My Mountain Home

Well we're starting to settle into this life. My mom came for a 6 day visit and my dad was here the last two days, he was hunting with friends along the border. It was nice to have my mom to hang out with and go shopping with! I felt bad that this town is not the most exciting place to visit though. Now that the move is over I have to start focusing on Christmas. I am planning on starting some craft projects that will probably take me awhile so I have to start soon. We have decided that as long as the weather is descent will go to WA for Thanksgiving. It will be nice to see our families one more time this year and get in some serious shopping! There are just no thrift stores as good as the ones in WA and OR. I don't buy all our Christmas stuff second hand just as much as I can find! My Grandma's health is also declining so I'm very eager to go and see her which might be the last time.
I can hardly believe that Thanksgiving is in two weeks where did this year go? I feel like it was just yesterday that I was gearing up to go see the release of Twilight and here we are with New Moon opening next week! I can't even fathom what and where I'll be next year at this time. Anyway as soon as I find my cords I'll post pics of our new life here.

Just Me and My Self Doubt

While preparing for the move I became really stressed out and made a somewhat rash decision to put the kids in school once we got here. I rationalized it by saying that it would just be to try out until Christmas. The kids have been pretty excited about trying the schools out. Today was their first day. They all had pretty good days and loved buying hot lunch. I must admit that I had hoped that I would be more at peace with this decision once today came, but I am not. The day felt so wrong without my kids home with me, and I felt misplaced not preparing for their lessons. Unless you have homeschooled I don't think you can truly understand how empty you can feel when not doing it. I honestly just needed a break from everything but forgot about how lost I might feel while taking it. Homeschooling is really tough and there is still part of me that feels like this was the right choice for right now given the amount of stress I've been under but second guessing myself and my decisions is something that I never seem to get away from. So for now this is how it's going to be. I'm not sure what the future holds for us or where we'll be in a year but for now this is the life we're going to lead. Have I mentioned how much I miss my kitchen=( I miss my gas stove, my convection oven, my pantry, all my cupboards and good water. Have I mentioned how hard it is to go back to renting for the 2nd time! It was easier the first time around, but after we bought our last house I really thought we'd never have to do it again. I'm really grateful that Jason is employed and we are working towards a nice stable life, but I just forgot once all the moving was over how hard it would be to let go of the memories of all I had to sacrifice to be here. I know that I have much to be thankful for and really I am but it just takes me a little bit to adjust my perspective and seek out the joys of this new life. Let's just face it moving is tough and the more settled you are the bigger the adjustment, and if you throw some fun pregnancy hormones into the mix it makes for quite the rollarcoaster ride. How grateful I am to be part of a church that brings such stability in my life no matter where we go I have always been able to count on the church for true consistency. We have a really good ward here and the kids all made friends. So for now Mountain Home, ID is where we call home and I'm going to do my best to make our time here enjoyable. I guess it's just good to realize that life can be hard and the only thing that you can control is your attitude.

Moving Day

My bags are packed I'm ready to go... unfortunately this time there will be no jet plane. The truck will be here at 4pm and hopefully lots of people will show up to help after that. My fingers are crossed that everything will fit. Jackson has a high fever so that should be fun, I have no doubt we'll all get it soon enough. As long as it stays just a fever and I don't have to clean up any bodily fluids it should all be ok. I am so ready to be done with this move though, I'm also ready to have a husband back! I'm hoping I'll be able to start sleeping again by next week. I am so ready to be settled but I have a feeling that I shouldn't get to comfortable. I don't think the Lord intends for our moving adventures to end with this move. I just pray that my kids can adjust quickly. They are such resilient kids and I just truly want them to be happy. Well I'm off to prepare myself for all that today has to offer.

My 100th post and 11yr anniversary!

To My Husband

I said a prayer for you today.
I just took a moment to say,
With heartfelt thankfulness,
How much I know I’m blessed
With the love so deep and true
That I receive from you.
It may not always show,
But darling, I always know
That God gave you to me
And I will ever be
A grateful, loving wife
All throughout my life.
I love you with all my heart
And we will never part.
I know this love will last.
And so a day will never pass
In which I cannot say:
I said a prayer for you today.


- By M Heale

Moving

Jason left today for Idaho. It makes this all start to feel more real. I've packed up most of our stuff and I must admit it has gotten harder each day to leave my home behind. Jason took the kids to the park to play on Sunday and I couldn't help but think about that that would be the last time. We truly have loved living in our beautiful home next to the park. Jackson is the most affective by the move he is struggling to say goodbye to the life that he enjoyed here. I in know way regret any choice we have made but I fully understand where he is coming from, I moved to OR when I was Jackson's age from AZ and remember how hard the transition was. I am confident when we get to ID that everyone will adjust just fine. Jason flew to ID last week and secured us a home. It has a huge backyard and I know the kids will be excited about that. The only left undone besides the rest of the packing and loading is finding our cat Carolina a home. If we could find someone to take her the kids would feel better knowing she had a family.
So I couldn't take the fact that I was going to have to take all the baby boy clothes and girl clothes with us so I called the 3D ultrasound place and found out that Baby's R Us had $20 off coupons so we decided to find out what this little one was. After some prodding and laying on my side we finally got the baby to fully cooperate. And we were able to find out 100% that the baby was a girl, 4 daughters! We truly feel so blessed to add another sweet spirit to our family that we truly did not care either way it just makes the planning easier. Well wish me luck on making it through this next week with my sanity intacked.

I Stand All Amazed!

Most of you now know that Jason got the OR job in Mountain Home by now but I had to post about it anyway. He starts Nov. 9. I can hardly believe that we were lucky to have the start day be more then 2wks away, we had planned that 2wks was the time frame when he got a job. Sooooo glad to have longer, Jason's not! We plan that the weekend of the 22 we will move as long as we have found a house to move into. Fortunately I can't have come this far on faith to give up on it now. I can't lie it's hard to leave a lot of things like family, friends, my house, and the kids classes. The kids classes just started up again this last week and were all so awesome but I have tried to prepare myself and them the whole time that we were probably going to have to leave. Unfortunately it's still really hard to actually do it. I'm going to try and join a home schooling distance school in Idaho that gives you money to buy all of your curriculum and pays for lessons like dance and piano. So the next big thing right now is to find a house to rent and pack up, both easier said then done. Moving to a small town really limits you choices. I'm hoping to have some houses that we are interested in by next, so the week after Jason can look at them. The kids are doing well with the idea of leaving. I think all the months of praying that Daddy would find a job helped. They have had to put up with so much moving in their lives I can't wait for that part to be over for them. But they have seen more of this country and have had more adventures then most adults. I thought when we bought this house we would be here for at least 5yrs. So I unpacked everything and gave the boxes to family. Well not even two years have passed and now I am trying to find more boxes. I just had no idea that things were going to work out this way. We have two hospitals near us and we just assumed that he'd work at one of them and we'd stay here and eventually sell and we'd build a house somewhere over here and live happily ever after. Apparently we have more journeys that we are suppose to have. Good thing we're adventurous or this would've been traumatizing. Having people from our ward rent out our house really made this a way less scary situation. It never ceases to amaze me how our lives were never meant to be like a storybook where everything works out and you live a peaceful life The End. Our growth through trials and lives constant changes create a continual learning environment and quite frankly make our lives more interesting. Not to say there aren't plenty of times I'd like to opt out for the boring life but then I wouldn't become the person I am meant to be. I am so thankful for a loving Father in Heaven who loves me and my family so much that he allows us to grow and experience all the wonderful things that this life was meant to offer. Even when times are really tough he never leaves us. There is only one person who has ever felt that kind of loneliness and by him going through that we don't have to. I don't think any trial we have to face could compare to the agony he endured on our behalf. I have no idea why I am meant to live in a teeny tiny isolated town in ID but I know that I am meant not only endure it but also to love it. So thanks again for all you that endure this trial of ours with us I have no doubt that this is not us riding off into the sunset but us beginning another chapter(adventure), we apparently are writing a travel book!

Deja Vu!

So we went back to Idaho for two more interviews. We'll hear on one this week and the other one in about 2 wks. We brought all the kids and it went really well. We stayed one night with Jason's Dad in the tri-cities and the other one in a Shilo Inn for $55! It was the best deal ever, there was an indoor pool and a deluxe continental breakfast! Yes we had to sneak some kids in because there's no way we could have done two rooms, but it was a great getaway and the kids were in heaven with the pool! The first day while Jason was at the first interview the kids and I planned on driving around and finding a park. But low and behold there was a huge park directly across the street, someone was definitely looking out for me. The next day Jason dropped us off at the Boise mall and I walked around with them for almost 2hrs. I'm so glad that I was blessed with great kids they cooperated all the walking really well. Then Jason picked us up and we made our 7hr trek home. I don't think the kids could have done any better, and we didn't even bring our portable DVD player. Classes for the kids starts this week and they are so ready. They all have some really great ones and it will be really hard if we have to move soon. I know that if that is the case though there will be other great opportunities for them where ever we go. So the seemingly never ending waiting game continues. I am so ready for General Conference this weekend. It always seems to come around when I need it most. So this week I'm going to prepare all the the packets for the kids, yup they "get" to watch all sessions with us. I'm thinking of trying some of those games with the candy where everyone gets to eat a piece when certain words are spoken. I think to change it up I'll give everyone a different word though. We don't have cable so we watch it on the computer which actually works pretty well because we close the doors to the study and with all seven of us it feels really cozy! Well if anything too exciting happens this week I'll post right away if you see nothing that means there is nothing of worth to say.