Goodbye St. Augustine

It came to us as a big surprise that we would be cutting short our time in St. Augustine.  At the end of November, we got an email from corporate saying that they were very happy with the work we had done in St. Augustine, opening the store.  And that they had a dual store they are opening in Maui and are looking for a couple who knows both Del Sol and Cariloha, and asked if we are interested in relocating to Hawaii.  Our first reaction to the email was laughing, we couldn't believe that we could get an opportunity like this and still can't believe it.  After a couple days of thinking and praying about it, we gave them our decisions of relocating to Maui and started packing our bags once again. 

We were sad to be leaving St. Augustine because the ward was fantastic, we made some friends and we really liked our employees.  But also we were super excited to be living in Paradise, working less hours and having interns. 

This was our Christmas Eve activity, we walked around the town and across the famous Bride of Lions.

This is the statue right before the bridge, there is one on each side of the road. Like mother, like puppy son.. both our eyes are closed.

Driving from St. Augustine to Salt Lake... 2236 Miles.  Only having two days to do it in...Day 1 - 18 hours, Day 2 - 17 hours.  Being able to spend time with family... PRICELESS!

We had to mentally prepare ourselves for weeks to get ready for the drive.  We were also nervous about Dodger, because when we first drove to Florida, he was just a puppy and slept all the time.  We thought about giving him motion sickness medicine that would make him drowsy,  but we felt bad about drugging him.  He ended up being a great dog.  He just chilled on my lap most of the time.  Once we were getting closer to Utah the inside of our windows were frosting, but Dodger loved it  He would got to town licking the window.  I am usually against him licking the window cause it leaves weird marks but if it entertained him, I was all for it.

If he wasn't on my lap, he was just chilling in his kennel.

We had a great time with each other on the drive.  I told Braden that we would switch off driving so that we could take turns napping because it was going to be a long day and we didn't want either of us to get tired.  Well it was my turn to drive, and since our car was packed so full, the passenger seat was all the way forward and couldn't go back.  So Braden with his long legs couldn't fit and was very uncomfortable.  "Sadly" ;) he drove the whole way besides my 4 hour turn.  It was so fun having both of our parents tracking us. Every once in a while, I would get a text from my Dad telling me a story about the place we were about to pass or warming us about the weather coming up.  The best part about our drive was pulling into my parents driveway and being so surprised that our families were there to welcome us home!