Another Move...

I think Jamie asked me to write this post, because, after all, let's face it--I am the reason for the majority of our moves. They have been moves for advancing my schooling, moves for broadening my training, and moves for saving money. Unfortunately, the "moves to save money" have become as frequent as the others.

Looking back over the past two years, we have lived in at least eleven different places ranging from hotel rooms to apartments, our parents homes, and even the houses of friends. The craziness all started last December when we had the chance to sell our house in Rochester to some friends in our ward. It was a great blessing; however, it did require us to move out of our house a few months earlier than we had originally planned. As it worked out, we were planning on going to Florida in January and February all ready. Consequently, if we could only figure out some place to go for the last few months of residency, everything should be just great.  Just a few months of shuffling around. Not so bad, right? And think of how much money we would be able to save!  So, after much deliberation, we arranged all of our housing switches and set the plan into motion.

After spending most of December sorting through everything we owned and trying to figure out what we would need for the next six months, we rented a storage unit and moved all of our belongings into it. Then, on December 30th, we closed on the house and headed to Florida where I had a pediatric rotation at the children's hospital in Jacksonville. There was only one problem, Mayo had some trouble securing our housing in Jacksonville. As a result we ended up in the Staybridge Suites for the first three weeks of our stay. It was a little cramped in our two bedroom suite, but we tried to make the most of it.  After all, there was a maid and free breakfast and dinner, not to mention the bundle of rewards points we accumulated!  It was a hassel, but as it was move number one, we were still fresh and cheerful and we had saving money on the brain!

Three weeks later, they finally got our housing sorted out and we made move number two into a three bedroom furnished condo provided by the Mayo Clinic. The next six weeks we definitely had more room, but the stress from getting daily complaints from our downstairs neighbors was enough to over frazzle our nerves. Consequently, we were ready for move number three--back to Rochester to house sit for our friends the Gillette's.

The Gillette's had actually been in Jacksonville with us, but had to stay a little longer than we did.. As a result, we struck a bargain with them--we needed a place to stay back in Rochester, and they needed someone to watch over their house while they finished up another month down in the Florida and make sure their last years winter flood didn't repeat itself. It was a great arrangement.  Unfortunately, it was also sort of short lived. After four quick weeks the Gillette's came home.  Fortunately, some of our other friends, the Wooten's, were taking their place in Florida for their orthopedic pediatrics rotation. So, we struck the same kind of deal with them, packed up our belongings, made a few swaps at the storage unit, and completed move number four.

We were in the Wooten's house an entire six weeks- longer than any other place in the previous five months. Following that six weeks; however, it was up and out again.  Move number five! Shortly after selling our house we found out that we had  the option to go to Mayo Clinic in Arizona to finish up residency with a general OR rotation. It was the perfect option. They would pay for us to get there, and to stay there, and it would be a nice capstone rotation for my residency. Also, Phoenix is only a few hours away from Show Low, where Jamie's parents live.  And Salt Lake is also en route from Phoenix to North Dakota so we would be able to make a family trip out of it as well. It was perfect!  All except for one small glitch.  The rotation didn't technically start until June, but we had to be out of the Wooten's house in May.  No worries! We simply decided to go down early to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa McArthur. I took a week off work and we all drove to Show Low.  Then I flew back to finish up in Rochester.

While Jamie and the kids settled into house--move number six--I settled into my own accommodations at the hospital. St Mary's has a resident lounge in one of its offsite buildings that doesn't get used often. They also have a bunch of call rooms for on call physicians, some of which could be scheduled by anyone. It worked out perfectly for the couple of weeks I was there. The lounge was across the hall from my "dorm room" and the kitchen, which was stocked for the residents with food every day, was right down the hall . I hooked up my DVD recorder and video camera to the TV in the lounge and was able to finish up on several of my home video projects by working on them when I got "home" after work every day. A couple of my fellow residents found out I was actually living in the call rooms and had a good laugh about it. I thought it was great. I had a bedroom, a living room, a bathroom, and even a kitchen. I felt like I was living in a college dorm room, and the commute to work was great. Sometimes I would even came home to each lunch.

After finishing up in Rochester, I said goodbye to several friends and work colleagues, packed my dorm room up into our storage unit, and headed back to Arizona. I moved into an apartment in Scottsdale to start my rotation at Mayo Clinic, and the rest of the family joined me in move number seven later in the week. Although June was rather hot in Phoenix, we had a great month swimming every day and getting to spend a lot of time with Grandma and Grandpa McArthur.

After the official end of residency, we loaded up yet again--move number eight-- and headed north. Getting everyone to North Dakota turned out to be just as crazy as the previous six months. When we signed for the job in Bismarck we were excited to move to North Dakota and find a little bigger house that we could buy and finally get settled into. I could write an entire post on North Dakota housing- but sufficeth to say that finding housing in Bismarck is tough. After much looking, and wondering, and praying, we decided to move into an apartment for a few months while we built a new house on the lot we had purchased. What was one more move in the grand scheme- right?

Since all of our belongings were still packed away in a storage unit in Rochester, we decided it was best if my dad and I flew back to Rochester, packed our stuff up, and moved it into our apartment in Bismarck before Jamie and the kids came.   It was a big project getting the storage unit to fit in the truck, but with the help of Pete and Blake, we loaded the storage unit and drove to Bismarck.Once we arrived, it was also a headache to get everything up three flights of stairs. In fact, hauling all of Jamie's food storage up three flights of stairs was going to put us both over the edge, so we ended up hiring a couple of guys from the job bank in town to help us move in.  In the end, it all got done and I was free to get settled into my new job for a few days, and hit the books hard for my upcoming boards while Jamie and the kids stayed in Utah, living in my parent's house. Eventually, they too made the drive to Bismarck, and we got the boxes unpacked and the family moved in--yep, you counted right, in move number nine.  One more move into the new house.  It was almost more than Jamie could face.  But we had made it this far.  Surely we could do it.  Until then, upper story apartment living round two!

It wasn't a bad plan to move into the apartment for a few months while they built our house. It would allow us to save a little money, and to be able to be more involved with the building process by waiting until we were in town. Unfortunately, our plan went astray when our building start date kept getting delayed, and delayed, and more delayed. Consequently, the amount of time we were planning on being crammed into this little three bedroom apartment kept on getting extended, and re-extended, and re-extended some more.  The housing delay was annoying, but the apartment extension was a problem.  A big problem. Not only were we literally tripping over each other in the tiny place, but soon tension started to mount with the neighbors below us.

Things started off fine with them, but as the days got shorter and a lot colder, the kids found themselves cooped up inside more frequently. That turned into occasional running around, and apparently a lot of noise for the people below us. It was vaguely reminiscent of our time in Florida; however, this time, we knew we weren't leaving in a couple of weeks.  Jamie and I tried our best to keep the noise down, but honestly, there are only so many time you can tell the kids to stop running around. And sometimes there are noises--like stools tipping over--that are just plain unavoidable. Plus, let me just settle one thing here, our kids were not being that noisy. We were constantly on them to keep things down, and to be honest, we were at each others throats because we were so stressed about any noise that the kids made.

Tensions were pretty high for a while, but one night while I was on call and Jamie was home alone with the kids, everything simply came to a head. The lady below us apparently came up with a picture that had supposedly been knocked off the wall by our rowdy children. To Jamie's credit, she stood her ground this time and told her that they were all sitting on the couch watching a movie and that no one had made a peep in hours. Apparently it didn't satiate her, and within an hour she sent her punky--and drunk-- friend up to yell obscenities and threats to Jamie.  She pushed it too far though when she tried to force her way into the apartment. Jamie, though ready to simply punch her in the face, pushed her out and slammed the door. Then she picked up the phone and  called the police. The police came and settled things down, but when the people below us were the ones that ended up getting reprimanded by management, they were not happy. And neither were we. We knew the situation was never going to get better, and with no start date in sight on our house, we knew we needed a different living situation. Unfortunately, this all occurred two days before we needed to either give our 30-day notice or sign a new six month lease. If we were going to find a different place to live, and move, yet again, we were going to have to do it quickly.

And quickly we did. The next day I found a couple of rental houses online that were small and ridiculously overpriced, but built on concrete slabs with no neighbors below us. Several were unacceptable, but the last house we went to was a brand new little house that was just completed.  The landlord had already sort of promised it to another guy, but once he found out I was a "doctor," he immediately called the other guy and told him he had rented it to someone else. Every time I talk to him he still says, "Hello doctor.  How are you doing doctor?  What can I do for you doctor?" I'm not much for referring to myself as a doctor, but sometimes you got to do what you got to do.

So, we signed a new lease and spent the three weeks in January that we were actually home packing up yet again and moving things over to our new house, one box at a time--Hoskins family move number ten.  Ten moves in one year!  Insane!

By the time we do finally move into our new house- it will the eleventh place we have called home since December 2011. I have no idea how long we will be there, but after all we have gone through in the past couple of years, I hope it is until we die.