I had almost given up on the blog but I have overcome my own ambivolence in order to preserve the memories I know I will miss dearly when, 20 years from now, I realize I haven't printed a single picture or scrapbooked a single page since Si was 16 months old. I am not going to be that mom.
We have quite a lot to report too. Many of the events over the course of the last 6 months certianly fit toward the top of the list of most stressful life changes so I am happy to report that we are doing quite well and very excited for where life has taken us! So here is the update in sinewhat chronological order:
January 2011: Caleb and I began to pray together and with our small group for a change. We knew we were discontent and feeling like some major change was needed. We asked the Lord to show us a new path and to give us the courage to follow him if we needed to make some drastic changes.
24 hours after said prayer: Caleb was layed off from his job in AZ and learned his last day would be Jan. 23.
One week later: We made the decision to put our house on the market and move back to the northwest so we raise Josiah closer to family.
One week later: My parents flew down to help us pack and make last minute decisions. The first of many sacrificial and crazy generous gesters by my folks in the days, weeks and months to follow.
February 11: My last day of work and the last day in our AZ house! I took some pictures of the empty house but the ones below actually mean more to me. Below are the trees that will be dearly missed. The ability to grow citrus is a luxery I will miss, goodbye dwarf grapefruit tree. The evergreen was our first Christmas tree which we planted in our backyard and have watched quadrupal in size over the last almost 5 years.
Road trip: All packed up, we said goodbye for the last time to Arizona and started our 4 day road trip to WA. Road trips are super exciting to me. This one however, started with Josiah throwing up 6 times on the way to Santa Barbara and our arival time looking more like midnight than the original ETA of 6:30 pm. The following day Shep got sprayed for the second time in a year by a skunk (see post of our camping adventure from summer 2010). In hindsight, we had a great trip and it was even somewhat relaxing; however, it did not strike me at the time as a great opportunity for picture taking. I think this is our only pic from the trip. We are at a little dog-friendly motel in northern CA feeling terrible that, as gross as that type of motel is in general, we were making it so much worse by housing our skunked family member for the night. Josiah didn't seem to mind the smell of his best friend.
We arrived in Yakima (my parent home and our new temperary home and storage facility) in mid February.
We have been spending tons of time with family (making up for lost time) and trying to find a church here in Tacoma. We love our little neighborhood and have been taking family bike rides almost nightly scoping out the area and making ourselves at home.
This picture was taken before we cleaned up the back porch area. We have a bit of a space problem right now as the owners of the house still have stuff in a storage room and we also have a ton of stuff to squeeze in now that we are down a garage. (no garages in Proctor) I mentioned the graciousness of my parents: they still have one whole stall in their garage filled with many of the contents our our AZ home.
We are starting to reconnect with friends here in the northwest who have kiddos Si's age. Fun that Ashley and Si are only a week or so apart in age and have some fun pictures side by side at several different stages. Fun to get to see them grow up together now.
One of the best parts about being back in the northwest....despite the incredible stress, did I mention I cried almost everyday for the first month or so? (it could have been the stress or the fact that I didn't see the sun at all in that time frame.) Anyway, the best part about being back is having these 4 kiddos living 7 blocks away from one another. Si loves his cousins so much and we are cherrishing our time together.
One week later: We made the decision to put our house on the market and move back to the northwest so we raise Josiah closer to family.
One week later: My parents flew down to help us pack and make last minute decisions. The first of many sacrificial and crazy generous gesters by my folks in the days, weeks and months to follow.
February 11: My last day of work and the last day in our AZ house! I took some pictures of the empty house but the ones below actually mean more to me. Below are the trees that will be dearly missed. The ability to grow citrus is a luxery I will miss, goodbye dwarf grapefruit tree. The evergreen was our first Christmas tree which we planted in our backyard and have watched quadrupal in size over the last almost 5 years.
Road trip: All packed up, we said goodbye for the last time to Arizona and started our 4 day road trip to WA. Road trips are super exciting to me. This one however, started with Josiah throwing up 6 times on the way to Santa Barbara and our arival time looking more like midnight than the original ETA of 6:30 pm. The following day Shep got sprayed for the second time in a year by a skunk (see post of our camping adventure from summer 2010). In hindsight, we had a great trip and it was even somewhat relaxing; however, it did not strike me at the time as a great opportunity for picture taking. I think this is our only pic from the trip. We are at a little dog-friendly motel in northern CA feeling terrible that, as gross as that type of motel is in general, we were making it so much worse by housing our skunked family member for the night. Josiah didn't seem to mind the smell of his best friend.
We arrived in Yakima (my parent home and our new temperary home and storage facility) in mid February.
One week later Caleb got a position with Columbia bank in Tacoma. We were thankful for that position for a couple of reasons: 1) employment 2) our overall goal was Tacoma and 3) we had no lapse whatsoever in medical insurance. (Thank you, God!)
One week later: I got a job with an eye bank in Seattle called Sightlife. Caleb and I both feel very blessed to have gotten jobs so quickly and to really like what we are doing.
The housing came to us a little slower but definatly worth the wait. We lived for two weeks with my parents, although Caleb was only there for a weekend. Once he got the job in Tacoma he stayed with a friend there. The long-term plan was to rent a home in the Proctor area in Tacoma very close to Casey's house. The catch was that the house was occupied and we spent an extra month at two other locations (homeless really) while we waited for the house to be available. It was worth the wait and we now are a tiny more settle having been in the house for almost two months now.
We have been spending tons of time with family (making up for lost time) and trying to find a church here in Tacoma. We love our little neighborhood and have been taking family bike rides almost nightly scoping out the area and making ourselves at home.
This picture was taken before we cleaned up the back porch area. We have a bit of a space problem right now as the owners of the house still have stuff in a storage room and we also have a ton of stuff to squeeze in now that we are down a garage. (no garages in Proctor) I mentioned the graciousness of my parents: they still have one whole stall in their garage filled with many of the contents our our AZ home.
We are starting to reconnect with friends here in the northwest who have kiddos Si's age. Fun that Ashley and Si are only a week or so apart in age and have some fun pictures side by side at several different stages. Fun to get to see them grow up together now.
One of the best parts about being back in the northwest....despite the incredible stress, did I mention I cried almost everyday for the first month or so? (it could have been the stress or the fact that I didn't see the sun at all in that time frame.) Anyway, the best part about being back is having these 4 kiddos living 7 blocks away from one another. Si loves his cousins so much and we are cherrishing our time together.
Maybe I will start posting a little more often! I am trying to convince myself to get my camera out once in a while and maybe if I have my mind set on blogging I might just make that happen. We are certainly looking forward to our future here! We have a wonderful, vibrant, loving little buddy who will be 2 YEARS OLD in about a month! I can hardly believe how fast time flies! What a blessing we have here with our life, health and family. We miss our adopted family in Arizona dearly and hope to vacation there a ton in the future! I kind of think I left a little part of my heart there, espeically the part the craves sunshine daily! If you are in the northwest, we hope to see you much more often than we have in the last 5 years! A huge thanks to everyone, family and friends alike, who have taken care of us physically and emotionally as we made a huge leap of faith that brought us back to where we started. We are very thankful.
