Muir to Love.: A Summer In The South (An Overview)

This summer was something that I will never forget. My husband worked for a company that sells alarm systems door to door. So immediately after the semester ended at the beginning of April, we packed up our car and he drove it across the country from Rexburg to Florida. The job was rough and it was hard to have him gone six days a week, leaving in the late morning and getting home after midnight. While this lifestyle definitely was rough at points, we went through many wonderful experiences throughout the journey.

We started out the summer living in a hotel in Tallahassee, Florida. The transition from being with Kirby all day long and then all of a sudden hardly seeing him was really hard for me. I had never gone so long without seeing my family, I had never lived in a strange city with nothing but a hotel room to call home, and I had a hard time getting used to all this. After a few weeks of living in Tallahassee we packed everything up again and moved to Ocala, Florida. Things were still a little rough, but we were so blessed by the fact that along with us Kirby's younger brother Keegan, older brother Tyler, his wife Kim, and their two boys Dominic and Lincoln were there. By the time we made the move to Ocala I had started spending a lot of time with Kim and her boys. They changed my attitude and turned this summer into one of the best times of my life.

While in Ocala, we moved again to another hotel. Then finally, around mid June, packed up and headed to our last stop - an apartment (finally) in Birmingham, Alabama. In order to get free rent, Kirby and I took up an offer to live in the office. This meant that every morning (pretty early) 30 guys would walk into our apartment to have their loud meeting (to get pumped up to sell) and then be in and out sporadically throughout the day. It also meant that our living room furniture was all moved out in order to make room for 30 folding chairs, and one of our two bedrooms was turned into their office space for the computer and paperwork. But I was happy to live in this situation and save $1,000 a month! Plus, after living in a hotel this was nothing! I still had my own kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom and that's all I needed! The best part was that Kim and Tyler lived in a neighboring apartment, and I think we spent more time over there than at our own apartment anyway.

One thing about living in the south that never ceased to amaze me was the amount of bugs that we ran into down there! For a few weeks we experienced "lovebug season." Love bugs are nasty, black, flying bugs and they are always attached to a mate (thus the name). For the first couple of weeks that we lived in Ocala you could not step outside without being attacked by lovebugs. It is safe to say that I will never refer to someone as a "lovebug" again unless I utterly despise them. Another bug I could not get away from are what I refer to as "creepy-crawlers." They look like mini centipedes and when you squish them make a sound like a bag of potato chips being crunched! These nasty guys would crawl up through our sink and bathtub pipes whenever it rained and take over our bathroom...talk about gross! Then last, but not least, the spiders! We would have no less than 20 making webs above our porch every night. Kirby would knock down the webs and kill them, then more would take over the next night without fail! Luckily we only had one cockroach make it into our apartment the entire summer!

As I mentioned before, Kirby was gone allllll day everyday. Sadly, he had our only car with him the entire time...so what did I do all day? My original plan was to get a job...but with all of the unexpected moving, and the lack of a car, that plan went down the drain. So I spent my summer trying new pinterest recipes, doing the entire Insanity work-out program, hanging out down at the pool, and with Kim and the boys (who I completely fell head-over-heels for). So basically while my devoted husband was working his life away, I was playing mine away ;)

I loved a lot about our experience in the south. I loved the people, our ward was amazing! I loved how green everything was, and how incredible the thunderstorms were that we experienced (but only after I accepted the fact that they weren't all going to turn into a tornado.) I loved the endless amounts of Blue Bell Ice cream, and all of the fun restaurants we were able to visit. I loved being close to the beach and so close to good shopping. I loved so much and am so thankful for the chance I had to live somewhere so different from home.

Once the selling season was over we had about 2 weeks to kill before one of my best friends got married in Denver, Colorado, and so we decided to take the long way there. This meant driving from Alabama to New York, and then working our way down from there, hitting the major Church History sights. But that is something I will have to write about in another post!

So Considering all that we went through this summer I think it would be safe to call this summer my "summer of firsts." Why? Well...this summer was the first time I:

was married over a summer!
lived somewhere other than Spokane, Washington over a summer break from school.
saw fireflies.
had adorable nephews and a fun sister in law to play with.
didn't have a car.
allowed 30 random guys to come in and out of my apartment whenever they needed.
completed the Insanity Program
lived in a hotel for two months.
had a pool at my apartment.
I got a few "severe weather" texts.
went to Florida, Alabama, New York, Missouri, Illinois, Colorado, Ohio.
didn't see a single one of my family members :(
went to 6 different temples, each in a different state, in 2 weeks!
went camping with my husband.
had chicken and waffles.
was a bridesmaid.
moved 5 times in 5 months.
was able to visit many of the church history sights (Sacred Grove, Kirtland Temple, Nauvoo Temple, Winter Quarters, Liberty Jail, Carthage Jail, and more).
had an authentic Chicago dog.
I went to Disney World.