Moving On Up!

Well... It is DONE! Kevin, Brooklyn and I have officially moved to Downers Grove, Illinois. It took a lot of work but we certainly were not without help! The adventures began when Mom Hanks came down from Kaysville and we started to pack all of our things into boxes.

The company gave us $200 dollars to spend on packing supplies and somehow Kevin and Mom managed to spend $199.92 and we had the EXACT amount of boxes we needed for all our things!
Mom wasn't the only helper we got though. Jennie also came over and helped pack and so did Sarah and her son Noa. On moving day we were graced by the additional presences of Munro, Rachel, Mason, Maile, and Eric. Something amazing about the help was that we were finished and done in 1 and 1/2 hours! Also, Sarah managed to fit every single hangar we owned into ONE small box!!!

The next day (Thursday) Kevin and Dad Hanks packed up the remainder of our things that were stored in Kaysville and began the long drive to Illinois! It wasn't all bad though, They got to stop at the temple at Winter Quarters and even ran into an old friend of ours who was serving her mission there!

Jennie and I flew out with Brooklyn on Saturday and met the boys that night. We got in late so we basically ate and went straight to bed!

The apartment was nice and clean for us when we arrived and the mangers even left a rubber ducky in the tub for Brooklyn, some snacks in the kitchen, a welcoming gift, and a gift certificate to eat pizza while unpacking! Man! It sure is different renting outside of a college town. I like it!

After Church on Sunday, we shipped Dad off on the train to go see Brian and Natalie and then began to unpack. It was a little hard with Brooklyn around. She got in to EVERYTHING! Including the bathroom cabinet. But Jennie, Kevin and I work well as a team so it didn't take us long to get into a sharing routine of unpacking, cleaning, chasing Brooklyn, feeding Brooklyn, changing Brooklyn, putting Brooklyn to bed, getting Brooklyn up, chasing her again...etc.

Once things were mostly done, we made the long, sad journey to the airport to drop Jennie off...sniff...That's all I have to say about that...sniff...

So here is the finished product. This is our kitchen, which incidentally, will be torn out completely on Monday and remodeled! Yay for new wood floors and cabinets!Here is our living room/office that connects to our dining room. Brooklyn loves to terrorize the blinds...I don't know if they will survive us living here!

This is our dining room. There is SO much wall space here that it is a wonderful blessing that Tyler got me the awesome big mirror for Christmas to fill it up.Here is Brooklyn's room. It seems she has accumulated enough stuff in the last year to justify her getting her own room! :)

These are our bathrooms. Its crazy how they wrap around and connect. My entrance is in the hall, then from in the bathroom you open a door to the shower, there is another door in that room that opens to Kevin's bathroom and a door in there that opens to our master bedroom! Pretty cool!
This is the master bedroom. It is still a little lonely but we are working on it. The beautiful bed ensemble was a gift to Kevin and I from Mom Hanks for Christmas. That and our awesome, newly refinished, hope chest are the only pretty things in our room so far!

Underneath the bedroom picture is a picture of our closet...interesting I know. Just thought I'd put it in cause it took a long time to organize! :)

Well, that's it! We have plenty of room for visitors so if you ever feel inspired to travel our way, give us a call. Love you all and miss you!