An Update from the North

For some reason I've been thinking that this move was going to be so easy. We would get up here, get a house quickly and fall in love with it, get our household goods right away, meet new people and have tons of close friends right away. I imagined we'd love our new neighborhood and become best friends with our neighbors and they'd have two kids and one on the way too. The snow would be so beautiful and magical. And we'd just be settled and happy and life would be awesome.

But life didn't go that way. There have been so many times these last couple weeks when I've just asked God, "What is this happen for?" or "How is this going to turn out so it's glorifying to you?" I honestly has just felt like one thing after another since we got here. That beautiful snow... no, it's ice and it's so ugly on the side of the road. ha Yes, it's beautiful here, but the city of Anchorage is kinda just down right ugly. We bought our new van when we got up here, which took longer than we thought... but I DO love that van. The day we bought it, I lost my ID card inside it somewhere! If you're a military wife, you know how incredibly life altering it is NOT to have your ID card! So we wasted that whole morning getting a new one. The houses we were offered we awful. They were just not good for our family, and we just were not comfortable with getting a house off base because we don't know the area. The house we ended up getting on base has some great room! But now that we're in it, every day we find something else that is broken. It's awful. The least they could have done was give up a properly working house. The garage smells like cigarette smoke and it lingers in the house. BLEH. Then there's the children... Sara decided to finally turn on her three year old snotty self, and Jordyn, well she's just more clingy than she already has been... And there has been SO much wasted money since we've gotten here, or rather unplanned purchases we weren't expecting. There are so many other things I could mention that have gone wrong. But the point is, things have been pretty difficult for us. It's been a struggle. I really did have such high expectations, unrealistic expectations really, for our move up here, and it's hard to be excited about being in this new place.

New van!

It has definitely been a humbling experience. It's almost like I thought I deserved ALL this greatness to happen to us so quickly and God smashed us into reality to show us that we're not the boss here. It's all about His timing right? Which is much easier said now that things have started to settle than it was when we were in the midst of it. As I have learned from Moana... "You will find happiness right where you are." We will grow to love this place. We will make friends. We will get our house to work and stop smelling. We will survive this snowy place. But it takes time and I shouldn't get so frustrated that it's not happening when I want. It's just so hard being pregnant with two little ones and living on their schedule and just not really knowing anyone. It can get very lonely. As if being a stay at home mom didn't have it's lonely moments already... move 2,000 miles away from everything you know and it's just worse. I know we'll find our place, but when you're surrounded by boxes, mess, toddlers, a baby in your belly, and an unfamiliar territory, it just really brings you down. These pregnancy hormones make the sadness stay a lot longer. I'm not trying to complain too much here, just venting about real life. Moving is hard and it's been so much harder this time with the kids. I thought they were adjusting pretty easily, but I think they just feed off my mood and stress/frustration and it's been hard to be a parent... a GOOD parent. So just pray for us, is what I'm getting at here.

Jordyn's first haircut by Mama!

Touched up Sara's crazy hair

Sara read Jordyn a story all on her own!!!

But let's mention a few awesome things. As I already mentioned, we love our new van! It makes me so happy! And Jordyn gets to sit front facing and it's like a whole new world. We started going to a really great church. This is big for us. It was so hard church hunting in California, and I'm just so happy that we already found a place we want to be. We've met some cool people at this church and I'm excited about the relationships we will start up here. We got all our household goods with little to no problems this last week, and even though there are boxes and mess EVERYWHERE.... at least our stuff is all in one place! Jason really seems to like his new job. He hasn't gotten too deep into it yet, but he talks about the people and seems to get along great with them. I'm trying to kick my LuLaRoe business back up again. We'll see how that goes. I'm going to give it through the end of the summer to see how I'm feeling about it.

It was all smiles here.. until they got knee deep in the snow

Alaska zoo

We're still exploring this place. Trying to find all the cool places for kids and the yummy places to eat. We've been driving around to see some of the Alaskan beauty, but we could probably kick that up a notch. Still getting a handle on this $6 for a gallon of milk thing and other crazy expenses, but we'll figure that out.

The girl's new bunk bed set up! It's awesome!

Our new "old" house!