So, when I left you, we were ready to leave my hometown. It was an exciting time for us. We were so excited that we sold our house at the drop of a hat. We had a friend come to our door and say that he heard that we were interested in selling our house. We told him that we were, and told him a price off the top of our head that we thought was high. He said that our price was fine with him, and when would we be able to move out of our house? We weren't really prepared to sell, but we told him a time, and we had to get ready to move. We started to get things together and to prepare to move, even though we didn't know what we were going to do when we vacated our home. We proceeded to buy a pop-up trailer, and we moved out of our home. It was one of the things that we have done that made no sense, but we were excited to move on. After all that we had been through, it was an incredibly liberating thing that we could do to say that we were in control of our lives and that we could do something to make sure that our family could have fun and not be affected by the school system that had abused us for such a long time. We were going to get away from the stress that we had endured for so long, and we were going to move on to a dream that we had no idea that we had had for so long.

We moved out of our home, and we put the majority or our belongings into storage. We thought that we would be moving on in a few months, and we prepared to have things in storage for three or four months, tops. Unfortunately, our things would be in storage until January. We proceeded to travel for the summer. We took on a passenger, our niece, who would travel with us for the summer. We now had not three girls, but four, who would be our family for the summer.

It was one of the best summers of our lives. We traveled throughout Colorado and Utah, and we saw the most beautiful national parks that we had ever seen. We started out in the parks of Utah, and we realized that the Mormans were wise when they chose Utah as their "mother-land." As far as we can see, the national parks in Utah are the most beautiful in the country. If you want to see the handiwork of God, go to Zion National Park. The sheer cliffs are stunning. We had to drive through a high mountain, and the road was forged through the mountain. We zigzagged through the mountain, and we got to see views at every u-turn. There were little windows at every turn, and the views were spectacular at every turn. I don't know how we made it through the switchbacks with our mini-van pulling a pop-up camper, but we did. Zion was waiting for us, beckoning us to join in and have a special pleasure in the waters that were flowing from the mountains and the springs. Seeing all of this beauty, we were ready to camp. We set up camp and proceeded to go to the river to play in the water. The girls had such a good time playing in the water. Water, you see, is a rare and precious commodity in Texas. Water is such a fun thing to ponder when living in such an arid area, something that we long for, and when we find it, we go hog-wild in our efforts to play in it. So, we found a great swimming "hole," and the girls were thrilled to go in to play. They splashed and swam around, and they even found a waterfall to stand under. It was such a wonderful and unexpected pleasure, and the girls had such a good time splashing around and splashing each other.

We had our dachshunds with us, and when we set up camp, we had to tether them to keep them from wandering. We didn't realize that being in Utah would cause us to have a reason to defend our faith, but defend it we did. It was immediately assumed that we were LDS, because we had four children (all girls) traveling with us. Yes, we did have lots of kids with us, but we were not LDS. When the other folks in the campgrounds found this out, we were immediately left alone, and we had plenty of privacy...as much privacy as you can have when you have four girls under the age of eight!! We found this scenario to be true at every campground where we camped. It really was kind of nice, because we had the chance to have quality time with all of the girls, without fear of being interrupted by others who were camping. My niece got homesick about halfway through the trip, and we had to make special efforts to make her feel more at home, but the trip was a great success, all in all. We saw most of the national parks in Utah, and it is such a beautiful state. The Mormans sure knew what they were doing when they claimed the territory that would become Utah. It is the most diverse and the most beautiful state in our nation. If you have not been to Utah to see its parks, run, don't walk, to see the beauty. It makes it abundantly clear that God did have a plan, and he made some beautiful sights for us to see.

We traveled through Utah, went into Colorado, and traveled through New Mexico before we returned our niece to her family in Texas.

We had no idea that we would not be moving in August, but we didn't move until January. This left us with quite a dilemna. We had all of our belongings in storage, we had no house to live in, our kids needed to start a new school year, and our plans were in limbo! We had no idea what we were supposed to do when the fall arrived and the start of the school year arrived. We decided to roll with the punches and wait to see what happened with Dad's job in the fall. We had no idea that we would be "living" in the pop-up camper for an extended period of time, and it would be VERY cold before we were finished with this living arrangement.