Attention Utah County Residents! (Or, I Am Moving)

by Sariah S. Wilson

When it rains, it doesn't just pour, it opens up the skies with golf ball-sized hailstones.

The Wilsons are moving to Utah!

Everyone in our home ward said they'd give us one year until we followed my family out west. I will have you know that it will be one year and 29 days, thankyouverymuch!

I have a brother who is an IT recruiter (which is nice, given that my husband is an IT recruitee) and despite our three-year plan we had for moving to Utah, told us that he could get us a lot more money than we were making and we could come out to Utah right away. (This was back in May/June.)

He passed my husband's resume along to his clients (being in the midst of changing employers himself), and handed it out to his network of other recruiters. We got phone calls/emails about the same three jobs and then...nothing.

That's not really typical for us - when my husband puts out a resume he usually gets a lot of responses and interviews set up so we were a little surprised. Well, we thought, this must not be what the Lord wants for us.

We settled back into our lives, thinking that when the timing was right, we would go.

My husband started a Twitter account, and complained one night that he was following someone he didn't recognize. He then remembered that it was a recruiter who had contacted him somewhat recently and mentioned a possible position. He interviewed - the company told him that while he could certainly do the job, he hadn't been doing that specific work for a while and they went with someone else. But the interviewer mentioned that they might have a position better suited to him and that they would call him back.

Weeks passed, nothing happened. I reminded my husband to follow up with the recruiter, just to see if they still had the job.

They did. They called, they did the tech interview, he had a second interview, and yesterday flew out to Utah for a third, in-person all day interview. We didn't expect to hear from them until early next week, but they called Friday evening to let him know that he had the job!

I didn't know it was possible to be happy and excited but this completely freaked out at the same time. I've never moved a family this big from a house this size. We went from apartment to condo, and from condo to this house. Two very small moves. I don't even know how to do this, and didn't get much sleep last night because of how much I was stressing out!

I'm happy he got the job, but honestly, I would have been just as fine if he hadn't.

I do miss living by my family, but we have a life here. We've lived in this house for ten years - had the same pediatrician, family doctor and OB-GYN for 11 years, been in the same ward for all that time, lived in one of the best school districts in Ohio, etc. The roots have gone deep.

Probably one of the things I was most looking forward to - when a child has special needs, the local school district has to start providing an education for them at the age of three. In our school district, they took in not only those special needs children (who attended for free), but filled the other half of each class with typical kids (who pay a fee). When my oldest son went, it helped to socialize him and to emulate the other higher functioning kids. It helped the typical kids learn empathy and compassion for people who weren't like them. The teachers are so well educated and certified - the waiting list for this school is unreal. Thousands of kids get on the waiting list.

My second son got to attend for a year and a half when an opening came up, but we had been on that waiting list.

But my daughter...got in on the first try. She's going to love preschool, I was going to love having a bit of a break from preventing her from trying to take out the baby, and I thought the baby was probably going to be beside himself with joy that his sister would be gone for a few hours a day.

Now, no preschool. I'm probably most sad about that.

I'm terrified about trying to sell my house. The housing market isn't great here, and I'm worried we won't even get out of the house what we need to pay off the mortgage and the realtors.

We have to go and live in my mom's basement in Eagle Freaking Mountain until we find a place to live.

We talked about the whole living apart thing - he would go there and go to work while I stayed here until the house sold. But I didn't want to be apart for however long that would take, and I can't even keep my house clean enough to have anybody over, let alone the immaculate state it would have to remain in in order to sell it. So I'm heading out when he's heading out.

This means I have two weeks to pack up ten years' worth of stuff in my house. Two weeks. It makes my brain hurt. I don't know how I'm supposed to get that done.

I'm thinking about Utah County, and I hear good things about the Alpine School District. Is it true you can go to any school you want in that district? (I also hear good things about the American Fork schools.) Does anyone have a child on an IEP that would contact me if you're in this district?

Is there a really good preschool in the Saratoga Springs/Lehi/American Fork area that anyone could recommend?

Any other fun places to live where I can get a big house (my kids are huge. They need a giant house. I can already picture them as teenagers having to duck through doorways) that doesn't cost a ton of money? (From looking online, it looks like houses are more expensive out there than they are here.)

Does anyone want to come help me move when we do find a house? (Just kidding on the last part. Sort of.)