No going back...it's official now!

Well, there is no turning back now. Our plane tickets are purchased, we have our last round of shots in less than 2 weeks, and then...Brandon is off to find us a suitable living space. We both felt a little nervous as we were buying the tickets, but not enough to make us not go through with it of course. There is no way we are shying away from this life changing experience. We felt like we did pretty well; airfare for all 4 of us (it sucks that Wrævn is 2 :(- ) was $2800. We were expecting to pay at least $4000 so that was a nice surprise. The Lord must be watching out for us.

It's beautiful and snowy where we are and the kids are loving it. We've gone out on the snowmobile a couple of times, but need to go some more because we won't be seeing snow for quite a while. So far, so good. I guess we're on the downhill slide now-at least until we go up in the plane ha ha ha. Ok, on that pathetic note I will say farewell for now.

On The Move - WA, OR, ID, UT, ID, ????

Well, well, where to begin. The last month has been quite an interesting one. I guess the beginning would be a good place to start, so lets go back to the Fall of 2007. (Now would be the time for the Garth and Wayne's bit)

It was a dark and stormy night. Actually, in all reality it was a beautiful sunny day. We were sitting at home watching General Conference (a semi-annual worldwide meeting for our church where we get to listen to messages from our prophet and the 12 Apostles. Want to learn about it? Check it out at General Conference) So we are right in the middle of this great spiritual feast and I get a feeling, more a thought I guess. I felt that there was somewhere else we needed to be. At first I didn't know what to think. But after I pondered it, I knew we were going to move sometime. After I told Brandon about it, he said he felt the same. So, we started preparing for whatever would come our way. Of course there were lots of thoughts running through our minds: "Where will it be? What will we be doing? When will we be going? What do we need to do in order to go?"

Well what a better way to get some answers than to go to the Lord in prayer. So we added a few things to our daily prayers in hope the answers would come. We also prayed about it in the temple. Brandon finally got an answer...sell the house and God would provide a way, and there was a specific place that was being prepared for us. Well, we talked about that for a bit and started fixing all the things we'd procrastinated fixing. We prayed about waiting until the following May in order to avoid capital gains tax and we felt good about waiting. So, we continued fixing it up and kept praying about where it would be that we were to go.

Sometimes when God wants us to learn patience He really takes us to the edge of losing faith...at least we thought for a moment that we may have messed up and missed our opportunity but every time I went to the temple my answer was to trust in Brandon and he would lead our family where we needed to be. Brandon's answer was to be patient, that it wasn't quite time yet. Well, almost one year later, fast & testimony meeting, September 7th, 2008, we got our answer.

A week later, Brandon lost his job. So we struggled to make ends meet for a couple of months, but God was watching over us and we got through that just fine. It turns out the new job he got works perfectly for where we are going.

Unfortunately, the market crashed and our house wasn't selling, so we looked into other options. Within a month we had a renter and had a month to get things in order and say farewell. Of course it was chaotic at the end, but we finally put our stuff into storage and headed off to drop our cat off at Brandon's brother's house in Utah and then on to get lots of shots before our final destination.

The journey to eastern Idaho was terrible. We ended up staying in the middle of nowhere (Redford Motel) because the roads were so icy, but we ended up finding a nice little cafe for dinner (the only place open) and went back there for breakfast De Rail/Oregon Trail Cafe (ps - don't trust Google maps - they're @ the corner of Commercial & E. Idaho). Luckily the roads to Utah and back were much better. Ahhhh how I missed 75 mph on the freeway (or 80 when Brandon drives).

We spent a couple of days with one of Brandon's brothers, a week with his other brother's family (whom we left Fæd with), and then came to see my family for a bit. It won't be long before we head out. We don't know how long we will be gone, maybe 1 year, maybe 2, maybe 10. Who knows, but we do know that we are needed where we are going and it is going to be an amazing experience for our little family...hmmm, I guess I didn't say where that would be did I? Well, after we get shot full of fun things to help us not get sick, we are off to the Philippines! Bacolod to be precise. For those of you who just stopped breathing, let me reasure you that we are supposed to be there. Brandon served his mission there. He speaks 3 of the languages and knows the culture so we're not going blind. It's going to be an adventure we won't ever forget, plus it looks just like Hawaii but costs way less...anyone who wants to come and visit is more than welcome!!!

So, that's why we've been a little occupied the last couple of months. We haven't been avoiding you, we've just been a little busy. We will still keep the blog and website up, and are keeping our same email addresses so please keep in touch. Life is full of adventures and we are just taking the opportunity to live one out. Besides, Brandon has been dreaming about going back for the past 11 years so his dream if finally coming true.