Ok, why not this early morning fill you in on the details of the past three months....Let's just say it was a rough winter in the cabinet business!! It didn't look like we were going to survive and be able to keep our home and feed our kids! My sweet brother, Ryan, and his wife, Tonya, had so generously offered us a job in Taber, Alberta, and it seemed like it was the only door that was opening. We took a couple of trips up there to check things out, the last one being the weekend of our anniversary in February. Initially when we seriously discussed it, I didn't want to get my hopes up, and I told the Lord I needed an answer. I flipped open my scriptures and landed in the Doctrine and Covenants to a verse that said something to the effect of "stay in your residence for the time being". I knew it wasn't coincidental and thought I had my answer. My sweet husband, however, kept saying that he felt that even though it wasn't what he wanted to do, that he was being asked to move to Canada and it was what we should do. We spent hours and days researching immigration laws, how to import everything, where to live, where and how to build a house, checking out the schools for each of our kiddos, you name it- we did it. By our anniversary Ryan was saying that he was "75% sure" that we were going to move. Although it was going to be a huge headache, by this point I was totally on board. I was getting SOOO excited to live close to my family!! It was close enough to touch, and after 16 years of being married and living so far away I was ready to move. I was working a lot of crazy hours between doing medical transcription, being a pharmacy technician, teaching piano lessons, and trying to be a wife and mom, and I really did have this unsettling/restless/frustrating feeling that it wasn't what I was supposed to be doing with my life. Well, to make a long story short, the momentous weekend in February didn't go like I thought it would. I thought everything was hunky-dory but when we got home from church on Sunday, my sweet husband sat me down and told me that he felt like he got his answer and that he was needed back in Cedar City and that during the Sunday School lesson he had seen himself in essence sitting on a stand back in a Cedar City ward. Well, I rolled over on the bed and started bawling, then I bawled and bawled and bawled for basically 48 hours. I didn't realize how used to the idea of getting to be close to my family I had gotten. Poor Ryan - he didn't know what to think and felt so bad and just wished I would stop crying!! Eventually the tears stopped, but I definitely had a rough month or so of trying to figure out why we had wasted so much of our time and everyone else's up there and why I still felt that frustrating feeling like I didn't belong at the pharmacy and what it all meant. I decided to start exploring other options for me because I couldn't handle doing what I was doing anymore. I dropped pretty much all of my piano students and decided to go back to school to be a school teacher. I applied and registered at Southern Utah University to get my teaching certificate. I just felt that if I was going to be working full time I needed to find some way to be with my sweet kids as much as possible. The thought of sharing most of the same holidays and having summers off with them was and is more than I can imagine!
In the meantime, last week Ryan got a call from the stake president's office of a young single adult ward here in Cedar City, and we headed over for an interview. Ry got called to be the 1st counselor in a bishopric over there, and can I tell you what peace that has brought both of us?? It has been so soothing to finally know some more pieces of God's plan for us, to understand why we were needed here in Cedar City, and to be able to relax and have faith that things are going to work out for our family here. I'm so excited for Ryan; I think he is going to love his new calling and I know the kids will love him-
Some days I still freak out when I think about heading back to school at my ripe age of 37 and about having to stand up in front of a large group of kids every day - for those of you who know me; I don't like being up in front of anyone unless I'm hiding behind a piano! But, for now, that's where I'm headed! Wish me luck :)
Here are a few pictures from our trip up to the Great White North:
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| We made it up in time for my sister, Tami's, birthday... |
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| the traditional Yummy crepes at Dave and Tami's |
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| my brother decided it was a grand idea to have me remove some moles off Ryan's back. It freaked me out at first, but then I was loving it! The scalpel is still not my friend, but the cautery gun is stinkin' awesome :) Thanks hon for letting me hack at you and not being concerned about the bizarre-shaped scars I inflicted on your back!! |
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| Our visit to the Cardston Temple |
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| We got in for my nephew's birthday party too - love those nieces and nephews! |
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| I didn't see this growing up, so I have to give my Dad a hard time every time I see him with his hands in the kitchen sink! Mind you, he kept busy getting his hands in a lot of gunk on the farm while I was young! |
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Windmills like these dot Southern Alberta. The wind was howling so bad while we were there that they had to lock the windmills because they couldn't withstand the strong gusts.
Believe it or not the wind is WAY worse than in Cedar City! I've made friends with the wind, though, it always reminds me of my Canadian home |
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some dear, lifelong friends of our family's; the father immigrated to Canada from Germany after World War II; we love hearing him share stories of Germany and how he met and married his swet wife. They are saints - humble farmers who live with hardly anything in the way of worldly comforts but who have been such loyal friends to my parents and all of us!
Anyway, I couldn't blog about Canada - my wise husband didn't want me to tell anyone about our decision because he didn't want to lose any cabinet business in case we didn't move. I couldn't blog about going back to school because I hadn't given my work notice that I was quitting. I felt like if I couldn't be honest about all the stuff in my head that was consuming each day there was no point blogging! Hopefully now I can start blabbing openly about our lives again
(you poor, poor people!)
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