Pictures of the House

I finally have a minute to post some pictures of our new place. We love it out here.






The Barn





Grandpa came to visit!


Lili calls this her park!

And We're Back!

Hip Hip hooray! We finally have a computer up and running and connected so I can actually tell you all what we've been up to the last month. I can hardly believe it has been that long since we left our beloved Utah. Maybe that's because we were pretty much homeless for the first 3 weeks. Now we are safe and sound in the place we will call home for a while.

Ivan is loving his new job and I couldn't be happier for him. Today the girls and I finally visited his place of employment to check out the studio and meet some of his coworkers. I have to say that it was pretty cool. The girls had a blast riding some prototype bikes around. I enjoyed the "museum" of all the bikes Lance Armstrong rode during his wins at the Tour de France. Speaking of the Tour de France, Ivan's first real design is going to debut at the next one. So look for Lance's really cool bottle cage =) designed by my dh.

As for me, I'm so beat after just one day of unpacking. The movers finally came with our things yesterday. We had been camping in our house for about a week. I learned though in that time that life is so much simpler without all that stuff. I have to admit though that I missed my bed, my couch and my computer the most.

I feel so blessed to be where I am. I have felt homesick a few times but for the most part I love being here. It is beautiful and the Lord has seen fit to bless me with all that I ever wanted and more. Sometimes I am brought to tears just wondering what I did to be given all of this. I truly see His wisdom now and waiting as long as we did was just so He had time to prepare the perfect place for us.

I do have to tell you all about where we are living. I will have to post some pictures later since I don't have any yet but this place is amazing. The town of Lake Mills Wisconsin is like something out of a movie. What every small town wants to be. It's like stepping into a Norman Rockwell painting. And the house that we live in, perfect, for me anyway. We found a farmhouse on 3 acres with a treehouse/playhouse. It is quiet here and there is so much room to run and play. I can't wait until the spring when I can plant my garden and get my chickens. The best part is that we are only 9 miles from work so Ivan's commute is about 12 minutes. We are making friends and enjoying missionary opportunities already.

I have so much to blog about but very little time since I still need to go vote and unpack and make dinner. I will try to update again very soon, and there will be pictures.

I Knew It

Six months ago I would have been feeling overwhelming joy at the thought of leaving Utah. I had come to a place in my life where I was "done" with Utah. Or in particular, Utah County. Don't get me wrong, it had it's moments. I met my husband there, my babies were born there, I had great friends there and many other wonderful memories from my college days. It's just that I had out grown it in a sense. Provo is the youngest city in the US and with me being the 30 something that I am I felt like an old woman. There is a certain sense of immaturity that goes along with the young age base there as well and that was what annoyed me the most. Yes, I would have thrown a party six months ago, danced in the streets and shouted for joy from my roof top had we gotten this job then.

I knew though that the Lord wanted to teach me to love Utah. I knew he would wait until I would be sad to leave before he would let me leave. He would wait for me to not want to leave and then He would make me leave. That is exactly what has happened. When we moved to Grantsville 6 months ago I came kicking and screaming. I did not want to move here, nope, not one bit. I wanted what I wanted and that was a great job in some great place far a way from Utah. Instead I was getting Grantsville. I didn't understand it at the time but now I do. There were reasons I had to come to this place. Things I had to learn and relationships I had to develop. My children needed to get to know their cousins and my husband and I needed all the free babysitting they provided. We all needed this place. So now, yes, I am sad to leave. I have made great friends, been in a great ward with a wonderful bishop and grown to love my dear sweet sister even more. I had to learn all the things I was taught in our "Monday" group and I had to learn to love myself again.

Turns out that I am indeed grateful I came to this place. I hate to go. I hate to leave the wonderful friends I've made here. I am sad that I have to leave Utah. I feel though that all of my time here was for an even greater purpose. I feel I was being prepared to go out into the world to be an influence for good. Perhaps I was learning what I have learned so I can teach my sisters in Wisconsin. Who knows, but I do know that the Lord knows best. He sees the big picture and he is in control. I know that he pours out blessings on us even when we don't recognize them as such. How blessed I feel that He saw fit to have us wait so long for that "dream" job because in all that time He was teaching and preparing us and blessing us immensely. And in the end He did give us just was we wanted. Perhaps even more.

The Decision

Well, I'm sure most of you know by now that we have decided to move to Wisconsin. The decision did not come easy. Nope, not in the least. Here we had an offer sitting on the table for 3 weeks. We actually accepted that offer even though we knew we had things on the horizon still. We figured that the first offer would be our last anyway so we went ahead and took it. After much council with friends and family members we were advised that even if we took the offer, we weren't bound to anything until they gave us money. So, when Trek bicycles wanted to fly Ivan out for an interview we were all over it.

How could we turn it down? It just sounded cool and Wisconsin seems a much more desirable place to live than Kansas. After his interview Ivan called me to tell me it went terrible. I couldn't believe it. I felt bad for him. I asked him what went wrong and he told me that it was so bad that they offered him a job before he left. WHAT? His plan in all of this was just to go to the interview, network and get to know some people and be headed off to his new job in Wichita. He figured Trek would take a couple of weeks to get back to him anyway and that by that time we'd be on our way to living in Kansas. So things didn't go as planned. The next day we received the official offer and the day after that another offer from a company in Texas. Three good job offers sitting in front of us. Wow. We would have never dreamed of it. Deciding was a difficult task but we finally felt best about going to Trek. I am so glad that Wisconsin was the answer. I would have accepted it if Kansas or Texas was the answer but truth be told, Wisconsin was at the top of my list for where I would most like to live. Ivan had a really hard time turning down our first offer though. He felt like he was going back on his word and burning bridges. Hopefully they will forgive us.

So now things are happening fast and we'll be leaving in 11 days. I am excited for the new adventure that awaits us and am really excited to live where it is green. I am sad though to leave Utah. Funny thing is that 6 months ago I would have been jumping for joy at the thought of leaving this state but I have grown to love it here. OK, I've grown to love Grantsville and the people here, I still have my issues with UT county. It may have taken us 18 months but we finally did it. We got a real job. I feel so blessed.

What would you do?

First of all I have to say HALLELUJAH! A long awaited job offer has finally arrived and we are ecstatic to say the least. It's been a grueling 16 months of emotional turmoil. So many almosts and so much disappointment. Yes, finally, the day has arrived! However, there is one small problem.

Don't get me wrong, the offer we got was good, better than expected, definitely a step up for us but they want to know what our answer is right away. That would be fine and good but "I" is scheduled to fly out to another interview next week. We're not sure what we would prefer as far as job is concerned but as far as location, the yet to be interview place wins out hands down. We also have no idea what kind of offer this other place would give us or if they will give us one period. So what would you do? I know nothing would be set in stone yet but would you say yest to the first offer or wait to see what is behind door number 2? If you say yes and then get a better offer from company #2 and decided to go there instead would it totally burn bridges and be a bad move career wise? Keep in mind that company #1 wants an answer uh....by tomorrow. We really don't know what to do. We don't want to burn bridges in either direction.

Feeling a bit sad

I've been feeling a little depressed lately. I've been trying not to dwell on it but I just keep being reminded of why I'm depressed. Why was that...oh yeah, because I am so baby hungry. Seriously folks, I want a baby so bad right now and every time I turn around I find out someone else is pregnant. It seems everyone I know is pregnant or has already passed me up in the baby category. I am happy for all of you but I am sad for me. I wish it were as easy for me to decide.."ok, let's have a baby" and wa la I can go ahead and get pregnant. Not so easy for me. I won't go into details but it's just not so easy for me to get pregnant. There are a lot of factors involved. Unfortunately I've been so busy taking care of the kids I do have that I haven't taken care of myself the way I should and that means no baby right now. We also have other issues such as our current living situation, no insurance etc...that are factoring into the baby equation.

I just want all of you who are my friends who are with child (so that would be just about everyone I know)to never take for granted what you have. Be grateful for the sickness, be grateful for exhaustion. Be grateful for a big belly and all the comments that come along with it. Be grateful for the pain that is to come and the sleepless nights that are inevitable. I would give anything for any of that right now.

Archie's #1

I just couldn't resist putting a link to David Archuleta's new single on my blog. I love this kid and his first single does not disappoint.