It's been a while...

Well, I am really not sure where to begin. For the past year or so, actually a little longer I guess, things haven't quite gone how we would have planned. Or even how we would expect. I am not sure how much of the past year's events I will post about, I want to keep our blog upbeat, and most of the events of the past year have been anything but that. For those who don't know, we are in Philadelphia now. Well, in a suburb called North Wales. Dan started a new career in February and that brought us here. Although we miss our extended family and friends from Tucson, we knew even before we received the job offer way back in October when we "sold" our home that we were pretty much already gone from Tucson. It started for us a couple of years before that though. I won't go into that here, it is better to let things go, and for those of you who know me well, know that is not an easy thing for me to do. The stress of our life from the past year has caught up to me, and the only reason I bring it up is hopefully I can inspire people in some small way to keep going when you feel like you can't. Daniel took this job and left us on January 31st, the day after Ethan's baptism. (I will have to blog about that event and so many others later) That day was probably the biggest turning point for us. I remember being at the airport with all of our kids, and watching Dan hug them all. I remember hugging him, not knowing when I would see him again, and just feeling like I couldn't catch a breath. Our plans were not definite at that point when we would get to be together. I remember when it was time for us to go, I got all of the kids on the elevator and Dan and I looked at each other until the doors closed. I sobbed all the way out to the car. Then I realized I had left my wallet at home, and Dan had forgotten to give me cash and I was stuck in the airport parking lot with no way to pay for parking. So the kids and I scrounged for all the coins we could find, and drove away. Pulled into the wrong lane in all of my brainlessness and had to back up (it said cash only, but would only take dollars-since when do coins not count as cash??) got into another lane and the kid said "$2.00" (I want my two dollars!) Had to pay him in nickles, dimes and one quarter I even explained I forgot my wallet, he must get that a lot because he was unfazed. (Don't ever do that on a toll road by the way-also another story for another time). The next 11 weeks went by in a blur-well, the days did. When it was night and quiet, that was a different story. It was about the time that Blake dumped 2 gallons of stain on my parents kitchen floor that we decided house or no house, it is definitely time to go. So, no house, a seriously expensive trip in front of us, very little money, and off we went. I could sit here all night and tell you of the sad, and scary and heartbreaking things that happened on our trip. But I am not going to. What I will tell you that this was absolutely the challenge of my life. Dan's too, but he was at work most of the time. (and I am telling this story, he can blog about his perspective later :) ) But without this challenge (that sadly, is far from over) I would not have known some of the things I was capable of. I would not have relied more on the Lord than I ever have. I would not have felt more love, and seen as many miracles as I saw challenges. I would not have been as grateful as I am now for the little worldly things that I have. In fact, one dreary, exhausting day I was kind of grumbling to myself as I drove, just wanting a home to go to. (for those of you who don't know, we left the end of April, and were "homeless" until the end of June.) That day, I had driven Dan into work. (That is a feat in and of itself-not as bad as NYC I am told, but for me, ahhhhhh! Over bridges and everything!) As I was grumbling to myself about our plight our GPS took me to a part of town that you really don't want to know about. Minivan with a turtle top and all, down these streets with these rundown buildings and as I look out the window I literally saw people digging in dumpsters for their needs. This experience has happened more than once, and I am humbled every time, I am also reminded that I need to get a new GPS.
One of the funniest driving stories is here I am with 5 kids in a loaded down van with a turtle top driving down the freeways of Philadelphia. I was on my way to meet a realtor in a place called Conshohocken, and the best way to describe where I was is that it reminded me of the streets of San Fransisco, very hilly, very narrow. I was on the freeway GPS said to stay right. Tons of construction, so street made me stay left. I had to turn around, and it took me to the toll roads. I had to pay $1.60 to turn around! (that happend more than once too) anyway, as I am driving down this narrow hilly road to meet the realtor, a large man in a white tank top (can I get any more politically correct) was standing next to a police officer. I was driving very slow, trying to find where I needed to go, and all of a sudden he starts pointing at our car top carrier. I looked at him and gave him a thumbs up, "yes, it's a car top carrier, thank you." thinking he was making fun of me (I got that a lot) When I finally got to the neighborhood, I stopped the car, looked up and realized that the car top carrier somewhere on my trip (I had been driving for about 4 hours by this point) had flown up and was wide open. (Can I tell you how many times I heard the song "Bad Day" go through my mind?) That particular experience though, made me laugh so hard. I had been through the toll booths and on the crowded freeways... Thumbs up.
Through all of this Blake had been sick. He was sick with the flu and respiratory problems, double ear infections, it was awful. We had stayed with a family who happened to have a nebulizer that we were able to use, but he just would not get better. The nearest urgent care that would take babies was about an hour away. The next day we moved to a different town to another friend's house (so many stories to tell!) anyway, at about 8:30pm that night, Blake was so bad we decided to take him to urgent care. Fortunately it was only about 5 minutes away. My friend watched the rest of our kids, and Dan and I ran to urgent care. As we pulled up, Blake had been coughing so hard he threw up in the parking lot. By the time we got in to urgent care, it was 2 minutes to closing time. They took us, amazing in and of itself. They gave us the forms to fill out. What is your current address-we don't have one. Do you have your insurance card-no, we have insurance but cards haven't been mailed (this is a Sunday night, no way to verify). They said, "we will do a one time courtesy visit for you." WHAT?! Who does that?? The dr. looked at him, he had pink eye, double ear infection, and severe breathing issues. She said, "we need to do xrays to make sure it is not pneumonia." It wasn't thank goodness, but we did leave with 4 different prescriptions. As we are walking out, we asked how much we owed, since we had not anticipated xrays too. They said "you don't owe anything. Just remember to bring your card next time you come." Seriously, who does that?!
So, you are probably wondering why it took so long to find a home. Well, for one no one can get approved for a mortgage so everyone is renting, so homes go really fast. We are also a lot bigger than the average family and although we were ok squeezing into a small house, there are laws about how many people can be allowed into rental homes. A lot of homes denied us because of our family size. (Several times, I would get to a home and they would look at all of the kids, and say no right then and there.) Then there is a cost issue. Although work has been really generous with us, homes out here are insanly expensive and we just couldn't make it work. We were told several times that we were being too picky, but let me reassure you we would not put our family and ourselves through all that we have gone through because I don't like the look of a house, or I wanted certain things. After what we went though in Tucson, I was grateful to have a home, regardless of what it looked like. There was also the issue that we only brought one car, and with the cost of homes, can't really afford another one for Dan right now, so we had to be in an area with a train. It was the perfect storm for failure. There were so many things working against us. No matter our planning or saving or calling or driving around it just would not come together for us. But all of a sudden, it worked out. It's still a little weird to drive somewhere with the kids, and be able to have a home to drive back to. As I said before, as tramatic as some things have been for us, I cannot deny that we have been tremendously blessed. We made it here, with no incidents (besides leaving a day and a half late because Dan was sick, kids were sick, and poor Blake) but we made it through. We stayed in scary parts of town, and survived. We were in New Jersey the first night we got here, and the lobby of the hotel we were going to stay at closed at midnight. Our GPS decided that it didn't want to work after midnight either, and we were driving around New Jersey until 3 am. We ended up in Camdon which we were told NEVER to go to Camdon. And there we were at 3 in the morning. Looking out my window when we were stopped at a red light, looking at a seemingly deserted building, until people started coming out of the doorways onto the pitch black side walk. We made it through that. Broke a few laws, but I think we were justified.
Really, what is life without a little adventure? Or in our case, a lot... But Iwill say that I don't go a whole lot of places these days. We are so grateful to be togther, to be in a home, and as Ethan says in his prayers "thank you for blessing us with a home so we don't have to stay in any more stinky hotels, motels or microtels." So, I do have a million more stories to tell, and a bunch of shout outs to so many people who made this adventure bearable. But for now, wanted to let whoever is reading this, that we are alive and well and so grateful to be here. I was asked the question the other day if I would do it over again. The answer is yes. 100% yes. Experiences in life help you learn and grow and help you to become better than you were yesterday. Would there be anything we would have done differntly? Absolutely. But again, it is all part of the learning process. Do I want any more challenges? Um, no think I am good for now.