We Have Arrived!

Forty hours of driving later and we are in Miami, Florida with internet connected at last! Danica drove with us and she will be sainted forever because of that. The kids actually did amazingly well--they started fighting getting back into their carseats by the morning of the second day, Ruth spent an hour one day chanting "I don't want to go to 'ami, I don't want to go to 'ami." and Will cried quite a bit before falling asleep on the third day (we drove until midnight to get here, which was 2am Miami time). Other than those few times, the kids were entertained by movies, singing, and eating. I was really impressed.

Our apartment is---a wreck. There have been more than a few meltdowns on my part since we got here. Mostly due to the kitchen. I'm still holding out hope for a new stove and fridge due to the absolute horrendous state of our current ones, but it might not happen. Sob. It reminds me of when a roommate and I decided to save money one semester and moved in with another girl to a tiny house on 27th street in downtown Ogden (oh to live in Ogden!). We stayed up until 3am the night before school started trying to clean one wall of the kitchen. By the end we looked at each other, realized this kitchen should be burned not cleaned, and went to bed. She bought another microwave and set it up in the hallway and I cooked at the LDS institute building the entire semester. Which, oddly, I saw Sterling cooking there too that semester. We both had our own secret cupboards. Unfortunately, I have kids to cook for and no institute building to rely on--so I have slowly been scrubbing away. Not LAZILY scrubbing, just SLOW. To put into perspective, it took me six hours to clean one bathroom on the second day here. Sigh. I think I had nightmares about the baseboards under the dishwasher that I cleaned yesterday. 

The state of the apartment was quite a shock since they had told us it would be repaired, completely painted, and basically remodeled before we came (it has a brand-new owner. Weird side note: every apartment in a complex is separately owned in Miami.) When we got water turned on we found out we had three leaks. One toilet and two sinks. Our garbage disposal is broken. The light in the master bedroom is broken. The list goes on and on--a page and a half long in fact. It's put a big damper on our original plans. We have bedrooms unpacked and no kitchen--which is totally opposite what I would normally do. We're basically living out of our microwave (a new appliance actually-yay!) and the chest freezer we brought with us. 

I cried and worked and cried and worked for the first three days, but today I think the time change, the heavy work on my 29 week pregnant body and the lack of sleep all caught up to me. I could barely drag myself around. My dental hygiene carpal tunnel was roaring back in my right hand and I didn't want to work. So Sterling stayed home (someone had to be here for the repair man, who came for four hours and accomplished nothing--every job turned out to be WAY bigger than anticipated) and I took the kids to the park by our house. As far as location, our apartment is pretty great. Our community is gated and there is a roaming guard at night--he's nice and he waves. It feels really safe inside and everyone seems really nice and normal. About two blocks away is a super nice park--tennis courts, baseball diamond, covered picnic tables, and a big huge playground completely covered by a sun shade (whoever thought of that was genius!). I have decided that sand is just part of my fate while living in Miami and I have chosen to embrace it. We keep buckets and shovels in the back of the van and the kids have already used them daily. (Second side note: the pinterest idea of using baby powder to get sand easily off of sunscreened/wet skin--works like a charm!) We haven't tried our pool out yet, it looks inviting but it doesn't really have a kiddie pool, so I'm waiting until we're moved in, have some towels unpacked, and Sterling can help me with keeping the kids alive. After the park we came home and played in their room while we waited some more on the property manager to see what could be fixed. Then we decided we were DONE with the day and headed out to a lagoon our friends told us about the was super close. Best decision we've made all week. It was beautiful, the kids loved wading/falling in the water, and we had a wonderful night. Lets hope some of our kitchen issues get worked out by tomorrow!

I wrote the above info a few days ago. A new update: Still no stove or fridge. A cleaning lady was supposed to come this morning at 8:30am (its almost 11am) to clean them to 'tide us over' until they get new parts for the appliances. That's pretty much the story of our last week and a half. Waiting at home, not being able to leave, hoping that people show up and actually do something while they are here. Sigh.

We have tried out our new pool--its beautiful and gorgeous and I love it, but the kids' ages make it hard to really enjoy. We've tried a few floaty things out with Ruth and Will and I'm hoping we can find something they can use that will make it so I don't have to help them quite so much. We've put in more hours cleaning and mostly everything is presentable and unpacked. We're still eating frozen food out of our chest freezer and using our skillet, toaster, or microwave to cook. I miss having a stove. And a fridge.

We went to our new ward on Sunday, it was really weird to be in a bilingual ward. They have headsets and translators that translate into English if the speaker is Spanish or translate into Spanish if the speaker is English-speaking. The main problem with this? Two toddlers. My headset NEVER was on. But it was pretty cool. They had me play the piano in Relief Society and I think they must hold out different notes in Spanish because I was doing the timing PERFECTLY (at least on the second and third verse, because the first time they sang it differently it threw me off so I was watching) and they were doing it different. Interesting. Haha.

Ummm...I'll just leave it at that. Sorry for the long journal-y post. Love you all!