John and Jill Move to Boise
August 8-23, 2008
written by John

In May 2008, when Jill and I drove out to Boise to take Jackie with us down to the Bert N. Whitney Reunion in Panaca, Nevada, it came out that Jackie had decided to go on a mission. Now that's an entire story in itself, which Jackie should write up on her own page. So if you're interested, contact her and suggest that she make that update. Anyway, when Jackie leaves on her mission there will be nobody to take care of our Boise home. So we decided we should move to Boise either until the house sells or until Jackie returns. The latter scenario is preferred by Jackie, because she informed us that she would like to continue living in the home after her mission.

On Friday, August 8th, we packed up the Tacoma and the Civic and we each drove a vehicle to Boise. We took the walkie-talkies with us so we could keep in touch along the way. We drove to Miles City, Montana, and spent the night Friday at the Econo Lodge, where we had experienced a bad night on our last trip along that route. Fortunately, this time we got a second-story room and it was very quiet and we both slept soundly. That's good, because it helped reduce the probability that we would be falling asleep while driving!

On Saturday we were driving beside the Gallatin River in Montana around lunch time. Jill suggested that I find a nice picnic area where we could stop and eat our sandwiches. I drove along without finding any, and was wondering if there simply weren't any, but then all of a sudden a campground with a picnic area appeared, and we stopped. It was right on the banks of the Gallatin River. It was a very nice spot to relax along the tiring drive.

We arrived in Boise on Saturday, August 9th, in pretty good shape despite the long, hot drive. We attended our new ward, the Franklin Ward, the next day and got acquainted with Bishop Brown. During the next few days we bought some things for the house, and started in at making it into OUR home. With very little furniture, we were sleeping on an air mattress on the floor. But at least we had a bedroom. Jackie had moved from the master bedroom to the room at the end of the hall before we arrived. Jill was having trouble getting comfortable on the air mattress, but couldn't just go sleep on the couch, since we didn't have one. She did leave, and when I found her she had taken apart two butterfly chairs that Jackie's former roommate had left, arranged the cushions on the floor, and found something a little better to sleep on than the air mattress. So on Monday we went shopping and found an 8-inch memory foam mattress which, even though still right on the floor, was a great improvement over the air mattress.

On Wednesday, the 13th, we headed down to Orem to meet up with Jerica and attend her graduation ceremonies. On Thursday afternoon we went to the commencement exercises at the Marriott Center, where all the graduates were in attendance, and the speaker was my mission president when I served in Argentina, Elder Richard G. Scott. We were able to sit about three rows behind Jerica. She was surprised when she saw us there because when we first came in we were considerably further away. I took some videos of the graduates coming in and exiting. Click here to watch.


After commencement, Jerica wanted a picture of her in front of the Bell Tower, which she loves to hear and which she will greatly miss. The three also posed outside the Marriott Center. It looks like I am being attacked by a deadly tarantula, but it is only the shadows of the nearby tree that I didn't notice as I quickly took my place after setting the camera to go off in ten seconds.


On Friday evening we all attended the convocation for the College of Humanities, also at the Marriott Center. This is where Jerica walked to the stand and received her diploma from Dean John R. Rosenberg. Actually all she got was an empty cardboard container for her diploma, which she hopes comes later in the mail.


Saturday might have been a good day to pack up and take Jerica up to Boise, but she informed us that she was a speaker in her sacrament meeting on Sunday. She actually volunteered to give a talk and they took her up on it. So on Saturday the three amigos walked around BYU campus and took pictures of Jerica in front of all her familiar places. We also had time to visit with Jill's sister Joy and her family, who were very gracious to allow us to stay in their extra bedroom and give us an abundance of tomatoes, squash, peppers and eggplants from their bounteous garden; and with Jill's sister Adele and her family who provided Jerica a wonderful place to live during her last semesters at BYU.

Jerica spoke in sacrament meeting on the topic of sacrifice and a broken heart and contrite spirit. She did a beautiful job. She spoke first on the program, and the concluding speaker was from the high council. He was someone Jill recognized as a teacher at the same school when she taught during her last year at BYU. She approached him after the meeting and talked to him for a while. It seems that he didn't remember her from 39 years ago.

So on Monday the 18th of August we finished packing up Jerica's things and headed up to Boise. Jerica also got to sleep on our now available air mattress in the third bedroom.

We jumped right into the needed projects at our Boise home. On the top of the list was getting furniture. Jill started Monday afternoon looking on Craig's List and found a number of things that seemed worth checking out. The first thing we got on Tuesday was a nice glider with footstool for $40.00. The last major item we got on Thursday was a huge couch in great shape for $125.00. As you can see it's big enough for me to stretch out with room to spare.


On Tuesday we also found a bed frame for our memory foam mattress. There was a concern that it would be too low for only just the 8" mattress. We decided to try it out in the default position and if it is found to be too low it can be raised fairly easily. We got it for $140.00


On Wednesday Jill and Jerica came home from a visit to someone selling a bed, all excited because they bought Jerica a queen size bed, mattress, box springs and all for only $100.00! I was in the process of painting the garage floor, and they hurried me along so they could take off the Tacoma's topper and return for the box spring and mattress. So we did that and went back to Kelly's to finish picking up the pieces. We were all impressed by Kelly, who recently moved to Boise to be an assistant basketball coach. She is easily as tall as I am!


So now we can live in great comfort in our Boise home with the major items now purchased, and at such bargain prices. Earlier in the week we had gone to two furniture stores and decided that an incredible deal on a new couch would be in the $500 to $600 range. So we feel really blessed that we got all these things for less than one new little couch.

Speaking of garage floor painting, we had decided before coming out to Boise that we would paint the garage floor because it had accumulated a lot of oil spots over the years. We looked online at stores in Boise and determined that they didn't have available the GOOD non-water-base epoxy paint that we recently used on our Eagan garage floor and felt it was the best product. So we bought two kits at Menards in Minnesota and hauled them out to Boise. Jerica and I degreased the floor, scrubbed it with detergent, etched it with muriatic acid, then painted it in between trips to get furniture. The floor ended up not quite as good as I had hoped for, but it does look pretty good and will hopefully serve us many years. Of course with the floor looking so much better, the imperfections in the walls and ceiling really show up now. So we have added a total patch and re-paint of the garage to our list of projects!


Another project we almost got completed during the week was to get shelves for the garage. Jill found some wood shelving units, very similar to the ones we have in Eagan, on sale at Fred Meyers. We bought four of the 17" deep ones and one 13" deep. On Friday Jill set up the pieces before we put them together and each of us got a brush and applied polyurethane to the sides and to the tops of the shelves. Jill had it so organized that it was done in no time. Now they are in the garage and we can put all our things on them next week, after I get them attached to each other and properly positioned.


On Saturday Jill got out several samples of fabric that might work for recovering the seats of the four chairs we had previously brought out to Boise, and which were needing new seat fabric pretty badly. After some discussion it was determined to use the fabric you can see here and I proceeded to recover them.


Now we've been in Boise for two weeks, nearly half of which was spent at Jerica's graduation. We feel that we have greatly blessed to get so much accomplished already. And by the way, Jill, Jerica and I have been out on our bikes several times this week as well. I have ridden 86 miles this week on three rides, going south on Cloverdale Road until there is nothing but sagebrush and very little traffic.

We really miss our Minnesota home and our family there, but we are glad to be with Jackie and Jerica at this time.