Small Town

For a few months now Kory has been working for the Alton Coal Mine. He works the night shift 5pm-3am 5 nights a week. When he 1st started he worked 10 hours a day mon-sat during the day shift but was then bumped to the night shift. The coal mine workers are suppose to rotate shifts so that the same people aren't always on night duty. However, so that I can continue to work 2x a week and we not have to pay for day care Kory volunteered to remain on the night shift. He's been commuting back and forth all this time. If he drives through Zion National Park it can take 1.5 hours-2 hours to get to work or he can go over Cedar Mtn. which takes about 2hours. During the winter it isn't to bad to drive through the park. During the summer it's a different story due to all the tourists. He spends close to 4 hours in the car a day and about $350 a month on gas.

We've been contemplating moving to Alton just for the summer and then before school starts move back to Hurricane. Then we would move to Alton after next years school year on a more permanent basis. Doing this would allow the older kids to see him during the week. Right now Kory's sleeping when they get up and he then leaves for work 45 min. before they get home. Madelyn and Hunter see him friday afternoon for about an hour, sat afternoon and then all day sunday. Moving would also let us save on gas money. We'd also be able to get to know his side of the family better. His parents, 2 sisters, 1 brother and another brother (next month) all live in the same town.

About 3 weeks ago we decided that there was really no point in moving to Alton this summer, back to Hurricane for another school year and then move again to Alton next summer. I hate moving and that would just be too many moves.

Alton is a very small farming community that most people have never heard of. Even with the mine now up and running it hasn't caused to many families to move in since they hired many of the locals. I've been asked how many people live in Alton. Kory usually says "about 100". I

wanting to know more then "about" looked up the census report for 2010.

Drum roll please.......
119 people

+6 (my family)

+5 (Kory's brother and his family next month)

130 PEOPLE

Told you it was small. The town is so small that you don't see stop signs. This is what you see in it's place.

Not having a large population kinda makes it hard for a new comer to find a place to live. There are no apartments, no condomeniums and no town homes. In fact there were only 3 homes that was a possibility for us to live in. One wanted more than we were willing to spend on rent, another was O.K with us living there temporarily but didn't want us to stay too long as the house is used for family vacations. Luckily our 3rd option was willing to rent to us for something we could afford. It's a corner lot and this WHOA sign stands on our corner.

Like all houses they each have the good and the bad. This one's not any different. What I'm really really looking forward to is this front yard. It's HUGE! I took this picture standing on the wrap around porch (another thing I like). It doesn't have a garage but it does have this shed.

I took this picture last tues. When I got to the house to look around it was pouring outside. By the time we left is was hailing/snowing out side (not looking forward to the cold weather).

This is our new garden spot.

The kitchen.

Emily was with us and she fell in love with the attached bar stools.

I'm looking forward to having more cabinets and just a bigger kitchen in general.

The stove sits in the island and has 5 burners. Ooh LaLa.

The master bedroom's bathroom doens't have a normal shower/tub but a sauna.

I don't spend much time in the bathroom but come this winter when it FREEZING outside the sauna just might become our favorite place to be.

On the 2nd floor there are 2 bedrooms. One for the girls and one for the boys. Each room has it's own bathroom. The girls room has pink carpet that's one of the reasons we chose that room for the girls. The boys bathroom has this.....


Really!

Who puts a urinal in there house?

As you can imagine my 8 year old is in love already.

I hate cleaning bathrooms and am not to thrilled with having the kids bedrooms having there own bathroom. However, on the bright side I think my oldest 2 children are going to have a little more responsibility when it comes to cleaning bathrooms. No more just cleaning off the counters, washing the mirror, counters and sink. They're going to learn to do a little bit more!



Both kids rooms have there very own loft. While Kory and I wandered the house these 2 stayed up here. I can see the hours of fun spent up here already.

We were planning on moving Memorial Weekend but once schools out there's not much keeping us here. The sooner we move the sooner we get to see more of our dad and not spend so much money on gas. So we've decided to move the day school gets out. That's in 8 days.

Alton has it's own church building. If it didn't the nearest chapel would be about 20 miles away. We will never have church at the most dreaded time (2 pm) like we did in Prescott. Church has always been and will probably always be held at 9 am year after year. My mother in law wasn't joking that the Primary would be almost doubling once we and Kory's brother moved to town. One of the members of the community turned there garage into a post office so that we don't have to drive 30 miles to get mail at the nearest post office. There are no stores in Alton, no movie theatres, no banks, no real place of buisness. We do have a town park that will be across the street. Yeah! The neareast gas station is about 10 miles from town. The kids will be bussed to school about 30 miles away. We don't have to worry about choosing our teachers this year as there is only one teacher per grade. Living is such a small town/community is going to be different. We will become much more self sufficient. I'm not going to quit working and that's a bit of relief knowing that I will be going to the "city" at least once a week. I will have to start planning my weekly menu's again as there won't be any. "Running to the grocery store. Be right back, hun!"

We're going to miss Hurricane. It's been GREAT living closer to family again. The kids love there grandma and grandpa and aunts and uncles. It's been fun to be innvolved with the little things that we've always missed. Despite the tight quarters it's been a true blessing to live in my parents basement apartment. It's been a good year here. I know we're going to miss it. We've made friends and I hate to see us leaving and having to start over AGAIN. Yet it's also a relief to be moving too. Living where we've been has always been a temporary resting stop. A place that would help us get back on our feet. It has really helped us. We've known we'd be moving either this summer or next. By next summer we'll all be settled in, have made friends and we'll have a routine again. Next summer I'll be glad I'm not preparing for another move. The move will already be behind us. We hope to make Alton our home and be settled for the next few years.

My family has a reunion coming up July 4th weekend.This year it just happens to be held across the high way from Alton. Now we all don't have to camp out, rent a hotel too many miles away or find a spot on the floor in Uncle Kyle's cabin with the other 100 people planning on coming. We are moving just in time. We'll make room for whomever wants to stay with us. It'll be fun to have family come visit us in our new home.