Schools Starting and New Daycare

Well-we are back into the full swing of what a new school year bring for all of us.  Only, this time we are in a new town, new house, new daycare, and new jobs/co-workers.  It's a lot of "new"!  The transition to Moorhead (so far) has gone/been smoother than when we moved to Paynesville.  When we went to Paynesville we felt like we had to leave because the conflict and turmoil at our church was too much to take on.  I definitely left dragging my feet and bitter that there was a conflict going on outside of our control. But, I do believe we were supposed to go to Paynesville even though the transition was really painful and hard.  It turned out to be a wonderful place to be and we brought both of our babies into the world there.  We eventually became comfortable and loved the places we worked at.  We met amazing people and neighbors and developed deep and forever relationships.

 Now we are in Moorhead and the reason I say it hasn't been as hard is because..

  a.) We knew what was coming and we embraced the chaos of moving and are just "feeling" those uncomfortable feelings that come along with being in unfamiliar territory. It helps that Svea and Kieran (although feeling it and struggling at times) have handled the move better than we thought.
b.)Like I said, the kids are handling it better than we thought.  If  that weren't the case I know I'd have it on my mind constantly and it would keep me up at night, but they love their new daycare even though they still bring up Lynda and their friends and they like our new church even thought they ask for our "old church" and or "real house" from time to time.  This isn't to say that they haven't struggled.  We've seen fear, anger, resentment, and sadness from our two little ones and it does break our heart.  Thankfully it's not as much as we thought it would be and it's getting better.
c.) Even though we weren't looking to move when this church was placed on our hearts we felt drawn to it (slowly) and it felt like and we felt it that we were being called to this place.

 So, we continue to pray and trust God that he will protect and look over our family. We continue to ask him to show us our mission here and what our role is in his work.  We continue to take it day by day and try to establish a new and safe environment for our family.

 I am working full-time.  Dan is full-time.  The kids go to daycare at Rita's and she is fabulous.  It took a couple of weeks, but the kids say good-bye to Dad in the morning with a quick wave and a kiss (no tears) and when I pick them up Svea asks why I am there so early and wants to stay. We are surviving and although we know there will be more ups and downs on this roller coaster of moving to a new town we at least feel like we are on stable ground and so far so good:)

Soaking Up The Summer (Last few weeks before reality hits)

The first part of our summer was spent venturing outside close to our house in Paynesville before venturing right back inside so that Mom and/or Dad could pack.  The move is really a blur and for that I am thankful.  The kids watched WAY too much t.v. but the packing had to get done. It did and I am so thankful that we moved in the middle of the summer. When we got to Moorhead we took a day to unpack (the minimal) and then brought the kids back from Jamestown where we had a full 5 weeks before Mom had to go back to work.  We SOAKED up those 5 weeks and made the very best of them.  I was so thankful to have a little bit of summer left to do that.

Here's what we did.....

 Splash pad x2, wading pool, Fargo zoo, libraryx2, Children's museum, visited 8 different parks, backyard barbeques, fun run at church, playing with the water table on the backyard patio, family walks, Lake Lida trip, and Family reunion, a 2nd birthday party, etc.  You name it we did it!  It was so much fun!  Those are the moments and that is a huge reason why I love teaching so much.  I love that down time in the summer when I get to be a stay at home Mom for three months out of the year and do those sometimes exciting and sometimes just normal everyday play with the kids.  A lot of the things we did Dan did with us too.  It has just felt really good to be in Moorhead so far.  I can wait...but, I can't wait for next summer too:)