Does Santa go to Utah?

Last week Liam asked "Does Santa go to Utah?". I assured him that yes, Santa does visit Utah, so long as the kids are good. Liam is still young enough that he hasn't objected much to the move. He has worried a little about starting kindergarten in a new place. (If only I knew where that would be!) He is really excited to be close to cousins and grandparents. He also wants to go to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum. He has been sad a few times about leaving his friends.

Daniel is (as you might imagine) a totally different story. The night we had our family meeting to tell him about our move he cried and cried. He kept saying, "I don't want to move. What about my friends?" We told him that we might have a big enough yard to get a dog in Utah. Daniel informed me that he no longer wanted a dog, he just wanted to stay where we were. (Daniel has wanted a dog for so long that those words just broke my heart! Of course he has gone back on that now and keeps trying to tell us which kind we'll get. Mostly he picks Dalmatian, or bulldogs. Neither are the type we want to get.) Next he gave us the silent treatment. We decided we needed ice cream to smooth things over, but we practically had to carry him out to the car. (Most of us in our family can be bought with ice cream.) He didn't speak on the way there. He finally started talking a few words when we dished up. We told him that Utah is the ice cream capitol of the world and he seemed to like that idea. We told him about all of the fun things to see and do in Utah. We reminded him that we would get to live closer to grandparents and cousins. Daniel suggested that we stay in our house and just let the extended family move closer to us. We promised Daniel that we'd get addresses from his friends to write letters to. Nathan and I told him that we'd both moved when we were his age and about all of the new friends we'd made. Daniel is still very worried about starting at a new school. He cried that he couldn't cut the trees out that I'd painted in his bedroom to bring with us. He also wanted to bring the plum, pear, and peach trees from the backyard. We tried to assure him that we'd let him pick out a tree to plant when we find a new house.

I don't know how much Caleb has understood about the move. Sometimes he got upset when we packed up boxes. He kept telling everyone he would find a new house in Utah. Mostly, I think Caleb was upset because all of this moving and packing stuff really messed up most of our routines. He's been very grumpy.