Our Update

Well, so far it’s been a busy and eventful summer. Things haven’t exactly worked out as planned, but we’re grateful for what we have.

In February we signed all the lease papers and gave our deposit on our soon-to-be rental home. The one I had found months earlier and was so excited about. At the end of the month, they found out about broken pipes and discovered that some repair work would need to be done. Over the months, they found it was much more extensive than they originally thought. So when we moved back in March from Jeff’s rotation, we had to scramble to find a short term lease. We signed the lease just 2 days before we moved in for a 2-month lease. At the end of April, the end of our 2-month stay, the repairs still weren’t done. We talked to the owners constantly, trying to make sure everything was worked out. They kept reassuring everything, and so the plan was to move in on June 1^st. So we left on our vacation with all of our things packed up with us, or in a storage unit and no home address. Well, with just 2 weeks to go before we came back and moved it, the owners e-mailed me and told me that their plans had changed and that they would actually be moving into their home instead. Needless to say, we were upset, mostly that they had waited so long to tell us. So I extended my vacation at home, and Jeff was fortunate enough to be able to stay with very generous friends in the ward for about 2 weeks while we once again scrambled to find a place to live. The problem with this time of year is that there isn’t much available, and at this point we won’t even be here for a full-year which means we had to find another short-term lease. We had passed up on a number of other nice homes while we were waiting for this particular one, and at this point it was difficult to even find an apartment with availability. We finally found a little 2-bedroom, 750 sq ft apartment and got the papers filled out 3 days before we had to move. I'm sure I don't recognize all of them at this point, but I'm sure there were some blessings in disguise even during this crazy process.

So we’re here. Jeff picked us up from the airport the end of last week and since then we’ve spent our time unpacking, finding furniture, and getting organized. We’ve definitely learned to simplify over the past years and months in particular. I’m glad to have a good excuse to get rid of even more things. We’ll be here for about 9 months, and then we’ll move up north again for another of Jeff’s rotation. After those 4 months we’ll most likely be headed somewhere else for a fellowship for a year.

We’ve definitely had some good adventures and experiences, and I imagine we’ll have some more over the upcoming years. I’m definitely looking forward to the day when we’ll actually have a yard, not to mention a washer & dryer in our own home; at this point, having more than 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom sounds amazing. But I am grateful for everything we have. After all, the most important thing is having each other and being together. I guess it doesn’t really matter where you are, the little details aren’t important. I’m so grateful for what we have.