The Home Stretch

  It seems like every starting line of my post, I want to say "We've been so busy, I have no time to write about it!"  This month has kept the same pace as the past few.  I remember saying to Josh a few weeks back that every day held some new change-- good and bad.

May began with a trip out to Ohio.  We actually left on April 30 starting from home, dropping off our kids with their grandparents near Harrisburg, and continuing on to western Ohio all in the same day.  Being the frugal, practically minded one, I tried to think how best to maximize our resources while simplifying the move.  I decided that if we were reimbursed for travel expenses out there, why not drive our car out, leave it there, and not have to worry about driving 2 vehicles in June for the final move?  Josh agreed with me which I always like :)

The Jetta was packed to the gills with boxes containing highly fragile items (my great-grandmother's china, crystal pieces, and canning jars).  We had just enough space for our small bags.  Josh and I enjoyed the drive out by ourselves.  It's always nice to listen to music we want (instead of singing along to whatever DVD the kids watch) and have normal adult conversation.  The University put us up in a beautiful Springfield, OH hotel.  The first day out, we walked onto Cedarville's campus and I'm immediately stunned at the new buildings blocking the view of the lake from the main road.  Josh told me not to say anything outloud for fear of "dating" myself and looking like an obvious tourist!

 We stopped in to the library which looks exactly the same as I remember it 13 years ago!  Thank goodness- familiarity is great!  Josh introduced me to one of his new bosses and a couple other employees.

Then, we walked over to the new Health Sciences building, as seen above, and walked around a bit.  I decided right away that first of all, I would never have concentrated in class if my classroom had looked out over the lake and the rest of the campus as the classrooms in this building do.  Secondly, I wish we had such a cool building back when I went through nursing!  Josh talked me into visiting the Dean of the nrsg dept who was my prof back in the day.  She was delighted to see an alum and gave us a tour of the entire dept.  After seeing the state-of-the-art labs and $100K mannequins, I was sure they had better facilities than most hospitals I'd worked in!  It was something!

Josh had his interview with the trustees after that and I met with the director of the home-school group I'll be joining in the fall.  We also visited my friends' dad who was like a second father to many of us in college.  He let us keep our car in his driveway and china in the garage for the months of May and June.  Later, we enjoyed dinner, a movie, and Grater's ice cream rounding off a wonderful day together!

The remainder of the week, we looked at 15 homes and talked with 2 builders in the area.  We saw homes in Xenia, Fairborn, and Beavercreek-- none of which jumped out as "the one."  That part was discouraging, but we knew God would provide something.  The building option was attractive, but more expensive.  It was hard to know what to do especially since we had no offer on our home. How were we to proceed?  My parents joined us for the last day and a half.  We enjoyed visiting and discussing homes.  They drove us to the airport Saturday afternoon and we flew to Baltimore, MD.

We spent Sat evening and Sunday with Josh's family.  His brother's wife, Jessica and their son, Caleb were there visiting as well.  It was great to meet our nephew!

The Michaels continue to produce boys to carry on the name!  Our boys especially Ethan liked seeing and playing with their cousin.

Monday morning brought the biggest surprise and thrill in 7 weeks-- we got an offer on our home.  Josh described it as "A GOOD offer"  Only a couple thousand less than our asking price, we decided to accept and not even counter-offer.  Now we were in business!  We didn't hesitate to thank God for His obvious provision!

Tuesday brought the next surprise-- a house was newly listed in Xenia, OH and looked like it would fit our needs!  Unfortunately, it would be nearly impossible for us to get out there and see it.  We asked the realtor to go the next day.  She objectively described it.  I discussed it with my parents.  They loved the pictures and said to make an offer sight unseen.  When I showed my reluctance, my dad offered for them to drive 300 miles up on the weekend and see it.  I trust my dad's opinion on construction and my mom would know if we would like it. :)  I was grateful they did go up, met a neighbor, and gave the house a good once-over.  They loved it and thought we would as well.  We put in an offer that night!

After a little negotiating, the offer was accepted on Monday evening!  In the matter of week, we were now arranging closings on 2 homes!  God is so good!  We had been praying all along for His provision however that looked.  His timing is not ours, but this was going to work out well.  The PA house closes in mid-June and Josh got a bridge contract to begin at Cedarville a few weeks early.  We will be out just in time.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of packing, organizing, sorting, tossing, donating, and selling.  A friend graciously sold some of my things in a yard sale which brought a good amount of $$ in for us!  We've sold several things CHEAP on Craigslist.  We also had to sell our wonderful organic meat from the freezer since it's impossible to take it.

We have also spent time with many friends recently.  This is the hardest part.  I've never loved certain things about PA, but we have many dear friends who we'll miss greatly!  Josh loves his job and co-workers.  I've listened to him say many times over the past 2 months how much he'll miss them.  A good friend told me back in March, "Just because you are leaving behind dear friends, a good church, a job you love, and familiarity, doesn't mean it's not God's will to move on."  I love that and really believe it's true in our situation.  We have so clearly seen God working through all of this, it would be hard to say this isn't God's will.  But, it's still so hard!

 

This is the pile of stuff that's in the dining room right now!  It's only going to get larger as we continue to pack.

2 weeks from today, we'll be closing on our house and leaving PA for good.  We can't do anything without God and will continue to rely on His hand for guidance and provision!