New Jersey or bust!!!

So we have safely arrived at Fort Lee New Jersey! But not without an adventure...

We left Utah on Monday morning. We caravaned with another couple but one of guys out here needed someone to drive his Tahoe here. So there were four of us and three vehicles to be driven. The intital plan was to all take shifts and we would trade off who gets to take breaks from driving. That seemed like a good plan at the time. Let me just say that in the three days (or 33 hours) it took to get here, there was only a three hour period of time where I was not behind the wheel. Spencer got the same amount of break time as I did. Cross country road trips are not for the faint of heart! (good thing they don't have a blog haha! Wait...that I know of...yikes!) Thank goodness for Harry Potter on CD and Saved by the Bell and The Office on DVD (The Tahoe had a DVD player in it) -- and just for the record, I have never read or watched any of the Harry Potters, so I am not a total nerd (I just needed something to keep me entertained for a long period of time!)

We stopped over night in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Spencer loved this because Michigan State is there and apparently has the biggest college football stadium in the country. So before we hit the road Wednesday morning, we checked it out. It was pretty fun! The campus is really neat, it's like it's own little city. It was also nice because we stayed with some family members of the couple traveling with us. So we got free room and dinner that night and brakfast the next morning.

We didn't get into New Jersey until late Wednesday night. It was pretty stressful! Non of us knew how to get around or where we were going. It was raining really hard, too. Not to mention that we had been driving for the past three days, so tension was high! When we arrived at our apartment complex, we were told that our apartments were being re-carpeted and were not ready for us. However, our managers booked an extended-stay hotel for us in the mean time. So we set out in the rain trying to find this place. Let me just say that the roads and traffic here are ridiculous! In Utah, Semi's are always the slow vehicles on the road and you get all mad if you get stuck behind one. Here, not the case. They are the ones tail-gating you, changing lanes and darting in and out of traffic! I thought I was gonna die that night!

The extended stay hotel is not like a normal hotel where there is someone at the front desk all night. They close at 11. So we get there and we can't get in. There was a phone in the lobby for emergencies and after hours assistance. This connected me to the only employee in the building who was a laundry lady that did not speak very much english and informed me that she could not check anybody in or look up resevations. I feel bad because I got a little assertive with this cleaning lady, but I mean COME ON PEOPLE! So we just ended up staying at the "no tell motel" that night. The next morning we we went to the hotel that we were supposed to be staying in (not without getting lost a few times) and unloaded our entire car into the hotel room so that Spencer could use the car the next day for work. Since we are going to be living here for four months, we had quite the load on that hotel luggage cart. The front desk girl gave us a weird look as we wheeled our tv up there.

It was clear that we needed a GPS cuz we couldn't go anywhere without getting lost. However, we couldn't even get to a store to buy the GPS without getting lost! Thanks to Erica's iphone, we found a target!

We got into our real apartments on Saturday. The guys were working so that meant that me and Erica had to move all our stuff from the hotel to the apartment by ourselves. It wasn't too bad. We just had a lot of bags, boxes and our huge Tv geez! Plus, the elevator in my building was broken. Luckily we're on the second floor, not the fourth. So it could have been worse.

Even though the apartments were all finished being re-carpeted, out furniture had not arrived. So we borrowed some couch cusions from some friends and Spencer and I have been taking turns getting to sleep on them. Luckily, the furniture guys came today! We have couches, a bed, a table, a dresser, lamps -- it's wonderful!

This is the longest post I've ever written, but the story needed to be told! Hats off to those of you who have gotten this far into the post! We're happy to be here!