Goodbye Alaska

As of a few days ago, my life has taken an unexpected turn...

...and we are moving!!

Are you shocked?  Me too.

I anticipated this to happen.  But I had fully planned on moving in 2014.  2014.  And not in ONE MONTH!

This is how it went down...
My phone rings Monday morning and I just miss it.  I see it's Matt.  He sometimes calls during his lunch break to see how our day is going.  So I leisurely call him back.
"You got a minute?  I need to talk to you." (that's never a good start) "Actually, you might want to sit down for this..."
I sit down a little nervous.
"How hard have you been praying for warmer weather?  Because it worked - we are moving back to Houston..."

My first thought was, I know we'll move, honey.  In 2 years.  We've talked about this numerous times.

But then it registered he meant now.  Like less than a month.

um, WHAT?!?

First, I actually have not been praying to move back (I became convicted of that and stopped those prayers refocusing on being fully all where I am).  I have finally come to a place where I'm content up here.  I like our house.  I love our friends.  The pace of life.  Sure, it's dreadfully cold all year round, but it finally feels like home.

Second, we have a bucket list going of all I want to do before we move, which is still way too long!  There is no way we can cross everything off in a few weeks.  We had visitors planning their vacations to visit us next summer.  Why didn't they come sooner?  I have a plane ticket to Texas at the end of September.  We bought our tickets for Christmas...and worse, our trip to Hawaii next March!!  I'm supposed to host a baby shower for a friend mid-September.  Oh no, I have to say goodbye to all my friends?!? And make new ones when we move?  All my stockpile from Costco!  How are we going to eat all our food?  Plus, we have an entire freezer FULL of fresh salmon that we cannot finish in a month.  We never even got to go on a halibut charter.  Oh, my garden.  We only got to enjoy it for one summer.

And to top it all off, I just bought new snow boots for this winter!

One month is not enough time!!

So, I slightly freaked out.  Maybe a little.

Then I took a deep breath, my heart stopped racing, got some perspective and calmed down a bit.

I'm excited.  We'll be closer to family.  I've been wanting that.  No more 14+ hour flights back to family.  I won't have to endure another Alaskan winter.  We are actually moving around the perfect time.  End of Alaska summer, start of what-feels-like-Alaska-summer/Texas winter.  We'll get a new house, which is always exciting to redecorate.  We have friends in Houston that we are excited to live life with again.  Oh and our church.  I've missed that amazing church.

I'm thankful.  God has blessed Matt with his job.  Our move to Alaska has been great for his career.  And our move to Houston will be too.  He's excited about his new position.  And being our sole provider, I couldn't ask for more.

I'm sad.  I definitely cried.  I feel like this just became home.  God has given us amazing friendships.  I have to say goodbye to them in just a few short weeks.  Not knowing when we'll see them again.  My home.  I've worked so hard to make it our own.  And now we have to leave it?  We didn't get to do everything we had wanted to do.  And now we probably won't.

I'm fearful.  What if we don't find good friends in Houston?  I know it'll take awhile to feel settled.  Am I ready for that again?  It's going to be weird being new in town, but not really since we already lived there.  What if we can't find a house we like?  What if I'm scared to sleep at night like I was before in Houston?  What if the reintroduction to traffic makes me go crazy?

I'm overwhelmed.  There is so much to do.  I remember when we moved to Alaska, we found out and our house was on the market in 3 days.  We were in Anchorage house hunting 2 weeks later.  And that was a longer time frame than we have this time.  And now we have a baby involved!   The inventory, the organizing, the cleaning, the packing.

But I'm also at peace.  Amazing how I can have all those emotions and still be at peace.  I'm thankful God is in control.  Life is never what I expect it to be.  My plans, as hard as I try to make them, always change.  God calls us to be flexible, right?  I know that this roller coaster of a life is in the palm of God's hand.  He sees the big picture.  And knows what we can handle.

I'm glad I can trust God to lay the path for us as He has every step before.

Because we are moving.  Again.  Here we come Houston.