mecham parents.  Their hearts are as big as the Costco buckets of croutons they have, and as loving as our own family's.  They know everything about her, and there are a MILLION inside jokes.  I could see that even I hadn't appreciated the connection they all share when there were tears as we were saying goodbye and lots of expressions of love.

The next day, it was some kind of miracle, fitting everything Hannah owned in her tiny Toyota Matrix.  Actually, seeing how much that car holds, it can no longer be termed "tiny"!  I was imagining needing to send boxes and boxes home, but nope.  We dropped off five boxes at the Mechams (to hold for her while she's gone--kitchen stuff, winter coats and books mostly) and the rest came home with us.  Along with the cupcakes.  We might have had room to spare if we hadn't gone shopping....

Yep, I was desperate to find modest, working dresses for Hannie for her mission.  Claudia Koide had recommended looking at Sister Missionary Mall, and I'm just thankful she did.  We only spent an hour there, but we easily spent $800.  However, we basically closed down the store. 10 dresses, three skirts, two shirts, and three pairs of Dansko shoes. It was a relief to find so much in one place, no alterations needed!

And I will admit that there are some great things about the Provo/Orem area.  One?  No explanation is needed when your child is going on a mission.  In fact, it always surprises me to hear people ask ME about my child going on a mission.  And within seconds of that happening at Sister Missionary Mall, Hannie had her name and mission on a white board on the changing room door! <3

I was desperate to get out of Provo specifically and Utah generally because there was a big old storm rolling in.  I thought we might beat it, but only an hour out of Provo (and heading up into the mountains), I accepted defeat and we turned around.  There wasn't any hurry to get home, and I thought it might be nice to live.  Do you agree?

The roads eventually were completely covered, so I gave in.  Good thing I did too.  Turned out that I-80 through Wyoming was completely shut down that night.  I can't even imagine how much we would have paid for a hotel room!

We started out the next morning, and things in Utah were looking up.  However, once we hit Wyoming, it was insanity for at least four hours.  The weather was so cold (-11 in places) that the roads weren't salted (apparently salt doesn't melt snow and ice when it's too cold--go figure!), so there were several harrowing moments where the back wheels on the car were just sliding around on the ice.  It LOOKED clear, but it wasn't.  All of us (including semis) were all crawling at about 30 mph for hours.  I've never been so happy to be driving an all-wheel-drive car as I was that day!

It ended up taking us five days to get home through some of the coldest weather of the year.  When we went to church in Nebraska on Sunday, it was -7 degrees, and that was with the sun shining.  It was an unfortunate time to discover that Hannah's car has some kind of hole over the passenger foot area.  We either had to keep on our boots (while wearing wool socks), or we had to wrap up our feet in our coats.  Honestly, I wasn't planning on doing all of the driving, but for me, it was a better option than freezing for 10-12 hours!

And each night, after checking into our hotels, we would drag our suitcases in, along with a trash bag of toiletries, left over from when we cleaned out Hannie's apartment.  That's right, a garbage bag full of large bottles of shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, contact lens solution.  You name it.  

And our cupcakes.

That's right, folks.  We dragged that stupid box of cupcakes into every hotel room, and out of every hotel room.  And after five days of being in the car, and eating in hotel rooms, you would think we would finish off those cupcakes.  But NOOOOOO.  We ended up bringing that box of cupcakes into our own stinking house in Pennsylvania.  Because if I'm paying $2.00 for a cupcake, I'm not throwing it in the garbage.  And after sitting on our counter for a couple of days, John finally ate the rock that was the final apple pie cupcake.

Like, I said, it's always a party with Hannie :-)