Blessings
I can't tell you how thankful we are for God's amazing kindness and mercy to us, as a family. We feel so blessed in so many ways. Some past blessings have been what we've presently been missing; living near extended family, church and friends... but even with the loss of those things, we feel overwhelmed by God's goodness to us in our move.
We moved very fast. From the day Jason got hired to our moving day, it was less than 3 weeks and two states away! I'm not sure I realized how fast it was until we got here. Traveling up here went so smoothly, I'm still in awe when I think about it.
Our first 2 1/2 weeks here have been... wonderful. I struggled for the first few days, feeling lost without my things, feeling suddenly aware of the distance from family and friends and realizing that this isn't just a weekend trip, but a permanent thing. I think the first 3 days were hardest on me. Now I have moments in my days where I'll stop and think "Oh, it would be nice to see (insert name here)" but God has taught me how to focus on the present and future, and how to trade the sad feelings in for thankful feelings.
I've been amazed at how wonderfully our kids have handled the change. Ethan seems to be the only child that really feels the move. He talks about old friends and our church in Brentwood, people he misses and family he's anxious to see... but even that has become less and less each day we're here.
To say Jason loves his job, would be the biggest understatement of the year. He is so happy at Amazon and feels incredibly thankful to have been given such an awesome opportunity, in such a bad economic time! As odd as it might sound, it has been quite the adjustment NOT having him doing any OT work or any freelance work. Not a bad adjustment, but a weird one. We're not used to seeing him so relaxed and able to give us so much of his time. Its been wonderful.
The kids have had a rough time having him go back to an office environment. Every day we drop him off (his car doesn't get shipped from CA until its done being worked on) they say good bye to him, blow kisses and yell things like "Have a safe day at work! We love you! We will miss you!" and then the whole way home we have sadness and tears that Daddy can't be home working. However, last night the light went on for Ethan. He was talking to me about what our evening looked like and when I told him that he and Jason were going to play some video games together, he jumped up and said "Its funny how Daddy has to be gone every day for work, but he gets TONS of more play time with us when he's home!" Yes... exactly :)
Today we went to our first social outing and boy, was it fun!! I'm joining a MOMS club in the town we live in and a friend of mine (Katie) is already part of the club, so it was fun going, knowing I'd already know someone. The ladies there seemed super nice; friendly, welcoming and excited to have me there. They all have kids right around my kid's ages and they do stuff every week, sometimes several times a week. Its a non-profit organization, so they have fun raisers and projects for the moms to do, plus a book club and then lots and lots of play dates and girls' night outs. Until we get really plugged into a church, I'm glad to have this club to start socializing, meeting new people and starting our lives here.
After the meeting, we went to lunch with Katie and her kids and on the way home Ethan was grinning ear to ear in the back seat and he said "I'm just so glad we finally started our life here in Washington, with friends." :) I think these things are helping us feel normal again and not so out of place.
We've been visiting a church about 25 minutes from our house, but have decided that we'd like to look a bit closer to our actual city and see if there's a place we can happily attend here. Its going to be rough though, because we love the church we've found - we just like the idea of being very local and able to be used more a bit more effective. We'll see how it goes. If you can pray for us, we'd appreciate it. I'm not a fan of "church shopping" so my prayer is that we find a place quickly and that we feel peace about where we end up. We very well may stay at the church we've been visiting, but we'd like to do our "homework" and see what's out there.
As a fun side note, Kara is 13 months old today!! She has had a really rough 12th month of life - dealing with some health issues and just having a rough time with a bad cold and some issues with her ears. She does seem to be on the mend and is learning a bunch of new words and acting like such a big girl every day. I can't believe she's already 13 months old. Its still weird to tell people she's 1, when they ask.
Anyway... this is just a catching up post and also a thank-you to those of you who have been praying for us, emailing back and forth with me, sharing your "moving afar" experiences with me and just being there for us. We love you guys!
We moved very fast. From the day Jason got hired to our moving day, it was less than 3 weeks and two states away! I'm not sure I realized how fast it was until we got here. Traveling up here went so smoothly, I'm still in awe when I think about it.
Our first 2 1/2 weeks here have been... wonderful. I struggled for the first few days, feeling lost without my things, feeling suddenly aware of the distance from family and friends and realizing that this isn't just a weekend trip, but a permanent thing. I think the first 3 days were hardest on me. Now I have moments in my days where I'll stop and think "Oh, it would be nice to see (insert name here)" but God has taught me how to focus on the present and future, and how to trade the sad feelings in for thankful feelings.
I've been amazed at how wonderfully our kids have handled the change. Ethan seems to be the only child that really feels the move. He talks about old friends and our church in Brentwood, people he misses and family he's anxious to see... but even that has become less and less each day we're here.
To say Jason loves his job, would be the biggest understatement of the year. He is so happy at Amazon and feels incredibly thankful to have been given such an awesome opportunity, in such a bad economic time! As odd as it might sound, it has been quite the adjustment NOT having him doing any OT work or any freelance work. Not a bad adjustment, but a weird one. We're not used to seeing him so relaxed and able to give us so much of his time. Its been wonderful.
The kids have had a rough time having him go back to an office environment. Every day we drop him off (his car doesn't get shipped from CA until its done being worked on) they say good bye to him, blow kisses and yell things like "Have a safe day at work! We love you! We will miss you!" and then the whole way home we have sadness and tears that Daddy can't be home working. However, last night the light went on for Ethan. He was talking to me about what our evening looked like and when I told him that he and Jason were going to play some video games together, he jumped up and said "Its funny how Daddy has to be gone every day for work, but he gets TONS of more play time with us when he's home!" Yes... exactly :)
Today we went to our first social outing and boy, was it fun!! I'm joining a MOMS club in the town we live in and a friend of mine (Katie) is already part of the club, so it was fun going, knowing I'd already know someone. The ladies there seemed super nice; friendly, welcoming and excited to have me there. They all have kids right around my kid's ages and they do stuff every week, sometimes several times a week. Its a non-profit organization, so they have fun raisers and projects for the moms to do, plus a book club and then lots and lots of play dates and girls' night outs. Until we get really plugged into a church, I'm glad to have this club to start socializing, meeting new people and starting our lives here.
After the meeting, we went to lunch with Katie and her kids and on the way home Ethan was grinning ear to ear in the back seat and he said "I'm just so glad we finally started our life here in Washington, with friends." :) I think these things are helping us feel normal again and not so out of place.
We've been visiting a church about 25 minutes from our house, but have decided that we'd like to look a bit closer to our actual city and see if there's a place we can happily attend here. Its going to be rough though, because we love the church we've found - we just like the idea of being very local and able to be used more a bit more effective. We'll see how it goes. If you can pray for us, we'd appreciate it. I'm not a fan of "church shopping" so my prayer is that we find a place quickly and that we feel peace about where we end up. We very well may stay at the church we've been visiting, but we'd like to do our "homework" and see what's out there.
As a fun side note, Kara is 13 months old today!! She has had a really rough 12th month of life - dealing with some health issues and just having a rough time with a bad cold and some issues with her ears. She does seem to be on the mend and is learning a bunch of new words and acting like such a big girl every day. I can't believe she's already 13 months old. Its still weird to tell people she's 1, when they ask.
Anyway... this is just a catching up post and also a thank-you to those of you who have been praying for us, emailing back and forth with me, sharing your "moving afar" experiences with me and just being there for us. We love you guys!
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