a whirlwind of a move

I'm not really sure where to start.  It has been a crazy two weeks in the life of this family.  I have yet to even process most of it.  It's so easy to be filled with anxiety and worry as we walk through this move.  I'm thankful that I'm just on this journey and God is in charge of orchestrating all the details.

First, we've sold our house!  We were a bit worried when we purchased this house because it had been on the market for a year.  One entire year.  For whatever reason it just wasn't selling and it was by far the best house we looked at.  It was actually a no brainer to us, since there weren't any other choices that compared to it.  We just hoped that we'd be able to sell it for as much as we put into it - we painted the whole house, redid the master bath, finished off the arctic entry, and made a little oasis on our small patio.  And within a week we had three offers on the place.  Three.  Needless to say, God blessed us big time with this house.  I'm still a little in disbelief.

I love when things work out so smoothly.  We were off to a good start.  Confirms that we are on the right path and makes it so stress free and easy.

Then we went to Houston for a house hunting trip.

We brilliantly scheduled a direct flight from Anchorage to Houston - the best.  Unfortunately it was a red eye from 8pm to 6am - the worst.  Especially with a baby.  Who doesn't have her own seat.  And you aren't sitting with your spouse.  And you have to house hunt the entire next day when you arrive.

I got no sleep.  Matt got a couple.  Maddie got about 5.  Maybe.  What were we thinking??

Then we had four days to find a house.  I didn't want to be homeless for an extended period of time, so we needed a house before we left.  It was a bit stressful.  Especially with a baby in tow.  Thankfully my sister and bro-in-law drove to Houston and went with us the first day.  They spent lots of time in the car while she slept or driving around and around the block trying to keep her asleep while we viewed potential homes.  Houston is big (especially compared to the giant population of Anchorage with 300,000...eh, what's 3 million?).  I think that made it a bit harder to figure out where we wanted to live.  There were so many options!  Do we live closer in and have an older, smaller home?  Do we live in timbuktu and have a fancier, updated home?  Plus, we really wanted a pool.  Maybe we were making things a little more difficult than necessary.  But coming from Alaska, I need a pool.  Maddie needs a pool.  Or we are going to melt.  Poor thing was dripping in sweat the entire time we were in Houston.  I like to think I'm not overreacting.  And being completely reasonable.  So no pool = deal breaker to us.

Then I got sick.  Like severe food poisoning.  It was terrible!  I don't think I've ever gotten food poisoning before.  That night was a disaster.  Our little hotel room, Maddie crying her eyes out because mommy is in the bathroom losing everything.  Matt trying to calm her down to no avail.  So we didn't get any sleep.  Again.  It took me a full 24 hours of our 4 days to be able to leave our hotel room.  This wasn't going well.

I felt like as every day passed we had a new opinion on what we should do.  We made offers on three different houses.  Three completely different, all over the map houses.  And God kept closing the door (which I'm thankful we didn't end up with something we shouldn't have!).  I did not want to leave Houston without a home.  But by our last day and we didn't have a house to call our own yet, I realized my dreams weren't coming true in my timing.   (This is where you'd insert the sympathy music.)

But thankfully after we left, we made another offer on a house.  Though we had to wait a tad bit longer than I would have preferred, we are finally in negotiations with a house that we are both really excited about.  I'm just praying that it'll work out smoothly from here or God will yet again shut the door if He has something better in store.  And my heart will be prepared to deal with that.

So now we are back in Alaska.  Our last week here.  We have one week to pack up everything we'll need for at least 4-6 weeks, clean everything, say goodbye to everyone :(, get our whole life packed into boxes and help throw a baby shower (yay!).

Think that'd be it right?  Hah.  Wrong.  We were hit with a record category 3 hurricane wind storm which not only uprooted a tree in our front yard but also left us without power for 36 hours.  A day and a half with a baby, no car (we've already shipped one), and no power.  That was fun.  So now I am down to one day before the movers come tomorrow.  Tomorrow!!  My list of to-dos just continues to grow.  I haven't even had time to get sentimental about leaving.  I guess that's what the weekend is for.

And maybe on our 9 hour flight back to Houston on Tuesday, I can start to process what just happened.