Often when my husband and I go for walks, my husband will turn to me and say " We live in Utah, how did that happen?" In fact my son on a recent facebook page stated " Remind me how I got to Utah again." and I relplied your parents packed you up and moved you. This is our New Jersey house. We actually only owned half of the house. The half with out the drive way. It was the cheapest house you could buy in the area when we bought it and it needed tons of work. It was all we could afford, and I really had a love/hate relationship with it. At times I loved it, and many more times I hated it. Pretty much every time something needed to be fixed, which was never ending.
This is our new home in Utah. Thankfully our constant fixing up of the old home paid off and we actually pay less now than we did in NJ. Our taxes in NJ were almost $5,000.00 a year. They are a little over $1,000.00 a year here. We pay less for our mortage than we did paying rent while waiting for the house to sell. My husband still has friends who think we should move back to NJ. I will stay here in Utah thank you.
This was our view out our front window in NJ. Everything in New Jersey is pretty much flat. I don't know how my Vermont spirit dealt with that for years. It was green though, and the sun coming in the windows was nice.
Here is what our back yard in New Jersey looked like. Again, its green, but we lived in town.The best thing about my neighborhood in NJ was all the friends that I made. I had so many nice neighbors. I have nice neighbors here in Utah too, I just don't see them as much as I saw my NJ neighbors. Though I am working on changing that.
This is my view in the morning in Utah. Even when I've only had 4 to 5 hours of sleep I can still look out and want to weep from the beauty of it. Each morning the colors are so vivid and beautiful.
Sometimes there are horses out in the field across from my house. How I love to see the horses. We often go for walks and pet the horses along the trail. You could not do this in New Jersey.
In New Jersey we drove to the nearest park to take walks everyday in the summer. I loved those walks, feeding the fish and turtles and seeing the wild life. In Utah there is a bike path out side our house that goes for miles, with mountain views on all sides. This past weekend we saw a fox on the trail, and of course fed the horses. One followed us for as long as it could hoping for more handfuls of grass.
In New Jersey we had the Beach on the weekends which was an hour away and the kiddie pool at the park. We practically lived at the kiddie pool in the summer when the kids were young. When we went back to visit, the beach was changed, and much more expensive, and the kids had out grown the little pool. Our street did not seem as safe as we walked our old path ways people yelled obscenities at us. My son was also the victim of bullying from kindergarten through 7th grade. I can't say I miss that.
In New Jersey we had the 4H Cat Club. I miss that. I miss teaching science stuff that was fun.
In Utah we have Karate. My daughter has a great passion for this sport. I think she loves it more than cat club. My son is not bullied, and he has so many more friends. He is treated kindly and is doing well. I'm not sure that would have been the case in NJ. In New Jersey we had the church, but there were no Temples near us. The closest for many years was in Washington D.C.. Then finally they built a Temple in New York City. But It was very hard to go. Here in Utah....
There are Temples everywhere. I love going to the Draper Temple. I'm so grateful that we are in Utah, and I have this time to learn and grow and attend the Temple. Yet every now and then I think just like my family, "How did we end up living in Utah?"
I Guess it is where God wants us to be.
I love the mountains. Often times when I think about this big move we made, it makes me think about my Ancestors and the moves that they made. From England, Ireland and Scotland to America. And then some that move from the east coast to the West. At least with modern technology I can keep in touch with family and friends. I think it must have been a lot harder for those that came before me.
G.G.
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