What could top the excitement and craziness of having a baby?? My answer now, MOVING!!! Far away that is.
Here's a little background--Jonathan was a preacher's kid, much like military kids, he moved around quite a bit. Jonathan was born in Texas and lived there until he was around 2. From there he moved to Wyoming from ages 2-11, then his family moved back to Texas until he was 15. At that time, he always said he would never EVER move back to Texas again. He referred to it as "Hell on Earth". Jonathan hates heat, hates flat land, and hates, well. . . Texas. His family (except for his brother) moved to Washington State, and he absolutely fell in love!! He loved the outdoors, the mountains, the weather, just about everything about it. He always hated school too and could never see himself going to a university or college and sitting in class and taking tests, etc. So, when he was 17, through a simple flip of a coin he decided to go to a Technical Trade School (in Wyoming) to pursue a career in Diesel Technology. Six months later and he had a degree in hand a great job opportunity lined up. Where you may ask??? TEXAS!!! Hehehehehe!!!! He didn't really want to go, but with his brother still in Texas (they were really close), and then this job, it kind of fell into his lap there wasn't really a question in his mind of what he was going to do. So in April 2001 he started his new job, within a few months he met me. Awwww. . ., we fell in love Awwww. . . and got married Awwww. . . and had a couple of kiddos.
So here's a little background on me--I was born in Texas, raised in Texas, everything I have ever known is in Texas. I lived in the same city through my entire school days. I married Jonathan and we moved to a nearby city. I had my bubble and I kind of liked it that way. I'm not much for getting way out of my comfort zone. That's pretty much it for me!
To combine, Jonathan and I have discussed, literally for years, the possibility of us moving up north and that when or if something came up, we would consider it. Jonathan has always considered Washington his home (for the simple fact that he loved it), even though I tease him that he is a true Texan, he won't claim it. In the back of my mind, I never thought it would become a reality, and if it did I would be like 45 or something. We would never have enough money to move, and how would he really get a job so far away, especially when he only looked for this particular job on rare occasions. Well, one day in October or November 2009, after literally years of looking, he saw a posting online for a job opening and immediately applied. A couple of months passed, I never thought anything would come of it, figured they would hire someone locally. I would play with the thought in my mind and then be like "No, it would be such a long shot". Well, Jonathan got a call on Monday, March 8, 2010, almost 5 months later. They asked him if he could come up for a hands-on test and interview on Friday, the 12th.
What?? No!! Yes!! Maybe!! What does this mean for our family? My parents? My siblings? My In-laws? My church? My life here in Texas? My friends? Money? Holidays? Everything I have ever known? A hundred, thousand questions about everything were running through my brain like crazy!
I cried a lot, more than I ever have in m,y entire life.
Jonathan booked a flight the same day and began studying everything he thought he might need to pass a hands-on and written test. He was nervous; he had a lot riding on this.
I wasn't sure if I wanted him to pass or fail.
I hadn't told any of my family that he had even applied, because it wasn't a reality in my mind. What were the odds?
During all of this madness, my brother and sister-in-law were told that they were going to be induced on March 12th and have their first daughter, Layla. I was finally going to be an Aunt!! I had always wanted to spoil and love on a niece or nephew, and I was finally going to get the chance.
I called my mom and told her the news about the possibility of the job the day we found out (Tuesday); I just had to tell someone and who do we turn to when times get tough? Our moms! I really needed to tell her. She deserved to know. It was a difficult and very very short conversation.
I hated it!!
I felt like I ripped out her heart and stomped on it! After that, I did not want to tell anyone else, I was soooo scared.
So, I arrive at the hospital with my mom (Friday) to wait in the waiting room with my sister, members of my sister-in-laws family, and their friends. Here's my mom, me, and my sister holding Caleb)
Of course my sister asks where Jonathan is and if he going to come see the baby. In my mind I'm thinking, "How can he? He's miles and miles away?" I ask her to come into the bathroom with me to change Caleb, and I tell her.
I feel awful.
She takes it pretty well, but I know she has so many things running through her mind. I then, so excitedly, get to go in to see my brother and sister-in-law before they have the baby arrives. We chit chat about labor and all of the craziness of having a baby and then my brother says, "Where's Jonathan?" Is this the best time? NO! Do I really want to go through this again? NO! With much hesitation, I tell them anyway, always saying there is a slim chance. I had found out that over 100 guys applied for this job. Out of those, 30 came in for the test and they were only hiring 6! The odds are clearly stacked against him. I think I was trying to talk myself out of it too.
We finally get to meet Layla, Mommy and baby were perfect, and they were so happy to have their little girl here, happy and safe. She was a sweet little 6 pound baby and has such a cute little button nose and the cutest curly hair. She is MY niece!! I love her so much!! Here are a few pics, some are small, sorry:(
Is she not the sweetest thing, for real??
My mind has so many things constantly running through it. I didn't want to tell anyone else. I didn't want to cry in front of anyone. I think if I told them it would become real. I would have to admit that it could actually happen. I would have to say goodbye to everything, and everyone I have ever known. we found out Jonathan did pass his test. He had one more interview (over the phone) and they would decide. I knew once he passed the chance of him getting the job was looking better and better. Despite all of these thoughts, we did tell people and it was hard.
I was beginning to come to grips with the thought. My favorite memories were always time spent in Colorado on vacation with my family in the mountains. I have always wanted to move, never imagined it would be quite so far. I never thought I would have the guts to do it. But, I have wanted to do something different and not just the same ole' thing forever. I wanted my boys to experience mountains and trails and hiking, hunting, exploring, and just being boys. Not that they couldn't do it in Texas (it would be different). Life had become so humdrum, doing the same thing day after day, week after week, year after year. Maybe this could be an exciting thing. Jonathan and I have had some rough years, we've made some decisions that got us to a place where we were in desperate need of a jump start of some kind, maybe this was it.
We waited, but not very long, after only 11 days they called and offered him the job! Seriously?!? I have never even stepped foot in Washington, never visited and I am fixing to move there? How long do we have? I'm hoping we can pick a date. Summer would be perfect. I need time to say goodbye, Nathan has weeks left in school, and I need time to pack, sell things, and get my mind wrapped around it all. So. . . how long do we have? 21 days? 3 weeks? It actually became shorter than that, because of the days of travel time and we don't even have a place to live, so we actually only had 15 days to figure it all out. I have had a gallon of milk in the fridge longer than that! That's not enough time to process everything!
Actually it was.
It had to be.
Has anyone actually seen a chicken run around with its head cut off? Well, that was me for the next 2 FULL weeks. Through the emotional basket case that I had become, we were in high gear, full speed, no slowing down to breath at all.
The hardest and most stressful times were trying to convince my family that we had come to this decision TOGETHER, that I really wanted to go. I always feel that every decision, everything that happens badly gets blamed on Jonathan. I hate that for him. Every decision is always a joint one, discussed until we've reached a decision (sometimes through tears, questions, arguing), but we do it together.
Yes it is true, if I had NOT married Jonathan, if he did NOT love Washington, if Texas was NOT so hot and humid, if Texas HAD mountains, we might never have even thought about all of this, but he had. It happened to be the way the cookie crumbled. It happens to really suck that the states have to be a plane ride away or a 2-3 day drive and we can't see each other whenever we want, but we wanted to step out and take a leap of faith and just enjoy life and embrace the opportunity, so we did. My family always has and always will tug on my heartstrings, I love them all, but as hard as it was for them, I was leaving everything comfortable, which I know, is so unlike me, but I really wanted to do it. It felt as if I was saying to them, "I don't want to be around you", "I think where you live stinks", "You're not important to me", but nothing could be further than the truth.
The chaos started with us moving all of our things into my in-laws, most of our things were already there, but that is an even longer story. We were living in their backyard, so it didn't take long to move everything there. For the next two weeks, we would live there, eat there, pack there. Because of Craigslist, we sold our RV (that our family of 5 was living in), our Honda, and many other misc. items in order to have money for the move, hotel, food, gas, U-Haul, deposit on a house we didn't have yet, and furniture (that's right, we have no items of furniture at all, not one piece). We had no couch, bed, chair, mattresses, table, crib, dresser, desk, bookcase (we sold everything a couple of years ago and were living in and RV, which comes completely furnished, so when we sold the RV, we basically had nothing, furniture wise)we were starting from ground zero. Yikes! Now, we did have quite a bit of odds and ends of things in a couple of closets in my in-laws, mostly small items like photos, books, kitchen things, movies, Christmas things, seasonal clothes, computer stuff, etc. We had a lot of our larger items in sheds and the garage. When we started really piecing things together from their garage, sheds, closets, and everything we literally crammed in our RV, we started to realize we had way more than we thought. We packed the largest pull behind U-Haul you can get, and packed the back of our Excursion, every nook had something in it; there were things at everyone's feet, things strapped to the U-Haul, and 2 cartop carriers absolutely full. We were weighed down.
Also, it those two weeks we tried to spend as much time with friends and family as we could, but it was hard. My days consisted of packing, selling things on Craigslist, still having to take care of 3 kids (with the help of my awesome in-laws, thanks for the help), Caleb was of course sill getting up in the middle of the night, and I was visiting with someone almost everyday.
I can wrap it up in three words--Busy, Sleepy, Emotional.
One neat thing that happened was that Jonathan was able to play one last gig with his brother. They both have awesome musical talent and are a great combo. I love seeing them play together, it's like they're both in their element and they mesh together well.
The last thing that we did before heading out on what I like to call our "Adventure" was we spent Easter with family; it was a happy/sad time. We took lots of pictures, it was a very sweet time.
Here's some pics of the adults hunting for eggs.
Nathan and Clayton hunted too (of course)
Mom made this really cool bunny cake, it was really cute!
Here's me and Crystal with our new babies, we're some proud mommies!
And we got the very first ever cousin pic! Aren't they all adorable?
Unfortunately, I was unable to hook my digital camera up to post some of my favorite pics, but thanks for letting me take these Crystal.
We said our goodbyes one last time, it was literally the crazies emotional rollercoaster ever. We were happy to be moving, and sad to say goodbye. We didn't know all the answers to where we would live, what we would do, when we would arrive, what bumps in the road would happen, how would the boys take the long, long drive, how would Mommy and Daddy take the long, long drive, but without further adieu, on April 6th we were on the road headed to our new home. Washington State, here we come!
Here's the first pic of the boys in the car watching a movie.
Side note--The views expressed are totally mine. The conclusions I come to are totally mine. Feelings expressed may not be actual thoughts of other people, just how I feel.
That's all for now, kind of long, I know! Sorry.
