We're Not in Kansas Anymore

So, one of the most obvious details missing from this blog is the fact that we moved. A big move. Brandon's boss called one Friday night in February and asked how he felt about transferring to Texas. He told him right then and there that he would do it. We waited a few days to make sure that it was really going to happen, and in about two and a half weeks, we were packed and out of Kansas.

Kansas was good for us in a lot of ways. I loved it when we lived near Wichita. It's a really small big city, and I felt comfortable getting wherever I needed to go, but you also didn't have to go far to be in the middle of nowhere.  By the same token, when we moved about 45 miles away, we were in the middle of  nowhere. Which again, had it's good points, but wasn't so much fun as I'd originally hoped it would be. I think had we really settled down there, and had opportunity to have a home on some property and have a great big garden and live self-sufficiently it would have been fabulous. I loved the slower pace, I loved not feeling like I always had to be out and about somewhere. As it was, were were renting not the nicest place we've ever lived, and had no opportunity to garden. That meant we had to drive 30 miles to the grocery store in a not much nicer town, and the food quality was just really lacking. Stores in the middle of nowhere have the worst produce. Then you take it home to a fridge that's older than I am and it only lasts a few days at most which is really inconvenient when the store is that far away.  On the plus side, I really learned how to meal plan, (not that I didn't know before, but it forced me to really take it seriously) and do without if we didn't have something. It also forced me to get better at stretching our food a few extra days when necessary. When a winter storm hits on grocery day and you can't drive until the roads thaw out, there's not really any other choice. Not taking all of those, "Oh I just need to run out for one little thing" trips to the store helped the budget quite a bit.

One thing that was hard about where we lived was that we just never really fit in the town we had moved to. It was a town of about 500 people, most of whom had grown up there and all knew everything about everybody, and we were just the odd folks out for being new. Part of it I suspect was also that we are mormon. The people there just hadn't had good experiences with mormons, and I totally understand that. I myself had a hard time with some of the ward members there. We also stuck out for homeschooling. When there are only 10-15 kids in each grade level and your kids are the only kids in town not attending school, it tends to get noticed. Anyway, whatever the reason, we never made any friends there, the kids never made any friends there. We had a very few friends at church, but they all lived 30 miles away as well. It was nice to have so much family time, and really, my kids are each other's best friends anyway,but it was odd to not feel at home in town.

I'll be totally honest here and say that I just did not try hard enough. We had an idea that we weren't going to be in this town permanently, (we originally thought that the work Brandon was doing would take us into Oklahoma after a year) and after growing attached to so many people in so many places and having to start over again, it just felt like too much effort for a place that my heart really wasn't in. But as that first year started coming to a close and changes weren't coming, I was faced with the fact that if we were going to stay another year I'd have to accept it and try harder. That was an interesting time. I'd prayed for so long to be moving on, and finally I just realized that it wasn't happening. So I prayed instead to have a softer heart about staying and started planning as if we were. The crazy thing was, it was only about a week or two from that time to when the offer came to go to Texas. I felt like I'd been humbled there, and taught to accept whatever is in store for us and grateful for the opportunities we did have.

So for all of these reasons, it wasn't a hard decision to go to Texas. Brandon knew he didn't even have to ask me about it. The lease on our home was up at the end of February, so it seemed like perfect timing. Rather than try and extend it for any time, we decided to pack up and end our time in Kansas then. We put our things in storage and sent them to Texas and Brandon drove the kids and I to Utah. We'd planned to have a summer visit anyway, so this seemed like an opportune time to take the trip. I stayed there with the kids for a month while Brandon went on to Texas, started work and looking for a home for us. When after that month he didn't have any prospects for us, he came and got us anyway, and I got to work on finding a place. We stayed in a two bedroom apartment that work had rented for Brandon and he was staying alone in anyway. At the end of another month, we found a home to rent and moved in.

I was never so happy to call a place home! To know that our things were on the way, to have our own space, to get back to a normal routine was so welcome after so many weeks of uncertainty. I don't do uncertainty well. To be honest, none of the in between time was that bad, but the not knowing when it would end was terrible. It was hard on the little ones too. Emma took it the hardest I think. Potty training totally reversed, she was far more irritable than usual, and for the time we spent without her Daddy, she was horribly unsettled. It improved some upon our joining him, but even then I remember walking through houses one day and all the kids were running through rooms yelling out which ones they wanted, and she just threw her little body on the floor in the master bedroom and cried, "There's no room for me!" She did not understand where her bed was, her toys, and why things were so different day to day, or how many places she would have to get used to sleeping in.  She had been to so many new nurseries at church, and at the same time as having to adjust to not having Claire in there with her anymore as she'd graduated to Sunbeams.  From the day our storage pod was delivered and her things were back, she was a different girl again! A few weeks of finally attending the same ward and she was happy to go to nursery. Now Noah gets to go to, and it's one of her favorite parts of the week again.

So that was that. A rather big life change spread out over two months, and we're finally feeling adjusted and back to normal, whatever that is.  I'll post some more soon on how things are for us here; things we like and things we're still getting used to, and of course all of the birthdays I've missed posting about but for now I'll leave you with some updated pictures of the kids that we took as Mother's Day gifts for the grandmas shortly after we moved in.

We thought our Noah boy was going to be terrible at sitting for his picture, so we waited to do him until last. He was horribly naughty while the other kids had their turns, and then funny enough when it was his, he sat right down and said, "CHEEEEE" like he'd been dying to do just what the other kids were doing. One shot was all it took to get a great one and then we were done and playing at the park for a reward!  Lesson learned!