faith Well, our family is officially in Arizona and settled in for the most part despite pitfalls and delays along the way.
Aaron had been looking for a permanent position that doesn't require traveling for some time. He waited for the right opportunity amidst many undesirable offers, but it took almost a year before a company in Scottsdale, AZ found his resume and made contact with him. They needed his specific skills set and had been looking for over a year to find the right person. This amazing opportunity came during the first week in December '06. They needed Aaron to begin work on January 3, 2007. What stood out in my mind from the very beginning was the strong answer that I received to my prayers about the decision Aaron needed to make about accepting this job and moving our family. I knew this is what the Lord had been preparing for us that long year Aaron was job searching. In addition to this good feeling I had, I clearly felt the spirit reveal to me that this wasn't going to be easy. Strangely, I wasn't afraid of this warning. Too many times in my life I've seen how my trials have prepared me for wonderful things. And, because of the calming affirmative answer I received in regard to Aaron accepting this position I knew that it would be worth it in the end.
Not getting more specific information regarding why it wouldn't be easy, I tried to prepare us for what I could predict. We made plans, tied up loose ends, asked for help from our fellow church members and friends, made preparations to put the house on the market, made a schedule that we could follow that would prepare us for move out day and leave us time to celebrate Christmas with our families, tried to prepared the boys for the changes they would face, prepared our car for the roadtrip, picked up a trip-tik, planned an easy going 5 day trip with plenty of stops, and made our hotel reservations.
In addition to all that needed to be done, Aaron needed to work up until just before Christmas and I was 7 months pregnant with two little boys to take care of. All of this seemed to me to be why the Lord wanted me to know this wouldn't be easy.
The packing and moving process was riddled with trials for us. Aiden got the stomach flu on Christmas day, Aaron had it the worst the following day (the first day of packing), I had it the day after that pretty bad (the second day of packing) which wiped me out for two days. Somehow, Aaron after having the flu worse than any of us bounced right back the next day and helped to orchestrate and carry out the near impossible tasks of getting us ready for the road in just 4 days. This could only be done with the help of the many members of the church that came to help us: There is no way we could have made it out of town in time without their help. THANK YOU TO ALL OF THEM!
So, in the four days after Christmas we headed out of Toledo towards Arizona, hoping we were all finished with the flu and ready for a relaxing 5 day road trip across the country. And relaxing it was for the first few days. We drove 6 hours a day, stopping about every 2 hours as needed. The boys did really well (thanks to a dvd player in the car). Then, on New Year's day, we came to an understanding of why we needed to suffer delays before we left Toledo. We had just missed a horrendous winter storm and by the end of the 3rd day of our trip we caught up to the aftermath. We had thankfully made hotel reservations for our trip in advance and on our 3rd night stay we were in Amarillo, TX. Once we arrived it became quite clear to us that this storm had done much damage to the cities and towns further west. While Aaron was checking in to our hotel, travelers were trying to find a place to stay in Amarillo because I-40 westbound was closed. Our hotel was booked along with most of the other hotels in the area. We settled into our room thankful that we had missed being caught on I-40 during the storm by one day and were safe and warm that night. The next morning, they opened I-40 and we were on our way. Unfortunately, this storm began as an ice storm, then left at least several inches of snow on the ground as it went it's course. We saw downed power lines all along the freeway with emergency vehicles struggling to restore power to the cities and towns affected. As we were in stop and go traffic heading towards Santa Rosa, TX we saw snowmen built all along the roadside by the travelers that were stranded there during the storm. People decorated their snowmen with their own sunglasses, gloves, and scarves. There were foot tracks all over the landscape and an occasional snow fort guarded by the snowmen by the road.
We attempted to make a pit stop in Santa Rosa, but found that all of the businesses were closed probably due to lack of power. There was no lack of travelers driving up and down the city streets doing what we had just done, hoping someplace would be open for lunch. The local gas stations were packed and seemed to be at least selling gas. We headed back on the road hoping for better luck further along the trip.
We met up with stop and go traffic several times as we slowly moved west. The snow became deeper and deeper along the roadside as we went. The roads were pretty well clear, but traffic was still slow or not moving at all. We finally found a large rest stop that had power and along with many travelers we packed into the parking lot amidst the emergency vehicles trying to dig out the rest stop. As we waited for our food at the restaurant, we realized we had caught up to the road clearing project. It was at this exit that the emergency vehicles were working to clear the road and causing the traffic backups. Semi trucks were constantly slipping and getting stuck, needing the attention of the emergency crews as well. Considering all of the people stuck there, I was relieved there was still food at the restaurant, even though they forgot our order and an hour later
brought cold food to our table. By that point it was food in our bellies and we didn't have to fill up on the stash of fruit snacks and graham crackers we had in the car. We waited around for the roads to clear, stopped to get gas, took what slim pickings were left at the carryout for food just in case we were stranded further down the road, and headed out. It didn't take long to make it to our next stop in Gallup, NM after what was supposed to be only 6 hours on the road turned into 12 hours on the road instead. The boys were so patient and only became upset during the last hour of the trip that day.
The next day was a breeze as we left the snow behind us and had only a 4 hour drive to Scottsdale, AZ. Once there, Aaron started his new job the next day and we began to make arrangements for our things to arrive here in Anthem. The rest was smooth going.
This whole experience has taught us that even though very good things don't come easy, there is a reason for our trials, even if we don't ever understand why. We were blessed with an understand of why we were delayed this time. The Lord watched over us this entire trip and we're so grateful that we made it alright.
The Phoenix area is gorgeous right now. It's crazy to see tall cactus scattered throughout the landscape and the red mountains are just breathtaking.
Anthem is a great city. The first residential development built here was about 6 years ago amongst the small handful of ranches scattered about the hillside. Despite being recently developed, the city is booming. There's an amazing amount of shopping options very close by, along with a neat community center that we haven't had a chance to visit yet.
Our ward has been split three times in the about six years here. I don't doubt another building will be in the works soon because members are constantly filtering in and there is a nice empty plot of land the church owns only a few minutes drive from our neighborhood.
On Sunday, we arrived in our new bishop's office with another new family to the ward. This bishopric has new arrivals down to a science and had a welcome packet for each of us to fill out and bring back including the ward directory and a "Getting To Know You" packet to initiate the transfer of our records and help the ward leaders know more about us and our past callings.
Our neighbors are very friendly and visited us bringing pictures from all the neighborhood gatherings that go on here. There are lots of kids that are Alex and Aiden's ages, along with plenty of babysitting age youth :-).
The weather has been really nice. With daytime highs in the low 60's, it feels warmer in the sunshine and cool in the shade. On our move in day it rained in the morning and for about an hour before they started unloading the truck in the afternoon. It was neat to experience this rare event soon after we arrived.
That's all for now. --Alicia
spiceoflife
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Hello, again. I'm taking a workshop online about personal journaling. Before I go any further on this topic, I have a confession to make. You may have heard wise advice before to never throw away your old journals, no matter how embarrassed you are of them. A while back, I threw away my journals from grade school through much of high school. Why would I do a thing like that? Well, at the time I was thinking along the lines of “You’ll never know now.” Honestly, I couldn’t stand to read them. I obsessed about so many unimportant thoughts to the point of beating them into overkill. I also didn’t have the knowledge or skills to write anything profound, so yea – I wrote about silly things that don’t matter in the long term, insecurities, and allowed myself to carelessly expose my faults; all things that were uncomfortable to go back and read later. I regret it now because that was where I was at in that point of my life.
So, let me reinforce this bit of wisdom for anyone who might ever consider making the same mistake: Never throw away your old journals, no matter how embarrassed you are of them. There will come a time in your life that you won’t mind all the embarrassing things you used to write and find it just as important to you as all of the other information that was written along with it.
I decided today that I’m going to be better at consistently writing in a journal. The first step I’m going to take in making that happen is to learn journal writing structure. I found http://www.journal-writing.com/index.html where Gerry Starnes has an online workshop for this sort of thing. From what I’ve read so far, it’s very interesting and helpful. On another note, I just read that Gerry Starnes not only has a Masters Degree in Education, Psychology and Special Education, but is also a "Trance Dance facilitator". Wha?!? Okee. Well, what I've read so far about journaling sounds really good, so I'm going to just ignore that strange fact and continue on with the course.
¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´ *Alicia*
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