The Mellors Blog

We will be leaving on Jue 19th with all our belongings to Lincoln, NE!

Well we left Lincoln on Thursday morning and drove to our half way point and stopped in Cheyenne, WY.  We visited with Norman and Jaime and the kids.  We ate some dinner with them and then my brother had to go to work.  Traci and I were so tired that we went to the hotel and just crashed.  It was nice to spit the trip in half though.  We got up early this morning and just started on our way home.  Everything was going great until we got to about ten miles from Evanston. Traci was driving and I was trying to catch some shut-eye when we both started to hear moving metal.  We look over at the semi hauling gravel in time to see the bottom load doors open part way and start dumping golf ball sized rocks.  We all pulled over and checked the damages.  I was expecting to see a lot of dents on the car, but we didn’t see a lot of damage.  Since our car was covered in bugs, we couldn’t tell the full extent of the damage.  The car that was behind us took the brunt of the damage and their windshield was damaged pretty good along with a lot more body damage as well.  After spending some extra time in Evanston, WY and getting some things sorted out, we were finally on our way home again.  We immediately washed our car to see what the real damage was.  We actually made it out pretty good, but we still have to go and get some estimates on Monday.  The whole situation could have been a lot worse with injuries, etc., so we were all glad that nothing worse happened. After inspecting the equipment, the truck driver didn’t know why the load opened up.  Anyway, between getting a ticket and having this happen, I am ready to steer clear of I-80.  We will soon be combining all the photos from our Lincoln trip into one album, so if you are ever wondering.  We hope all is well with you and hope to hear from you all soon!!

Matthew and Traci

Gas in Lincoln: $3.69/gallon

Hotel room at Best Western: $65/night

A visit with the Wyoming Highway Patrol: $90/ten minutes

Seeing the same 870 miles of I-80 twice in the same week: PRICELESS

Some things in life take money, for everything else, there is a long car ride…We can’t wait for you all to visit Lincoln!!

Our third day in Lincoln was busy, but very productive.  First, we had some appointments for looking at apartments, but didn’t realize that the viewings would only take about half an hour. So we took all the appointments we had planned on Thursday and got them all accomplished before the morning was over.  We had a choice between two places that stood out to us. One was a nice two bedroom apartment that was north of campus.  The other was a two bedroom townhouse that is just near campus.  We settled on the town house. It is a nice place with a garage that is really close to campus and the hospital. It is available for us to move in on the weekend of June 20th.

In the early afternoon Traci was going to meet with the nurse manager who interviewed her at the hostpital, BryanLGH. To her surprise, after a tour of the floor she had interviewed for, she found out some bad news.  The same floor at the downtown campus of this hospital was being closed, so all the nurses from there were being transferred to the campus where Traci was suppose to be hired. But they offered her a position on the Medical/Renal floor (not to be confused with Anal floor .  She will be starting on July 7th at the hospital. It will be a huge learning experience for her and she is excited and nervous!

Because things went faster and easier than we anticipated, we will be meeting with the law student I have been in contact with in the morning and heading part way back on Thursday morning. That way we won’t have to pull a full 12 hour day of driving again.  Traci has an aching tail bone .

We will talk with you all soon and can’t wait to share more of our experience!

Hey, Lincoln has been an adventure today.  Tuesday was pretty much designated our college campus day.  We started on the East Campus where the actual law college is.  I received a tour of the college and then Professor Gardner, one of the law teachers who is LDS, met with us.  He told us a little about the area and just visited with us.  He informed us that there are 7 wards in the Lincoln area which makes up the one stake in this area.  It was a fun visit with him.  We had a lot of extra time, so we decided to just drive around and explore a bit of Lincoln.  We looked around and then found ourselves right in downtown and at the City Campus.  We walked around that campus for a while and found Memorial Stadium.  We have never been around a football stadium of that size.  We finished up at the Financial Aid office and then went to look into getting a parking pass for this coming school year.  I guess we were spoiled in a Utah school, but parking will require my first born and my left leg.  Later tonight we had a meeting with Bishop Christensen, one of the 7 bishops in the area.  He showed us on a map where to avoid living and some of the better places to live.  Especially refering to apartments in his ward boundaries.  It was a shorter visit than we first anticipated, but it was helpful.

Here are a few fun Lincoln/Nebraska facts: The stop lights are not set vertical, but they are placed horizontally as you will see in one of our pictures.  Next, there are signs all over town that say “Emergency Snow Route”.  Which just means that if it snows a lot, you can’t park on that street any more.  Which is what we are just naturally accustomed to in Utah and Wyoming.  Everyone is really friendly out here and a lot of things remind me of Michigan!

Tomorrow is Traci’s day at the hospital and doing a lot of appointments with housing!  Talk with you all soon!

So we made it to Lincoln just around the estamated 12 hours.  It took a tad longer based on our stops for lunch and the unexpected conversation with the Wyoming Highway Patrol officer.  If you would like a full story of why I was pulled over, feel free to ask, but I won’t post it all here today.

The drive didn’t seem as long as we thought.  We toughed it out well with just a little soreness by the end of the day.  It also didn’t help we lost an hour.  So far the city looks really nice to us.  We were so tired we didn’t go doing any other exploring today, but we will keep you all posted.

While driving across I-80 Traci and I played the license plate game.  We saw plates from 31 states and 4 Canadian providences.  We also saw and learned a little bit about Nebraska.  First, there is a giant archway over the interstate that is the Archway Monument.  You can see pictures in our galleries.  Also, we learned that Nebraska is the birth place of Kool Aid…”Oh Ya!”  There is a fun little fact for everyone.

So our plan is to have a few pictures and posts about each day.We will all talk with you soon!

Hey Everyone!

Traci and I realized we have been adding a lot more photo’s and not writing anything about them on our website. So here we go to catch up a bit on all the comings and goings of the Mellor’s. We were able to spend some time with Dwight and Kristian before they went on their cruise. We had a great lunch PF Chang’s before we walked over to Temple Square for a while. At Temple Square, Dwight and I never had been to the top of the Church Office Building, so we were shocked when we were riding up to the top of the building. It was a great view and great times! It was fun to hang out with them for a few hours.

Next we were able to go to Hogle Zoo with my old college buddy Nick and his wife, Ashlee, and their two kids, Mable and Sam. It was fun to go to the zoo with young kids to see their reactions to all the animals. Even when watching the elephants, Mable was more interested in pointing out the ducks that were hanging around. Mable also got out of the stroller and helped me push it a couple of times. The walk took longer, but she was more than happy out walking around. We later went to dinner with them where Sam liked to put his food on the floor and crawl ont he table. It was a lot of fun being around Nick’s family.

Most recently we went up to Wolf Creek Resort with our friends Troy and Heather. Troy used some time share points from his parents and took Heather up there to celebrate the end of the school year. They invited us to come up there for a night. We played tennes and they introduced me to racquet ball. I had so much fun playing racquet ball, but because of certain circumstances will have to play it in moderation. The next morning we got up and went shooting in the range up in Eden, UT. Heather hadn’t been shooting before, so it was fun to see her out on the range. It rained the entire time we were shooting, but that didn’t put a damper on our fun!

We also attended a Salt Lake Bee’s baseball game with our neighbors Gabe and Nikke. The Bee’s are the AAA baseball team for the L.A. Angels. They are really tearing it up this season, so it was nice to go watch a winning team. The crowd was a bit smaller because we were competing with a Jazz playoff game that night as well. My brothers favorite player from back in the day, Daryl Murphy, was in attendance as well. I tried to take a lot of picture of the game, but because we were sitting behind the backstop net, the camera wanted to focus on the net more than the game. The opposing teams coaches constantly would yell at the umpires and get in their faces. It was a fun night and we avoided the rain that was originally predicted!

We hope to hear from all of you soon! Love you all!

Matthew and Traci

We had Traci’s graduation from nursing school this weekend!  The entire family was there.  Matt’s and Traci’s parents drove from Jackson for the weekend.  Derek and Nichole flew in from Ft. Collins and Traci’s grandparents stopped by to celebrate.  Thursday night both parents and Traci’s grandparents were in town.  We went to a place called Goodwood BBQ.  Most everyone felt the need to order huge portions of ribs, so we had plenty left over to take home.  Derek and Nichole’s flight was late leaving Denver due to weather, so it was a late night for Jim and Traci, the taxi service sent to retrieve them from the airport.  The next morning Matt’s aunt and uncle drove up from Salt Lake to attend the ceremony.  Traci’s ceremony lasted 105 minutes.  It was fun having family in town for the weekend.  The weather cleared enough to make it enjoyable.  Traci got to do her power shopping with her mom and I was able to get new glasses.  Now Traci and I will have a bit of extra free time on out hands.  Traci will start studying for the boards and I will be doing anything to keep myself occupied.  We leave for a Nebraska visit on the 12th, so that will be exciting.  Hope to hear from all of you soon!!