Goodbyes

I'm finally going to blog about our move.

We lived in Kansas City for 10 years and really liked our location for many reasons; some of which were because we were only 2 miles away from Schlitterbahn (home of the largest water slide in the world), 3 miles from the Sporting KC soccer stadium and the Kansas Speedway, and a great minor league ball park, a huge outdoor outlet shopping district, Cabela's, and lots and lots of good restaurants.  Though I had my qualms about some of the policies of the school district, the teachers were for the most part amazing, and there were so many great programs there (most of the ones I was impressed with have to do with music - yup): a harp ensemble, I mean what school district has a harp ensemble?  Awesome!  An all young men select choir, a 4th through 6th grade choir, and they hold what they call Math Relays which is a competition between the 5 high schools in speed and math skills (and Sumner doesn't always win!).  There is also a great love for theater and debate.  Max was inducted into the Thespian Society after being in Theater last year; if he continued through school at Sumner, he would have been given a scholarship.  Sadly, in his middle school here, there is no theater class at all. 

I am a little sad not to be able to be a part of those things.  But I knew I'd miss my neighbors, the families of my children's friends who I became friends with as well and the good people with whom I prayed, worshiped, served with, loved and became friends with from church.  And I knew that I would really have the hardest time leaving was my three best friends who each helped to supply my need for very close friendship after Giselle died.  I've always thought that every person you meet touches you and makes you who you are in this moment today.  Just as my friends in my hometown, and those in each of the college towns I attended, I believe that each person made me in some part who I am today and I will forever be grateful for each one of them - truly - words can't express the gratitude I feel for each person in one way or another. 

So, why did we decide to move?  We had this fabulous opportunity drop into our laps which culminated two of the things Nate and I had separately wanted "when we grew up".  His was to live closer to family, or to live just across the street from a temple, and mine was to have the combined awesomeness of living in a neighborhood and still having enough land to be farm-like.

Last summer, while the kids and I were in Utah visiting family, Nate called me to tell me about this land that his brother, Trevor had just showed him and asked me to look it up on Google Earth.  I did.  In my mind I was like: "mweh" and to him I was like "that's nice, it looks beautiful and green (actually it was just a very large amount of many shades of green). 

When I got home he took me out "to the land".  On the drive I was just going to appease him and to "be nice".  But when I got there, I have to say that I fell in love with the site.  Unfortunately, as soon as we got home and I recognized again all that I loved about where we were currently living, I had doubts about moving.  This happened again and again; feeling at peace, then coming home and worrying to death about all the changes and leaving a place I love.  Finally as Nate was getting more and more serious, I decided that I needed to get a little more serious too.  So, I prayed about it before we went out there.  Again, when we got there I felt good and at peace and even had a whole bunch of things pop into my head about how it may be to live there.  This time when I got home and ached for things to stay the same, I was able to remember how I felt while I was out on the land.

So, we started preparing our house to get it on the market.  With Nate's work schedule this left most of the work to me.  We were blessed though to have his Dad come out and help with a ton of stuff - I mean a very, very lot); his brother came over and worked with Nate on some things after work hours and on a weekend or two, which was nice of him since he was getting his own house ready to sell and changing jobs and starting work on his own house; sometimes I'd ask the Elders to come help with stuff (they put in the sub-floor in the big bathroom and painted some of the trim on the front of the house, and helped Nate tamp down our gigantic mole hill) my friends, Svenja, Kim, and Scott all helped with plumbing, painting, putting up sheetrock, use of large vehicles and making a small patio.

Unfortunately for Max and Elise this left them to do a lot of the homeschooling work on their own.  But they took it in stride since we were all working for the same goal and because they were so very excited at the prospect of living next door to their cousins.

You know how everything seems to fall apart when you're trying to do something that you believe you're suppose to do?  We were putting so much money into our house, we got an offer though after the first three days of having it on the market.  But there was a mix-up with the city about our septic system and those people freaked out and dropped the contract - ending up with us having to pay the bill on keeping our file open with the city (because once it's been opened, they have to watch you through all the finding of the laterals, inspecting the system, and getting it cleared out).  Luckily, after getting it cleaned, we were on our way again with house stuff and had the house on the market again.  Then after only a little less than 2 weeks it was under contract again.  This time the people seemed to love it so much that they were super ready to move in.  But the inspection came back with some work for us to do and because when the inspector came our basement had water on the floor due to the combination of our main water line breaking and four days of rain.  I don't blame the inspector for not passing us.  We were blessed to have an amazing plumber to fix the water line (which resulted in the giant mole hill aforementioned).  And with some paint and an air-conditioner repair man, we were able to pass the inspection the second time.  This all took an extra month.

As I'm writing this I can see the blessings a little better than when I was in the moment and it does seem now that many things were falling into place, though I couldn't see it then.  So believe me, almost the entire time I just kept thinking "If this is really right, couldn't something, anything, just fall into place and not cost a ton of money?"

As the time to our closing quickly approached, Nate and I were searching for a place to rent while we were to build that would allow dogs and that wasn't super expensive.  Almost all of the places had a $500 deposit for the dogs plus the regular deposit and most of them were around $1200 a month with an extra $200 per dog per month.  Finally one day Mandy, my sister-in-law said that a house down the road from her parents' house was going to be for rent the same week we were to close.  I'm not sure if this is an illustration of my lack of faith prior to that, but this was the moment for me when I really felt that something fell into place.  The owners of the house we're renting didn't require a deposit for the dogs at all and no monthly fees for the dogs either and the house was substantially cheaper than any of the apartments we looked at.  I am feeling that we were very blessed and am so very grateful to Heavenly Father for letting this "fall into place and not cost a ton of money"!  Really though, as I've been re-reading this, it makes me realize that Heavenly Father surrounds us constantly with tender mercies and guidance and loving people and even though we may be caught up in all the worldly, or even just every day things going on in our lives, that He knows the end from the beginning and we can only see more parts of the picture after we look back to reflect.

All the movers; those helping us move out and those helping us move in.

Our empty house.

Elise and two of her friends, Sophia and Sarah.

The 12 year olds being 12 year olds. Max with his friend Ethan.

Elise and these girls have been buddies since we all met at the library when they were three (and two).  Left to right: Trinity, Kennedy, Tori, and Elise.

And here Elise and I are with those same three friends and each parent that we met at the library. We're missing Tina and her two girls, Sarah and Janie.

Look what everyone got for our family! It was a very nice going away party!

My friend, Kathleen.

Max and his buddy, Joseph.

And Nate and I for the last time in front of the KC home.